In conjunction with the exhibition Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks, Dr. Larry Silver, the James & Nan Wagner Farquhar Professor Emeritus of History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Fools & Folly in Flemish Art, will discuss Sinners and Lovers, whose behavior often lies at the heart of Fools in the amusing and instructive art of 16th- and 17th-century Flemish art.
This talk will explore how humanity's missteps began to preoccupy Flemish artists, who departed from depicting religious subjects to pose the moral dilemmas of living in the real world, using images of foolish behavior as forms of instruction about righteous living in an age of material temptations and those inevitable objects of desire: vanity, drinking, gluttony, and sexuality.
Image: Rebus: The World Feeds Many Fools, about 1530. Jan Massijs. Oil on panel, 20 1/4 × 24 3/8 in. © The Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp.