Ellen Handler Spitz, Professor of Visual Arts, gave a talk on the power of illustration in story-telling called “Homage to Illustration: Story-telling in Paint and Marble” at the education and training conference, Tell Me a Story: Creativity and Storytelling, hosted by the Austen Riggs Center. The conference, held from August 9-10, is designed to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
Dr. Handler Spitz writes:
“Artists refashion stories with paintbrush and chisel.
Illustration has received short shrift in the art world because of the conceits of modernism and post-modernism, but I have spent my whole life in a commingled universe of story-and-image; I therefore wrote about the brilliant and surprising ways in which gifted visual artists take time-based narratives and condense them into imagery that brings out their psychological richness and moral depth. My lecture draws on some of the oldest stories, from our Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian heritage.
I prepared the lecture by years of gazing at and adoring the art and by re-visiting some of the key monuments in Italy this summer, when I experienced sudden flashes of new insight.”
Tags: CAHSS
