Mark Rosen, associate professor, art history, Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson
Acquired by the Kimbell Museum in 2003, Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s terracotta figure of a nude, bearded man striding a fierce sea creature has long been recognized as the model for the marble figure at the center of the Triton Fountain in Piazza Navona, Rome. For many years, and indeed still today in many places, the fountain was referred to as the Fountain of the Moor, with the main figure believed to represent a figure from sub-Saharan Africa, although Bernini himself referred to it only as a Triton. There were historical reasons for this confusion: for centuries, viewers had been conditioned to look at public sculptural monuments like this fountain through allegorical lenses, with human figures often representing continents or rivers. This lecture will discuss the background for understanding how Bernini and his peers treated the depiction of non-European figures (whether African, American, or Asian), examining both the ways monumental sculpture addressed the human form and the problematic legacies associated with racializing typologies.
These lectures, part of a continuing series, introduce the permanent collection and selected exhibitions on view at the Kimbell.
