The Sac State Symposium

This is a late post, but one I've been wanting to share. This weekend was Sac State's Annual Festival of the Arts Art History Symposium. At first, I decided to attend the event so that I could write about it here. As it turns out, All my other Art History professors were offering extra credit if I attended, so I effectively killed three birds with one stone out of sheer convenience. This year's Symposium was titled Hers and Hers: Women as Artists, Clients, and Consumers. As expected, the focus of the event was primarily on women and their role in the arts. This Symposium also doubled up as a retirement tribute to the beloved Catherine Turrill-Lupi,who was the department chair of Sac State's Art and Art History concentrations for twenty-one years.. 

The event consisted of lectures from four different experts of Art History. They were pretty interesting, but I would be lying if I said that there weren't any dry parts. Despite this, I regret not being able to stay the entire event due to my job having me work on weekends specifically from 5pm to 1am. None the less, I did manage to take part in two presentations.

The first was called Noble Exemplars of their Sex by Sheryl Reiss. Professor Reiss is a well decorated Art Historian who graduated from Princeton University and has taught in many Universities including the prestigious Cornell University. She has received many accolades for her work and has written many dissertations and thesis statements on several topics regarding the Arts and its rich history. Her presentation focused on tombs of women during the Renaissance. Specifically, she focused on tombs to commemorate women in churches. Professor Reiss covered the many designs that are shared and unique to several tombs for both women and their families as well as the differences they held compared to men's tombs. She also covered how the location and wealth of the family or individual dictated how they were constructed and what they were comprised of. After her presentation, a question asked by an audience member allowed professor Reiss to state that while most the tombs were made for and commissioned by women, there is no evidence to state that it was constructed by women themselves. This is due to the obscurity of women artists during the time period.

The next presentation actually continues my previous point on the obscurity of women artists during this time period. This presentation was done by Professor Turrill herself and focused on the artist Plautilla Nelli. The title was The Friar's Follower: Classifying the Work of Palutilla Nelli. Professor Turrill covered the history of Plautilla Nelli through the documentation at the time made by other artists such as Giorgio Vasari. Vasrai's opinion of Plautilla Nelli while at times respectful, was also quite rude. It is safe to say that Vasari's view of her was akin to a backhanded compliment. Nonetheless, it confirmed and showed some of the artworks done by Plautilla Nelli. She had a style that was considered to have made men look too feminine by her fellow nuns. She had done many works, but most are unknown and some are mislabled. While some of her works have turned out to be the work of others, there is strong evidence that others works might turn out to be hers. The problem with this is that no man would ever admit they did not make the art in front of them or that a woman could have painted the art. This leads to a predicament where Art Historian are scouring the globe and analyzing paintings with a similar art style to Plautilla Nelli's to try and clarify if they were works done by her. Through chemical analysis and study, it is becoming easier and more accurate to do so. This in turn allows her to finally get all the credit she truly deserved that she was never given.

After Professor Turrill's presentation, it was already getting close to the time I had to work. It was also time for some much needed socializing and motion after having sat for over two straight hours. I conversed with my professors who were all not surprisingly present for the event. I did not however, converse with Professor O'Brien, whose class was the main reason I went to the even in the first place. Professor O'Brien seemed busy every time I saw her, so I did not want to interrupt her conversations. Still though, it is quite ironic. I stayed as long as I could to see if I could at least catch the beginning of the next presentation, but with 4pm fast approaching, and the social event still continuing, I thought it best to leave less my boss kills me for being late... again. All in all, it was a fairly interesting event. I'm very glad I came and I left with an air of satisfaction after learning some new information and after having eaten over a dozen cookies.