Art Historian Louisa Matthew to Give Nov. 6 Lecture

Louisa Matthew, visiting professor of art history at Skidmore, will present the College's annual Art History Lecture, "Color in Renaissance Venice: Taste, Technology, Commerce, and the Uses of Pigments" on Monday, Nov. 6. Free and open to the public, the talk will begin at 8 p.m. in Davis Auditorium.

Matthew explains that the existence of a previously unknown profession--the color seller--in Renaissance Venice has prompted investigation into the functioning of an "industry of color" in a city whose painters and architects have always been renowned for their taste for opulent color. By examining color as an "industry," we may consider such issues as the sharing of taste and the technology for using colorants across many artisan trades, not just painters and architects, but also glass makers, ceramicists, and dyers. By examining how the color sellers conducted their business, we may also learn how they processed, bought and sold the ingredients used to create the colorful world of 16th-century Venice.

She will discuss how scientific analysis of Venetian works of art, when coupled with historical research, provides new insights into the past.

The talk is based on recent research in the State Archives in Venice and Matthew's ongoing collaboration with Dr. Barbara Berrie, chemist and senior research scientist, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Matthew, who also serves as professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Union College, is a faculty trustee at Union. She is a graduate of the University of Vermont, where she earned B.A. and M.A. degrees, and Princeton University, where she earned M.F.A. and doctoral degrees, specializing in the Italian Renaissance. Her publications have appeared in a number of scholarly and academic journals. Next spring she will present a paper on varnishes used by painters and relationships with the musical instrument industry at the Musée de la Musique in Paris.