Vortrag// Itay Sapir: Baroque Death, Classical Expiry? Rubens, Poussin and the Elusive Fatal Instant

The Baroque and the Classical traditionally structure the historiography of seventeenth-century European painting in the aftermath of the Caravagesque episode. Inevitably, the two artistic currents, as broadly defined as they often are, also ended up formulating different modalities for the representation of death events. But the opposition, regarding that subject matter, is not necessarily what the traditional art historical narrative would make us expect. This lecture will compare depictions of mortal scenes by the flag-bearers of both aesthetic camps, respectively Rubens and Poussin.