Darwin and Seurat
Free for Members
This is an online event, available to all Members, hosted on Zoom.
Members, please book your ticket to access this event. You will receive an E-ticket with instructions on how to access your online events, films and resources via your National Gallery account. Only one ticket can be booked per account.
A recording of this event will be made available to all ticket holders in the days following the event.
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How does Charles Darwin connect to Georges Seurat?
Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen, Associate Professor at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, builds upon her 2021 book, ‘Modern Art & the Remaking of Human Disposition’, at this Members’ online lecture.
She proposes a new interpretation of Seurat’s Neo-Impressionist art by showing the connections between the artist’s radical and experimental painting and Charles Darwin’s new idea of evolution.
Join Emmelyn as she explores how Darwin’s theories of natural and sexual selection borrowed from, and recalibrated, three core concepts of European aesthetic philosophy: design, hierarchy, and judgement.
Speaker
Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen is Associate Professor of Nineteenth-Century European Art at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Her book, 'Modern Art & the Remaking of Human Disposition', offers the first in-depth study of Seurat’s autobiographical masterpiece, 'Poseuses' (1886-1880), and its importance for understanding transformations in the depiction of the human body in modern art around 1900.
Watch again
A recording of this event will be made available to all ticket holders in the days following the event.
This recording will be available for two weeks.
Closed captions
Automatic closed captioning is available for this event.