Forever Friends: the Art of the Friendship Portrait

A selfie with your best friend is nothing new. This talk explores friendship in early modern Europe (1400-1800) through portrait painting. We’ll see the personalities and relationships of Europeans in art and come to understand why they wanted to be painted together. The act of making an image that connected people was a powerful declaration of personal connection. The talk will look at different subcategories of the portrait to explore the many facets of friendship: from diplomatic agreements to brotherly and romantic love, souvenirs of a good-time-had-by-all and dedications of devotion. We’ll gain insight into how some historic people built their friendship networks, sometimes profoundly shaping history in the process. The purpose is to see how much or little we have changed in relationship to how we desire to build and sustain friendship.

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• This event will be recorded. All participants will be able to watch the video 2-3 days after the event on our website.
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