Ways of Seeing Byzantium

PUBLIC SYMPOSIUM Ways of Seeing Byzantium February 28 from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. West Building Ground Floor, Lecture Hall Illustrated lectures by Glenn Peers, professor of art and art history, University of Texas, Austin; Bissera Pentcheva, associate professor of art and art history, Stanford University; William Tronzo, professor of visual arts, University of California, San Diego; Alicia Walker, assistant professor of the history of art, Bryn Mawr College Held in conjunction with the exhibition Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections, on view through March 2, 2014, this symposium takes its name and perspective from art critic and novelist John Peter Berger's 1972 book Ways of Seeing. Noted scholars Glenn Peers, Bissera Pentcheva, William Tronzo, and Alicia Walker will seek to place the Heaven and Earth exhibition objects in context by answering questions generated by Berger's book: What world did these objects constitute in Byzantium and how did they form it? What values did they embody or create? How were they used and understood? Conversely what world do these objects constitute for us now? How do we understand them? And most important, then and now, are these works considered art? www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/calendar/lectures/symposia/byzantium.html (Program information) www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/exhibitions/2013/heaven-and-earth.html (Exhibition information) shop.nga.gov/item/549162P/Heaven-Earth-Art-of-Byzantium-from-Greek-Collections/1.html (Purchase the catalogue)