The Sweet Perspectives

An interdisciplinary weekend of study and practice at Washington University in St. Louis.

Perspective and other forms of descriptive geometry are uniquely interdisciplinary topics, the study and execution of which involve art history, architecture, and design as well as anatomy, mathematics, and physics. These topics are subject to historical and theoretical investigation, but are also matters of contemporary practice and production. Yet all too often the many facets of perspective are only ever tackled in isolation, by specialists in specific sub-fields speaking to small groups of other specialists.

This symposium proposes to bring together scholars and practitioners from a broad range of disciplines in a unique format, which will combine lectures, seminar-style discussions, and a hands-on practicum to help us approach the geometry of representation with the full breadth it merits. The practicum, led by the conveners of the symposium, will take participants through several possible hypothetical reconstruction methods for the construction of ancient Greco-Roman murals, culminating in the attempt to create a set of large-scale representations. The symposium will culminate in a plenary discussion of what we have learned, including successes and failures.

It is our hope that an event like this, which combines the historical, theoretical, and practical elements of descriptive geometry, would offer everyone the opportunity to re-think a seemingly familiar topic from a variety of new lenses. In this sense, the event will cultivate a sense of communal, creative exploration and generate new ways to approach our own practices or objects of study.

Co-convened by Nathaniel Jones of the Department of Art History and Archaeology and Jonathan Stitelman of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

Thanks to sponsors Center for the Humanities and the Weil-Hall Fund, Department of Art History and Archaeology.