This seven-foot-tall Christ would have been suspended above an altar or screen, the juxtaposition of his damaged body and calm, downward gaze reminding those below him of both his humanity and his divinity.
Devotional representations of Saint Barbara, a Christian martyr whose legend extended across both Western and Eastern medieval worlds, flourished in fourteenth-century Europe. An examination of the Providence Saint Barbara reveals a sculptural tradition with a complex and colorful practices of medieval devotion to the cult of saints.
Website that uses the weather to make programmatic selections from the RISD Museum based on conditions, first in Providence, then in a city of the user’s choosing. The goal was to give museum-goers a tangible point of access to art, and to make unexpected groupings of objects.
In the fall of 2014, RISD art history students curated an exhibition comparing Tokaido Road views by artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858). That exhibition is now on view in the Museum.
Artist Anya Ventura explains the context behind an audio tour and printed guide that she and Anther Kiley created illustrating episodes from the lives of seven objects from the Museum's galleries. Their 2012 work "Fragments" was one of the winning projects in the RISD Museum's annual *Sitings* competition for site-specific installations by RISD degree candidates.
As a part of its new Clinical Arts and Humanities Program, the Alpert Medical School partnered with the RISD Museum to create the workshop series "From Galleries to Wards." Workshop participants, Samuel Kase and Cia Mathew, reflect on their experience.
This fall the RISD Museum Lucy Truman Aldrich Porcelain Gallery reopened with its cabinets filled with engaging figures and a diverse array of tableware. Comprising nearly 180 objects from the museum's collection, this new installation focuses on the role that porcelain played in eighteenth-century life.
Painting student Davis Lloyd recollects stumbling across an unlikely source of inspiration, and connection between ancient art and contemporary painting.
A jade lithophone from 18th-century China offers insight to the significant role of ritual music in ancient China—as an essential part of state rite to assert the legitimacy of reign.
RISD Museum intern Alicia Valencia (RISD 2015, Furniture) explains how the act of looking closely formed her impressions on Samuel Gragg's Elastic armchair.
In the flood of digital-ness that comprises our daily experience, it can be easy to forget that most of what all of our complex devices are doing is simply counting. It's no coincidence that the word digital comes from digits, our fingers, that most elementary of counting machines.
