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.
A colossal Romanesque head in the RISD collection has yet to be securely identified, but the sheen of his nose suggests that it was rubbed by many penitent hands during the course of this sculpture’s life.
In the Middle Ages, several saints were represented as knights in art, making it difficult to identify RISD’s Crusading Saint. This article will explore his possible identities.
This late fifteenth-century Virgin and Child was created with subtlety, flexibility, and portability in mind. These features were central to its medieval use—and its use at the RISD Museum.
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.
During the Fall of 2015, Sheila Bonde’s graduate students in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University undertook an investigation of the wood sculptures in the RISD Museum collections. This multi-author paper includes some of their findings.
In the winter of 1886, the neighborhoods of Paris were transformed by an unusually heavy snowfall that lingered on the branches of trees and captured the imagination of the artist Berthe Morisot.
Ceramics student Lindsay Savoie subverts traditional hierarchies that value painting and sculpture more highly than utilitarian art forms like pottery and photography.
A student dismantles the outdated terminology and practice of “master copies” by constructing a series of copies that works to bolster underrepresented artists and subvert the pervasive presence of white males in the Western art canon.
A student in a RISD course on pan-African aesthetics contemplates a vinyl record pictured in a Sanlé Sory photograph in the collection, and imagines the songs it contains.
Faculty member Rosa Weinberg reflects on the relevancy of art analysis as a starting point for exploring form in design and as a powerful habit of mind for beginning designers.
Jane'a Johnson's students explore how blackness is created and recreated as a visual phenomenon in self-directed essays drawing on museum visits and course texts
In 1971, a group of radical students in Providence produced stirring silkscreen posters. Their images contributed to the vibrant visual culture of antiwar protest.
How do we describe images and the experience of looking at images? Student Grace Xiao reflects on the process of writing alt text for "Variance: Making, Unmaking, and Remaking Disability."
Curatorial intern Grace Xiao reflects on viewing artwork that embraces instability, disruption, and restlessness, making room for open interpretations in the gallery.
"Raid the Database with Heather Leigh McPherson" is the third installment in an ongoing project in which artists bring new curatorial perspectives to the museum's extensive collections.