Head of Christ or a Saint

Laura Chilson-Parks College Student Voices 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.

The Crucified Christ

Laura Chilson-Parks College Student Voices 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. 

Angel of the Annunciation

Bill Skinner College Student Voices This article provides a brief introduction to this finely carved and dynamic sculpture of the Archangel Gabriel.

Material Devotion

Erica Kinias College Student Voices 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.

The Dramatic Effects of Subtlety

A Fifteenth-Century Virgin and Child Josie Johnson College Student Voices 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.

Christ in the House of Simon the Jew?

Contemporary Perceptions of Pharisees in Germany Michal Goldschmidt College Student Voices This article argues that Simon the Pharisee would have been viewed as an explicitly Jewish character by sixteenth-century viewers.

Crusading Saint

Lia Dykstra College Student Voices 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.

Drawing as Interpretation: The thousand languages of a pictograph

Noël Lefebvre Educators Construction with Central Anchor is an image that I return to frequently with students in K-12 classrooms and in the RISD Museum. Rendered in a muted, multicolored palette, the composition is organized in an orthogonal grid, and within each window of the grid, we find a pictograph. As a symbol representing a word or phrase, the pictograph is a pervasive and powerful agent of communication.