The Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art 2002: The Turning Figure

October 2011 - Nicholas Penny, senior curator of sculpture and decorative arts, National Gallery of Art. For the annual Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art, recorded on November 17, 2002, Nicholas Penny discussed aspects of the relationship between painting and sculpture in the 15th and 16th centuries. In particular, Penny focused on a subject no one has addressed with greater eloquence than Sydney J. Freedberg: the way that figures occupy and define space in early 16th-century Italian art. This contest between the qualities proper to painting and sculpture in the representation of space and linear perspective is explored through works in the National Gallery, London, and National Gallery of Art collections.