British Art and Natural Forces: Apocalyptic Conjunctures: The Weather of Art History
Channel: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
Date: 2020-11-06

Chair: Mark Hallett (Director of Studies, Paul Mellon Centre)

Speaker: Andrew Patrizio

This wide-ranging paper considers Herbert Read's anarchistic views of the 1940s as a pivotal moment, that drew on radically organic and romantic political models of the past but pointed towards the multiple kinds of approaches available to art historians today, as they work alongside others in an expanded environmental humanities movement. The paper attempts to offer useful methodological approaches captured within an historical context, where the apocalyptic presence of World War Two, the subsequent nuclear threat, and today's climate collapse give ecological possibilities in art history new urgency.