Art & Literature at the Ackland

Join Dana Cowen (Sheldon Peck Curator for European and American Art before 1950, Ackland Art Museum) and Professor Ellen Welch (Romance Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill) for a tour and lively discussion of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Reveries of a Solitary Walker and the Ackland’s current exhibition Reform to Restoration. Participants will receive a copy of the book in advance of the event. Presented in collaboration with Carolina Public Humanities.

Space is limited; tickets are required. The $40 ticket includes a copy of the book and refreshments at the event. Tickets are now on sale at https://humanities.unc.edu/event/art-and-literature-at-the-ackland/.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Reform to Restoration: French Drawings from Louis XVI to Louis XVIII (1770-1830) presents over eighty master drawings from The Horvitz Collection, the preeminent private collection of French art in the United States, and showcases some of the most well-known artists of the period, including Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. Working in a time of tremendous political and social upheaval in France, artists looked to the art, architecture, and literature of ancient Greece and Rome for inspiration and used stories from antique history and mythology as well as current events and contemporary theater to convey moral and civic values during a period of great uncertainty. Arranged in thematic groupings devoted to the concepts of patriotism, love, honor, conflict, and despair, the works on display demonstrate the intellectual curiosity of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century French artists as well as the expressive versatility and powerful immediacy of drawings.