Art History Symposium Keynote: Matisse/Manet: Dialogue with the Dead

Join us Friday, May 1, at 4:00 PM for a keynote presentation from Dr. Todd Cronan, Professor of Art History at Emory University. He will present “Matisse/Mamet: Dialogue with the Dead.” 

Traditional narratives of modern art presume that Manet and the Impressionists fell into disfavor around 1900 and that the art of the Post-Impressionists (Seurat, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Cezanne) pointed the way to the future. Not only is this not the full story, but it might be the wrong story. One way to understand the career of Henri Matisse is to see it as a lifelong “dialogue with the dead” with the art of Edouard Manet. Matisse’s engagement with Manet helps us see Matisse’s art in a new light as well as altering our sense of the history of modernism.

Todd Cronan’s keynote address marks the start of the William & Mary Art History department senior research symposium. The students will present their research the following day, May 2.