Nicola Suthor

A Single Line's Intricacies

The talk connects the long-standing literary record of a controversial artistic performance, first demonstrated in ancient Greece and consisting of drawing a form or figure by means of a single continuous line, with an exemplary group of drawings attributed to Agostino Carracci. From the beginning, this legendary feat has been understood as a virtuous demonstration of manual dexterity and artifice and has elicited a number of critical reactions, which in turn have led to alternative versions of the same drawing act.

Nicola Suthor is professor of History of Art at Yale University, New Haven. She teaches Northern and Southern Baroque art. Her research is an effort to understand how thinking about art comes to grips with thinking in art. Before coming to Yale in 2015, Nicola Suthor taught art history at the universities of Berlin, Bern, Hamburg, Heidelberg, and Stanford. She was visiting member of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton and Robert Lehman Visiting Professor at the Villa I Tatti (Harvard University). In 2012 she received the Jacob Burckhardt-Price. Publications include Rembrandts Rauheit (2014), Bravura: Virtuosität  und Mutwilligkeit in der Malerei der Frühen Neuzeit (2010), Augenlust bei Tizian. Zur Konzeption sensueller Malerei in der Frühen Neuzeit (2004).