Love and Desire in the Visual Arts

This year’s Cleveland Symposium, titled Love and Desire in the Visual Arts, takes love in its many forms as its theme. Held in partnership with the Cleveland Museum of Art as part of the joint program between CWRU and the CMA, the Cleveland Symposium is one of the longest-running annual art history symposia in the United States organized by graduate students. This year’s symposium features innovative research papers that explore themes of love and desire as manifested in a variety of mediums, historical periods, and geographic locations, focusing on topics ranging from medieval spiritual marriage to Victorian lovesickness. The program features an exceptional keynote speaker, Dr. Melanie Holcomb of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, along with three sessions of graduate student papers, a facsimile viewing in the Ingalls Library at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and museum tours led by CWRU graduate students. All are welcome, and participation is free.

For more information and a full schedule of events, please see arthistory.case.edu/cleveland-symposium (opens in a new tab). 

The Cleveland Symposium is generously sponsored by the Case Western Reserve University Department of Art History and Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Friends of Art, Joseph and Nancy Keithley, the Mellon Foundation, the CWRU Departments of Cognitive Science, English, and Music, and the CWRU Graduate Student Council.