A research exhibition using Chinese and Western landscape works from the twelfth century to the present in an examination of what is meant by the term landscape.” Is landscape a subject or theme to be represented as natural scenery or imagined geography? Does it show a location in time—past, present, or future—or is it timeless, placeless, or sometimes even without form? This exhibition begins research into concepts of land as embodied in the arts as experiences between man and environment. How do Chinese experiences and notions of land accord with artistic representations and aesthetic perceptions of actual or idealized landscapes? Do such concepts differ from the Western experience of landscape?

Chinese Qing dynasty, 1644-1912
Xiao Chen, ca. 1645 - ca. 1715
Valley and Mountains, after Zhao Boju, undated; late 17th - early 18th century
Hanging scroll; ink and colors on silk
(Photo: Bruce M. White)

This exhibition explores representations of artistic identity in modern European and American art. The works on view span two centuries and utilize various media, but all engage with the nineteenth century myth of the “artist”: a rebellious, temperamental, and uniquely privileged social being who sees the world from a position of relative independence and genius. From Francisco Goya’s Self-Portrait as a smug, supercilious gentleman to contemporary works by Kiki Smith and Glenn Ligon that introduce issues of gender and race, these works track significant shifts in the conceptualization and representation of the modern artist. Drawing heavily on the Museum’s extensive collection of prints and drawings, Artist as Image features the works of Andy Warhol, Edgar Degas, Marc Chagall, Edvard Munch and other seldom-seen pieces like a self-portrait by Paul Cézanne.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes
Self-portrait, 1799
Etching and aquatint, also drypoint 31.8 x 22.1 cm.
Laura P. Hall Memorial Collection
[x1946-239]

The Annunciation by Giovanni Bezzi (Il Nosadella) is one of the finest treasures at the Princeton University Art Museum, and beginning on February 20, will be the focus of The Making of a Masterpiece: Nosadella’s Annunciation. Curated by Museum conservator Norman Muller, this exhibition offers an in-depth study of the creative process of this previously unexplored Mannerist artist. Preparatory sketches, drawings, and completed paintings join with newly prepared x-radiograph and infrared images to reveal the various stages of creation of this Bolognese painter.

Nosadella (Giovanni Francesco Bezzi), Italian, active 1550–1571
formerly attributed to Pellegrino Tibaldi, Italian, 1527–1596
The Annunciation
Oil on wooden panel, 107.3 x 78.8 cm.
Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund
[y1976-25] (Photo: Bruce M. White)

The exhibition will be the first of its kind devoted to the topic of Byzantine architectural representation, challenging long-held assumptions in Western art history and providing new ways of understanding Byzantine art and architecture from A.D. 300 to the early nineteenth century.

Icon of Saint Dimitrios
Crete (?), late 16th–early 17th century
Tempera on wood, 108 x 82.5 x 9 cm
Museum of Antivouniotissa, Corfu, Greece
[Photo courtesy of the Museum of Antivouniotissa, Corfu, Greece]