Towards an Emotional History of Pictures

Kasper Lægring

For a very long time, emotions and their histories have been largely overlooked within art history. Since the 1990s, the history of emotions (Boddice, Dixon, Rosenwein) – rooted primarily in the discipline of history – has left a strong mark on neighbouring fields within the humanities, yet only rarely on art history itself. James Elkins’ essay collection, Pictures & Tears (2001), constitutes a notable exception, which, however, has not been followed by comparable studies. Only in the study of contemporary art have theorists – often artists themselves – more extensively confronted emotions as raw material for the artwork, and a pronounced exchange between affect theory and image theory has emerged (Bennett, Doyle, Ngai). Similarly, the emerging field of visual culture studies (Mitchell) has been more receptive to affective dimensions.

In this talk, I argue for the relevance of rethinking not only visual culture but also art history under the sign of emotions. Drawing on both iconic and overlooked paintings, I bring forth qualities of affect and mood that may serve as stepping stones towards a renewed understanding of painting – and, more broadly, of pictures.

BIO

Kasper Lægring is a theorist in architecture and the arts and a New Carlsberg Foundation Researcher in Art History at Aarhus University. Kasper’s research concerns emotions in art, and he is currently writing a book on genre painting seen in this light. Publications include Nelson and Modern Architecture: A Belated Encounter (Routledge, 2024) and contributions Goodman to The Contested Territory of Architectural Theory (Routledge, 2022) and A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries Since 1975 (Brill, 2022). He serves on the Editorial Board of the journal MDCCC 1800 and is one of the General Chairs of the upcoming European Architectural History Network (EAHN) conference at Aarhus University.

Æstetisk Seminar er tilrettelagt af Anette Vandsø og Niclas Nørby Jochumsen Hundahl, Institut for Kommunikation og Kultur, Aarhus Universitet.

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