The Research and Academic Program presents “Fragmentary Ruins and the Enduring Image”: Cammy Brothers on Drawing as a Way of Thinking.

In this episode of the Research and Academic Program (RAP) podcast In the Foreground: Conversations on Art & Writing, Sara Houghteling speaks with Cammy Brothers, a scholar of art and architecture at Northeastern University, as well as a journalist and regular art critic for the Wall Street Journal. In this episode, Brothers examines Michaelangelo’s drawing practice and that of his contemporary, Giuliano da Sangallo, and the ways in which da Sangallo’s architectural drawings aim to assemble fragmentary images of Rome on the page. Brothers also reflects on her career and writing practice: on publishing a first book that was not an adaptation of her doctoral dissertation; on the ways in which recitation is integral to clear and compelling scholarship; and on composing endings that open new lines of thought rather than summarizing or foreclosing meaning. She also discusses her role as a critic for the Wall Street Journal and the craft of writing for a public readership.

Cammy Brothers specializes in Italian Renaissance and Mediterranean art and architecture. She is an associate professor at Northeastern University, where she holds a joint appointment in Architecture and in Art & Design. Previously she taught at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the Valmarana Chair and was director of the Venice Program. In recent years, she has been a visiting professor at Harvard University and a guest professor at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) in Zurich. She is the author of two monographs, Michelangelo, Drawing, and the Invention of Architecture (2008) and Giuliano da Sangallo and the Ruins of Rome (2022).
 

This episode launches on Tuesday, March 26. For more information and to listen to the episode, check clarkart.edu/podcast, iTunes, Spotify, and anywhere else you may listen to podcasts.