David Freedberg is Professor of Art History at Columbia University, and Director of its Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America. He is best known for his work on psychological responses to images. His initial publications addressed iconoclasm and censorship, but in "The Power of Images" he explored "ways in which images evoke emotional, behavioral and social responses." Additionally, he has researched Dutch, Flemish and French painting, as well as the relationship between art and science in the seventeenth century, exemplified by his book "The Eye of the Lynx" on early natural history around Galileo. For the past fifteen years, he has integrated cognitive neurosciences into understanding art and images' role in society. He is now returning to earlier interests in paleolithic art of Southern Africa and rock arts of aboriginal North American cultures.
Roundtable Appearances
