Lorentz Dietrichson Lecture 2025

Lines in the Sand: Chance, Art, and Nature in Early Modernity and Beyond

Many examples in early modern European art suggest that artists were keen to represent powers of natural image-making—whether indeterminate or more definitive—that served as inspiration, analogue, pedagogue, prod, or partner of human art. With some of these examples as backdrop, this lecture addresses the dialectic of intention and chance, essence and accident, as understood by a range of natural philosophers from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. How did early modern Europeans understand the image-making powers of Nature? The talk concludes with reflections on lessons we can learn from historical studies as we confront urgent and dangerous predicaments in nature, humanity, and art.

Rebecca Zorach (Ph.D. 1999, University of Chicago) teaches in the Department of Art History at Northwestern University (Evanston, Illinois), with affiliations in programs in American Studies and Environmental Policy and Culture. She writes, teaches,…