| 1 | Name: | Dr. David Freedberg | |
| Institution: | Columbia University & Italian Academy for Advanced Study in America | ||
| Year Elected: | 1997 | ||
| Class: | 4. Humanities | ||
| Subdivision: | 401. Archaeology | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1947 | ||
David Freedberg is best known for his work on psychological responses to art, and particularly for his studies on iconoclasm and censorship. His more traditional art historical writing originally centered on the fields of Dutch and Flemish art. Within these fields he specialized in the history of Dutch printmaking and in the paintings and drawings of Bruegel and Rubens. He then turned his attention to seventeenth century Roman art and to the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, before moving on to his recent work in the history of science and on the importance of the new cognitive neurosciences for the study of art and its history. Dr. Freedberg has also been involved in several exhibitions of contemporary art. Following a series of important discoveries in Windsor Castle, the Institut de France and the archives of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, he has for some time been concerned with the intersection of art and science in the age of Galileo. While much of his work in this area has been published in articles and catalogues, his chief publication in this area is The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, his Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History (2002). He is now devoting a substantial portion of his attention to collaborations with neuroscientists working in fields of vision, movement and emotion. Although Dr. Freedberg continues to teach in the fields of Dutch, Flemish, French and Italian seventeenth century art, as well as in historiographical and theoretical areas, his research now concentrates on the relations between art, history and the neurosciences. He continues to hope that he will be able to return to his longstanding project on the cultural history of the architecture and dance of the Pueblo peoples, but for the moment his energies are largely taken up by his work with neuroscientists. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Dr. Freedberg was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1997. | |||