This exhibition features works of art that resist the rendering of human lives into objects of consumption, data sets, and/or algorithms. The exhibition touches on subjects from the recent and not-so-recent past, looking at how art helps build our capacity for empathy when our worldviews are often shaped by the twenty-four-hour news cycle and the Internet.
Members of Bowdoin College’s Class of 1825, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow created some of the most popular literary works in nineteenth-century America. In response to Hawthorne's novels and Longfellow's poetry, artists created many remarkable paintings, sculpture, and prints. Conversely, the authors drew inspiration from art and objects of all ages, often using them as narrative devices. This exhibition explores how the two authors and their compelling stories influenced American visual culture during this period.
Featuring works from the collection of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art spanning nearly two thousand years —from approximately 1300 BCE to 400 CE—Flora et Fauna examines how ancient Mediterranean societies understood and depicted the natural world.
