Color portrait of Lindsay Sheedy from the waist up, wearing a dark green dress, facing forward, and standing against a neutral gray background

Lindsay Sheedy

Samuel H. Kress Foundation/Donald and Maria Cox Rome Prize
11 gennaio–6 agosto 2021
Professione
PhD Candidate, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Washington University in St. Louis
Titolo del progetto
“Un’orrida bellezza: Religious Polychrome Sculpture in the Kingdom of Naples (1503–1714)”
Descrizione del progetto

My dissertation examines how polychrome sculpture participated in the changing religious and cultural landscape of Southern Italy during Spanish imperial rule. It was in this period that a series of upheavals inextricably altered the cultural fabric of the Kingdom. Polychrome sculpture—a type of sculpture that invoked lifelikeness through the combination of color and sculpted form—was uniquely suited to serve these turbulent times, as such sculptures appealed to a broad audience of faithful Christians. My project analyzes how sculptors such as Giovanni da Nola, Vespasiano Genuino, Angelo da Pietrafitta, and Nicola Fumo adapted their work to the cultural and religious shifts of their time. As a collective, my dissertation’s four chapters tell a yet-untold history of polychrome sculptural production in the Kingdom of Naples, marked as it is by intersections of faith and art, elite and popular culture, international and regional networks, and local traditions and foreign adaptations.