Join Christina Faraday to discover how clocks do far more for our society than merely tell us what time it is
Few people nowadays give more than a second thought to their clocks: practical, sometimes beautiful, devices that form the background noise of our daily lives.
But from their introduction in the thirteenth century onwards, clocks have held a variety of philosophical and social meanings.
This talk explores the visual and literary uses of the clock, the varied meanings it could hold throughout the ages: as an ominous symbol of oncoming death, but also as a metaphor for the soul, for capitalism, and for the good use of time.
We will consider medieval manuscripts and frescoes, poetry by Dante and Jean Froissart, still life and genre paintings, satires by Jonathan Swift, Lawrence Sterne, and Hogarth. We will consider nineteenth-century ideas about power and the working day, in portraits of emperors and seamstresses and novels by Dickens.
Finally, we will consider the breaking down of temporal certainties in the twentieth century, with Dali, Chagall, Harold Lloyd, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Christian Marclay.
How to book this event:
Book this event by email to: wensleydaleartssociety@gmail.com
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