Senior art history major Melissa Bryant discusses “The Significance of Venus’ Cassoni: Venus of Urbino by Titian" during the last Let's Talk Art lecture. 
Brianna Hawkins/ The Lion's Roar 

Senior art history major Melissa Bryant was selected as the speaker of the art lecture, Let’s Talk Art- “The Significance of Venus’ Cassoni: Venus of Urbino by Titian.”

The art lecture was held on Wednesday, Nov. 15 at 5 p.m. in the Contemporary Art Gallery. Many attendees attended the event to learn about the Venus Cassoni along with members of the university’s art department.

Bryant says that she believes the lecture was a great success.

“I was thrilled at the turnout,” said Bryant. “I was hoping that everyone would find this topic as interesting as I did. I believe because of the turnout, that many people did.”

Bryant also explained how she was chosen to speak at the lecture.

“The art department chooses different students to come and talk about different topics that they may have written a paper on,” said Bryant. “It’s to help us to be able to present our work effectively and articulately. It’s practice basically.”

Bryant also credits to instructor of art history Timothy Silva for giving her the opportunity to speak at the lecture.

“I think Mr. Silva enjoyed the topic,” said Bryant. “He is my master of the Renaissance. I would give him my credit for this. I’ve always had an interest in Renaissance, but he actually helped me to refine that interest and pardon his knowledge to me. I really enjoyed his classes and became more interested as a result.”

Bryant says that her curiosity for the Titian painting is what inspired her to choose this topic.

“I chose this topic because I had always been captivated by this particular work of Titian,” said Bryant. “He is my absolute favorite Renaissance artist and this particular work is my favorite of his. I have always been captivated by it in that it so directly pulls the viewer in and I just wanted to explore what was going on in this picture. I found that there’s a lot of great unanswered questions still about it.”

Associate professor of art history, Dr. Irene Nero, also shared her opinion of how she thought the last lecture of the series went.

“I thought that this was really powerful,” said Nero. “She has done a lot of original research, and that what really makes a difference in an art history student. Somebody who’s just reading from a book, and somebody who goes out and researches it on their own.”

Nero also loves Bryant’s choice of topic and says that she was very excited to hear about it.

“We always teach that painting,” said Nero. “But there’s never been a full historical consensus on that painting. I was really excited when I heard that she chose that subject because I figured that she had the time to do the extra research. It brings more information to us now.”

Freshman education major Rebekah Hart also shared why she attended the lecture and how she felt about the content of it.

“I wanted to learn more about this and I’ve never been to one of these presentations before,” said Hart. “My professor also said that if we took notes and wrote about it, we would get bonus points in his class. I didn’t even know who Titian was. I was always interested in art in high school, so I learned a lot about his work, influences, how he influenced future artists and then of course, about the Venus of Urbino.

Sophomore psychology major Brianna Thompson also shared her experience of the lecture.

“I came to the art lecture for extra credit for Art 106 and because it was interesting,” said Thompson. “I thought she established a well created timeline with the way she put everything together.”

Nero also shared what she hoped that attending students to take away from the lecture.

“Well for this particular lecture, I’m hoping they realize art history is not dead,” said Nero. “Not everything is written in a book. You got to have someone question what they’re looking at and then art history comes alive again.”