David Freedberg

David Freedberg is best known for his work on psychological responses to art, and particularly for his studies on iconoclasm and censorship (Iconoclasts and their Motives (1984), The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (1989) ). His more traditional art historical writing originally centered on Dutch and Flemish art, specializing in the history of Dutch printmaking. His recent work focuses on the history of science and on the importance of the new cognitive neurosciences for the study of art and its history. 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 long 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 catalogs, his chief publication in this area is The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, his Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History (2002). Although 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 primary research now concentrates on the relations between art, history, and cognitive neuroscience. Taking up the psychological dimensions of the work outlined in The Power of Images (1989), he has been engaged in research and experiments on the relations between vision, embodiment, movement, and emotion.

David Freedberg serves as an Advisory Committee Member.