Caroline Vout on Classical Bodies in Art

The Great Women Artists

I am so excited to say that my guest on the GWA Podcast is the world-renowned Classics scholar and professor at the University of Cambridge, Caroline Vout! Today we are discussing all sorts of figures in Classics, from Venus to Hermaphroditus. Born in Durham, Vout studied for a BA at Newnham College Cambridge, completed her MA at the Courtauld, and PhD back in Cambridge, where she spent a very formative year as a Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome. Since 2006, she has been based in Cambridge where she is a Fellow at Christ’s College. The author of seven formative books that have expanded my mind on the Ancient world, our thinking around gendered bodies, imperfect bodies, and the perception of women through these vessels, from Classical Art: A Life History from Antiquity to the Present to the more recently published “Exposed: The Greek and Roman Body”, Vout has been instrumental in pushing forwarding Classical research. Next year, she will curate a major exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum But the reason why we are speaking with Carrie Vout today is because of how her research challenges the ideal forms of the Greek and Roman body. Whereas a body cast in marble or bronze sitting atop a pedestal might be the template that we have – and one that European painters have so often perpetuated through idealised portrayals of men and women – Vout argues this is a lie, and that ancient bodies were in fact anxious, ailing, imperfect, diverse, and in turn, much more like us than we might at first glean. CARRIE'S BOOKS: https://www.waterstones.com/book/exposed/caroline-vout/9781788162906 https://www.waterstones.com/book/classical-art/caroline-vout/9780691177038 https://www.waterstones.com/book/sex-on-show/caroline-vout/9780714122786 -- THIS EPISODE IS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY THE LEVETT COLLECTION: https://www.instagram.com/famm.mougins // https://www.merrellpublishers.com/9781858947037 ENJOY!!! Follow us: Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel Sound editing by Nada Smiljanic Music by Ben Wetherfield https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/