“Perspective” carries both figural and literal meaning, as is extraordinarily clear when looking at the sculpture of Adolph Rosenblatt. From the perspective of art history, Rosenblatt’s work follows in the legacy of artists like Pieter Bruegel, Honoré Daumier, Alberto Giacometti, and Duane Hanson, who strove to represent the everyday in honest (and often unflattering) ways.

More deeply, however, perspective plays a complex role in Rosenblatt’s sculpture, a medium which, due to its three-dimensionality, can offer quite different experiences depending on the viewer’s physical relationship to the object.

Rosenblatt’s work, as this lecture explores, creates a dynamic relationship with the viewer that speaks to a long history of representing ordinary life, and which proves both challenging and highly rewarding for the thoughtful observer.

Sarah C. Schaefer is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. Her work examines modern religious visual culture and she is currently at work on a book that examines the biblical imagery of nineteenth-century French artist Gustave Doré. An exhibition she is curating for the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University, “The World Turned Upside Down: Apocalyptic Imagery in England 1750-1850,” will open in October 2017. Her writings have appeared in Material Religion, 19th-Century Art Worldwide, and Art in Print, and she has lectured at major institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée d’Orsay.

Offered in connection with Moments & Markers: An Adolph Rosenblatt Retrospective, an exhibit on display at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee, June 16 – August 27, 2017.