The Haggerty Museum at Marquette University will present 'Capture the Senses: Attraction and Horror in Early Modern Art' from August 22 to December 20, 2025. The exhibition draws from the museum's own collection to explore how Early Modern artists combined aesthetic pleasure with terrifying subject matter, featuring works by Albrecht Dürer, Ferdinand Bol, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Francesco Solimena. Curated by Kirk Nickel, the show examines themes such as the end times, human sacrifice, imperial decay, and fate, using paintings, prints, and sculpture from Europe and the Americas between the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution.
The exhibition matters because it highlights a pivotal shift in Western art when lifelikeness became paramount, driven by scientific inquiry and religious reforms that sought to evoke emotional responses through vivid, often violent imagery. By focusing on the dual sensations of attraction and horror, the show offers a lens into how artists of the period used realism to engage viewers psychologically, connecting historical artistic practices to enduring questions about human experience. The funding from the Eleanor H. Boheim Endowment Fund and the Wisconsin Arts Board underscores the role of institutional and public support in presenting specialized scholarly exhibitions.