Masterclass & Public Lecture – Frances Gage: Imagination in Medicine and the Arts
On 4 June 2025, the Huizinga Institute hosts a masterclass and public lecture by art historian Frances Gage (Buffalo State University) at University of Groningen, co-organized by Prof. Rina Knoeff (University of Groningen) and Prof. Joost Keizer (Radboud University Nijmegen). This event brings together perspectives from the humanities and medical sciences to explore the crucial role of imagination in health, healing, and medical knowledge, both in the past and the present.
Masterclass (for Huizinga Institute RMA and PhD members)
The masterclass is open to PhD candidates and RMA students affiliated with the Huizinga Institute. It delves into the idea of ‘imagination’ as a central concept in both the humanities and the medical sciences. Everyone knows that the imagination can make you sick and vice versa, that it can make you feel better. Psychosomatics is full of examples of how ideas can cause psychological and bodily distress, while at the same time creative – and imaginative! – techniques from the humanities, such as writing, music, drawing, and painting, can help the healing process. On another level, imaging techniques have been central to medical learning, diagnostic techniques and medical research and the interpretation of test- and research results often depends on our visual and imaginative thinking. This is the case in premodern anatomical work as well as in the latest MRI technology.
The masterclass ‘Imagination in medicine and the arts’ is inspired by the work of art historian Frances Gage (Buffalo State University). In her groundbreaking book Painting as Medicine in Early Modern Rome (Pennsylvania, 2008), she has shown that paintings were understood to have profound effects on the minds, imaginations, and bodies of viewers. This interpretation of the value of paintings and the motivations for buying them, challenges the idea that art was mainly because of economic or status-based reasons. Instead, paintings were believed to have profound health effects and conducive to civic and moral behaviour.
For more information on the full programme, learning aims and assessment of the masterclass, please visit this website.
Public Lecture (open to all)
At the end of the masterclass day, Frances Gage will also give will give a public lecture that is open to everyone. In this keynote, she will present insights from her research in a talk titled: Picturing La Vecchia: Time, Gender and Aging in the Early Modern Imagination.
The lecture addresses how early modern visual culture shaped understandings of aging, gender roles, and the passage of time, offering a powerful lens through which to reflect on past and present ideas of the body and mind.
Date: 4 June 2025
Time: 16:00-17:30
Location: University of Groningen, Academy Building, A7
The lecture is open to all, no registration needed!
