Pat Simons Lecture

Art Historian Patricia Simons from Melbourne, Australia held a lecture at USF on January 29th. Her lecture focused on the iconology of men in past paintings. It was quite an interesting, and witty, lecture. It was very educational and entertaining. She introduced different works and pointed out several things that represent for certain actions or objects. For example, a ladle would actually represent a phallus and any movement that creates friction would represent “heat” or a sexual act. It was interesting how the paintings were supposed to be decorative and innocent objects to embellish a wealth family’s room when the actual painting was secretly suggestive. I kept thinking about the outcome if the family who paid for the painting knew what they were buying, or if they knew at all. It was interesting to see different works from artists I have learned about in my art history class too.
Pat Simons seemed like a reserved lady, so it was shocking to find out that most, if not all, of her research was about sexual meanings in paintings, and how they shaped the men of that time. There were also certain things in the paintings that represented certain slang words in Italian during that time. It was cool to see how even though the slangs have clearly changed throughout time there are still resources that provide definitions to the slangs, kind of like a slang dictionary. If Patricia Simons were to come back to USF to give a lecture, I would definitely stay and listen to her.