Several students from Missouri State University’s Department of Art and Design assisted with the Springfield Art Museum’s special exhibition, “Renaissance Works on Parchment and Paper.”

The students conducted research and developed written descriptions to focus on individual objects or thematic elements.

Professor of art history Dr. Mitzi Kirkland-Ives will discuss the exhibit June 6, 2024, from 6-7 p.m. at the museum.

The exhibit is on view April 20-Sept. 1. It is free and open to the public.

Exhibit highlights historical “information-technology” shifts

Kirkland-Ives guest-curated the exhibit, selecting items from the museum’s collection to document the transition from manuscript production to the dawn of printing press technology.

“The exhibit focuses on an information-technology shift and some aspects of how both script/typography and visual imagery adapted to the new formats possible during the advent of mass reproduction,” Kirkland-Ives said.

Exhibit visitors will encounter visual elements of fifteen printed images—woodblock prints, engravings, and one etching—by German masters of the sixteenth century, including several works by Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach the Elder.

The exhibition provides a historical overview of how these works were produced—tools, equipment, and style—and covers a range of other subject matter.

“A half dozen examples of texts produced using the early printing press in several languages and typefaces are also included—early Bibles and other texts—and a number of leaves from medieval manuscripts on parchment as examples of the range of scripts and approaches to ornamentation seen in the unique hand-produced works of earlier centuries,” Kirkland–Ives said.

Kirkland-Ives wants viewers to consider contemporary issues in parallel with the development of print in Renaissance times, especially major changes in information technology, such as the internet and artificial intelligence (AI).

She hopes the exhibit encourages visitors to think about “big fundamental changes in how we get our information, whose voices can be heard, and how we negotiate, basically, questions of media literacy, legitimacy and authority.”

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