Caroline van Eck wins Descartes-Huygens Prize
Caroline van Eck has been awarded the Descartes-Huygens Prize. She will receive the award in March 2014. The prize includes a period as a guest researcher in France. Van Eck has been awarded the prize for her excellent research and her contribution to French-Dutch collaboration.
The role of art in society
Van Eck is Professor of History and Theory of Architecture and the Visual Arts until 1800. She is the author of numerous publications on the role of rhetoric in the perception of art. Van Eck is currently studying the rhetorical and anthropological approach to the role of art in society. She is also trying to understand the human tendency to attribute a life, personality and even biography to works of art. In this context she focuses on the 18th century debate surrounding the role of sculpture in the first religions and primitive societies.
Conducting research in Paris
The Descartes-Huygens Prize, amounting to 23,000 euros, is intended for a period as a guest researcher in France. The prize makes it possible for Van Eck to contribute to a seminar in Paris on the architect and art theorist Gottfried Semper. The prize also gives her the opportunity to proceed with her research in Paris. She will be investigating the cross-pollination between art history, archaeology and anthropology, in particular with respect to the presentation of sculptures in Parisian museums.
(8 January 2014)