Niagara Falls, Icon of the Sublime

In her first appearance at the Fine Arts Society, Dr. McKinsey will use prints, paintings, literature, and cultural history to trace various artistic interpretations of America's most famous natural wonder, Niagara Falls.

Her interdisciplinary talk will move from the initial "discovery" of the Falls to the Eighteenth century aesthetics of the Sublime to the Nineteenth century ideas of national destiny.

She will touch on commercialization, tourism, technology, geology, natural preservation, and the honeymoon custom at the Falls. After serving as Dean of Carleton College for thirteen years, Dr. McKinsey has returned to full-time teaching of courses in American Studies. Her current research focuses on the early National Parks, which were created in part to avoid the fate of Niagara Falls.

When and where to hear this lecture: Thursday, February 9, 2012, at 10:00 A.M. at the Lakeview Museum, 1125 W. Lake Ave., Peoria, Illinois.

Other programs in the Fine Arts Society's 2011-2012 Lecture series: "Doubly Blessed: Women Artists In the Midwest, 1840-1890" with Dr. Susan Weininger, "Printing On Stone Surfaces in Late Renaissance Italy: Indestructible Art or Asthetic Innovation" with Dr. Judith Mann, "Double, Double, Toil and Trouble--Design for Shakespeare's Works" with Virgil Johnson, "Renaissance Art" with Dr. Sarah Glover, "Enchanted Isles of The Renaissance" with Jeffrey A. Nigro, "The Dead Sea Scrolls--Still Relevent?" with Dr. Martin Abegg Jr. and "French Nineteenth Century Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art Dr. Eric Denker.

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