An account of Michael Fried’s Group discussion with FLUL’s PhD Students from Art History and Theory of Literature

Abstract

The modernist Art critic and Art historian Michael Fried was the fi rst invited speaker to the Lisbon Lectures in the Humanities, promoted by the School of Humanities of the University of Lisbon. Before presenting his conference ‘Facingness Meets Mindedness: On Manet’s Luncheon in the Studio and The Balcony’ regarding two paintings by Édouard Manet, Fried was also present in a fruitful group discussion with PhD students from Art History and Theory of Literature. The Art History doctoral candidates were able to present their questions, prepared beforehand in work sessions with Professor Pedro Lapa, regarding Professor Fried’s extensive body of work. By focusing mainly on his views as a critic, these notes by no means exhaust the matter, and will surely be followed by more in-depth incursions of it. Many other matters came up during this discussion, such as Michael Fried’s historical investigations into Courbet, Manet, Caravaggio, and others. This brief account intends to give notice of this session and share it with the academic community, divulging Michael Fried’s coming to Portugal and his ideas.