Joseph Koerner, Jorie Graham, with Peter Sacks: Bosch, Bruegel, and the Depiction of Extreme Conditions.

One of the world’s top art historians, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, and an accomplished painter will team up for an enthralling exploration of art and the extreme conditions of life. Renowned art historian and Senior Fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard, Joseph Koerner’s latest is Bosch and Bruegel: From Enemy Art to Everyday Life. This gorgeous work has been described as magisterial, gripping, erudite, and shatteringly poetic by a variety of enthusiastic critics. Koerner argues that Bosch, whose paintings depict contempt for the world and the apocalyptic folly of human existence, conceived of everyday life as “enemy territory.” Bruegel portrays all the same pitfalls, but shows the enemy isn’t diabolical. It’s human folly that undoes us. These two artists invented “genre” painting and paved the way to modern art. Koerner packs his work with details that underscore the social and political relevance of art in his analysis of painting in a “state of emergency.” Pulitzer Prize winner and Harvard Professor Jorie Graham will begin this session with a piece from her new volume of poems, Fast, which, while deeply personal, also reminds us of our interconnectedness in the face of environmental, social and political crisis. Moderator Peter Sacks, Professor of English at Harvard, author of five books of poetry, and an internationally recognized painter whose work blends myth, memory, and history, will tie together a fascinating session on art and meaning-making in the extreme conditions of life in a discussion with the two authors. This session is generously sponsored by the John and Cynthia Reed Foundation.