Art can take the breath away. But does breathing play a role in our response to works of art – to pictures, poems, music – even when silent, unnoticed, unconscious? How are breath and artistic experience entangled?

Exploring art and empathy, Peter Garratt from the Department of English Studies will discuss Vernon Lee (1856-1935), an influential writer and critic who crossed the divide between Victorian and Modernist culture, and whose remarkable experimental investigations suggestively linked respiration with aesthetic form.

This relaxed evening talk will take place in the Courtyard Café and will include free refreshments. Please ensure that you book in advance: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/art-empathy-and-breath-tickets-57502466425 

Image credit: Vernon Lee (1881) by John Singer Sargent. Photo © Tate, under CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0: www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/sargent-vernon-lee-n04787