Painting as a medium of freedom

The DAAD-University of Cambridge Research Hub for German Studies is proud to present the seventh in an annual series of lectures in conjunction with the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) presenting the work of their Leibniz Prize winners.

The Leibniz Prizes are the highest distinction in German academic life, and we are delighted to welcome Professor Johannes Grave, who will be giving a lecture on ‘Painting as a medium of freedom’ at 5.30pm on 11 May, in the Trinity Hall Lecture Theatre.

Unlike films or concerts, paintings allow considerable freedom in terms of the time span and sequence in which they are viewed. This flexibility can be used to enable experiences of freedom that can perhaps only be gained from pictures. However, such a consideration presupposes that the amount of time we spend contemplating a picture is neither irrelevant nor arbitrary. The lecture outlines this idea with some theoretical considerations and illustrates it with examples from very different periods: Giovanni Bellini and Eugène Delacroix.

Johannes Grave is a German art historian and has been Professor of Modern Art History (with a focus on European Romantics) at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena since 2019. Prior to this he held positions at Basel, Bielefeld and Paris. He was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 2020 and has been Vice President of the DFG since 2023.

After studying art history, Medieval Latin philology, medieval history and philosophy at the University of Freiburg and obtaining his doctorate at the University of Jena, he completed his habilitation in 2012 at the Faculty of Philosophy and History at the University of Basel. Since then, he has combined his work in research and teaching with his roles as an editor, active as co-editor of Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte and of the Franco-German journal Regards croisés. Revue franco-allemande d’histoire de l’art, d’esthétique et de littérature and as co-curator in major exhibition projects. Most recently, he contributed to the exhibition ‘Caspar David Friedrich. Art for a New Age’ at the Hamburger Kunsthalle (2023/24) and to the project ‘Caspar David Friedrich, Goethe and Romanticism in Weimar’ at the Schiller Museum in Weimar (2024/25). His most recent publications ‘Freiheit? Eugène Delacroix, die Revolution von 1830 und die Politik der Bilder‘ and a co-edition of ‘Caspar David Friedrich: Sämtliche Briefe und Schriften’, were published in 2024. In 2025, he became spokesperson of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Imaginamics: Practices and Dynamics of Social Imagining’ in Jena.

Introductory remarks will be made by the DAAD Hub’s Director, Professor Chris Young, and Dr. Jörn Achterberg, Programme Director of International Affairs at the DFG. There will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the lecture. We would be delighted if you could join us for what promises to be a very informative occasion.

The event will take place at 5.30pm on 11 May in the Trinity Hall Lecture Theatre (Trinity Ln, Cambridge CB2 1TJ) followed by a drinks reception.

The DFG is the central self-governing research funding organisation in Germany. The DFG serves the sciences and humanities and promotes research of the highest quality in all its forms and disciplines at universities and non-university research institutions. The focus is on funding projects developed by the academic community itself in the area of knowledge-driven research. The DFG endows various research prizes, including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize.

Please be aware that photographs of the event will be taken. If you would not like to be photographed, please make yourself known to us at the event.

Photo © Anne Günther, FSU Jena

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Katherine Ross