Clark Art Hosts Talk on Ruben's Dionysian Environments

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — On Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 5:30 pm, the Clark Art Institute's Research and Academic Program presents a lecture by Jesús Muñoz Morcillo (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology / Michael Ann Holly Fellow) examining Peter Paul Rubens's use of Dionysian and materialistic traditions, focusing on their connection to nature and their impact on environmental depictions.

The talk takes place in the Manton Research Center auditorium.

According to a press release:

It has been said that Rubens's visual references to Dionysian motifs are related to his stay in Rome in the years 1600 to 1608. However, Rubens's compositions of wet, wild, and vibrant environments surrounding Bacchic scenes transcend visual references to plastic archetypes. Indeed, Rubens seems to draw on specific ancient sources, including not only Dionysian descriptions found in authors such as Euripides, Propertius, or Nonnos of Panopolis but also Epicurean natural philosophy. An ecocritical comparison of Rubens's Bacchic motifs with landscape paintings aims to clarify whether his "entanglements" of myth and nature may have stood closer to a materialist tradition than a stoic awareness of the natural world, as is frequently assumed.

Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524. A 5 pm reception in the Manton Research Center reading room precedes the event. For more information, visit events.clarkart.edu.

Reminder to Lanesborough, Williamstown Voters: Mount Greylock School Committee a 'Write-In' Election

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
10:03AM / Friday, October 30, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Politicians and pundits in recent years have been preaching patience when it comes to getting election night results.

 

That usually means places like California, where vote-counting can be complicated or Michigan, where razor thin margins are anticipated.

 

Add Williamstown and Lanesborough to that list.

 

It is not a matter of pre-election polling suggesting particularly tight races; there is no such polling. Rather, it is a question of how voters will be making their selections in the race for the Mount Greylock Regional School District Committee.

 

None of the six candidates who qualified for four seats up for grabs on the panel appear on the ballots that have been mailed out, used in early voting or will be distributed at the polls on Nov. 3.

 

That means that all votes will be cast as write-ins, and that means it will take significantly longer for election workers to tally up votes in the local election once the polls close at 8 p.m. at Lanesborough Town Hall and Williamstown Elementary School.

 

As always, voters in both towns vote for all four seats on the ballot: two seats for Lanesborough residents and two for Williamstown residents in this year’s balloting.