Clark Art Hosts Talk on Ruben's Dionysian Environments

07:42AM / Wednesday, February 18, 2026Print Story | Email Story

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.

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Mount Greylock School Committee Hears Budget Requests, Pressures

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:32AM / Wednesday, February 18, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee Thursday heard the final rounds of fiscal year 2027 budget requests and heard why those — or any — discretionary increases in spending will be difficult in the year that begins July 1.

Williamstown Elementary Principal Benjamin Torres and middle-high school Principal Jake Schutz each presented the spending priorities formulated by their respective school councils. The requests followed a presentation by Lanesborough Elementary Principal Nolan Pratt at the January meeting.

Superintendent Joseph Bergeron then told the School Committee that state and federal aid to the district is going to be slightly lower than FY26 and reminded the panel that the district spent the last two years spending down its reserve accounts, as requested by the member towns, to the point where those reserves — School Choice, tuition and excess and deficiency — cannot be applied to the operating budget.

"Spending the exact same amount of money from this year to next year — that alone will mean a 4 percent increase [in appropriations] to each of our towns," Bergeron said. "That's the baseline on top of which everything else will happen.

"We know we're seeing an 8.75 percent increase in health insurance, but we also have an increasing number of employees who are taking our health insurance, so that health insurance line is increasing substantially. When it comes to out-of-district tuition as well as transportation, both of those are seeing marked increases as well."

District staff and the School Committee will further refine its FY27 budget over the next five weeks, with a budget workshop scheduled for Tuesday, March 3, and a public hearing and final budget vote on March 19.

The district's appropriations to Williamstown and Lanesborough, which each pay a proportional share of the prekindergarten-Grade 12 district's operating expenses, will face an up-or-down vote at each town's annual meeting, in May and June, respectively.

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