Fig 1.

Catherine Dossin wearing her Mondrian earrings

Catherine Dossin Finding Humanity

Through Art History
Music link: Once Upon a Time in Paris
Catherine's favorite song to listen to in her office

To many people art exists in black and white photos, in dry textbooks, or on museum walls to gather dust, but to Catherine

Dossin paintings are very much alive. Her eyes glowed as she recounted the experience of seeing her first André Derain painting

in person. She stumbled upon the exhibit in Copenhagen by accident the day before it closed and desperately reached out to the

only other woman in the gallery for a picture in front of it using her fuzzy flip phone camera. Catherine finds the same thrill in

getting to see art as other people get by meeting their favorite celebrity. Both kinds of sightings are equally rare. The Louvre

alone holds 550,000 artworks and only 35,000 are regularly on display. Paintings lost in museum archives occasionally surface for
air, only to disappear with the brevity and excitement of a whale sighting, and Catherine pursues those moments of discovery

with unmatched passion and enthusiasm.

Catherine Dossin is a professor of Art History at Purdue and single-handedly teaches all the Modern and Contemporary art

courses. In class Catherine has an air of quiet elegance with fashion to match. She never fails to wear a polished pantsuit or

tailored jacket with a solid color turtleneck or blouse. The first time I saw her in class her presence reminded me of Jackie

Kennedy; the only difference was her noticeable French accent. Despite her typically monochrome clothing, I could see colorful

Mondrian earrings tucked behind her wavy dark hair. When I met with her in our interview I saw her face for the first time and

was surprised by the wide genuine smile that was hidden under her mask. As we talked I got a strong feeling that this was

someone who truly lived and breathed art history, and her quiet facade shifted as she began to rattle on at lightning speed about

her time living in France.

She grew up in the town of Deauville in Normandy, France, a beautiful 19th century resort town soaked in culture, with

architecture that witnessed the passing of more than two centuries. It has been years since she was able to visit and Catherine

misses the visual culture, the ambiance, even the smell. She developed an unconscious appreciation of art history because she

lived among it without realizing it was there. Her childhood home survived the bombing of Deaville in WWII, and it was

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normal for her to visit massive Gothic cathedrals for service on Sunday or take a weekend trip to Germany or Greece.

Catherine noted that all the buildings across the midwest look the same, while in Europe you are just a few miles away from

what looks like a different world.

Fig. 2 Catherine's hometown of Deauville in Normandy, France Fig. 3 The Sorbonne University in Paris

During her schooling, her interests were as broad as the styles of architecture surrounding her. Catherine was fascinated

by philosophy, literature, history, and Latin, and was unsure what to focus on because she did not want to let go of her

interests. While visiting Sorbonne University she picked up a flier in one of the art galleries that mentioned art history as a

degree and she realized that she finally found something that combined all of her passions. She remembered it fondly, “I

started and I was in paradise. I thought it was the best thing I had ever done! It was really silly but it was exactly what I loved.”
Although she had never studied art history Catherine plunged headfirst into her B.A. and learned as she went. My jaw

dropped as she talked about joining the Sorbonne on a whim because the very name has a mythical quality to it. As an art

history student, the Sorbonne seems larger than life and like a giant of the art world. It was an enclave established in the 12th
century where all the painting masters learned, but she could wander in and start classes easily, something I could only dream
of doing.
At the Sorbonne Catherine developed the drive, ambition, and perseverance that are a hallmark of how she approaches life
today. Unlike at colleges in the U.S. the Art History program at the Sorbonne was free, resulting in a huge number of students
adding the degree because of the low level of risk. In the U.S. students cannot afford to waste money on art history, but there
was nothing to lose in France. Her first year there were 1000 students, but by the end only 25 remained. Catherine said the

main goal of the professors was to make you feel stupid so that they could get students to leave. One professor asked to her

face why she was there and told her she would never be able to learn everything. There were only two exams per class and

those that had not given up and left by that point usually flunked out. The grading system was also set up for students to fail.

All her assignments were scored out of 20 and it was impossible to get over a 16. Catherine’s average was a 12 even after

hours of studying, and in preparatory school teachers were even known to give out negative scores. Looking back, Catherine

described the French school system's method, “They are a school for very good students. They take great students and tell

them they are stupid, and give them terrible grades.” Although it wore down on students and made for a stressful

environment, it guaranteed that the students that were left wanted to be there more than anything. Catherine said she

worked through it because she genuinely loved what she was doing and could not imagine herself anywhere else.
After listening to how hard it was to complete the program I had to ask what made her keep returning to art history. Why is
art history so important to her if it seems to have few tangible rewards? She replied that Egyptology was the first subject that
made her fall in love with art history. It introduced her to a whole new way of thinking about life through the lens of art.

Similar to the centuries-old buildings that keep history alive in the streets of Paris, the Egyptians believed that art could

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keep people's souls alive. After death Egyptians existed through their sculpture or their name. That is why when a ruler died
and a new ruler came to power they would scratch the old ruler's name off of sculpture or cut off the eyes the eyes and nose,
because it destroyed the soul of the person. Catherine summarized the philosophy, “You exist through your sculpture, you

exist through your shadow, you exist through your name. If I say your name, you exist. This is how art stays alive." This

philosophy was a key discovery that changed Catherine's perspective of art history from paintings hanging on a wall to

objects which have an active, meaningful role in culture.

Fig 4 Egyptian Sculpture with its nose cut off

Catherine believes the impact of art history is it is a way of humanizing

history and making events more than just dates on a page, “I think artists

really give us access to the life of people, of the artist, of their friends, and they
in turn give us access to people of the past. Art history is an expression of

humanity.” I asked Catherine why she thought people cared so much about

visiting museums. After a pause she replied, “We like Impressionist's paintings "We like impressionism

because they are beautiful, but also because they connect you to another time because it is beautiful,

and people.” Catherine also challenges the idea that good art has to be

but also because it

traditionally beautiful. Beautiful painting has been done for centuries, but it is
not interesting. To her, good art creates discourse. Just as Egyptians stay alive
connects us to another

through their sculpture, abstract art stays alive through conversation. People time and another

like to make fun of abstract art because they think anybody could do it, but
people"
the reality is art is supposed to make people think. In the same way religious

artwork was used for spiritual meditation, abstract painting can act as a

starting point to think outside what people normally explore. Using modern

terminology, historical artwork gives insight into humanity in the same way an
Instagram page gives access to a person. Just like how a social media profile

represents an individual or organization, historical paintings represent a

place or time through the lens of an artist.

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 The last time I met with Catherine we stopped by her office, and suddenly

everything we talked about in our previous interviews came to life in bursts

of color. She mentioned how she hated the yellow lighting and the lack of

windows, but I was too distracted by the art historian's heaven in front of me.

A large bookshelf extended all the way down the right wall and every shelf

was packed. Catherine commented sheepishly that she ran out of space on her
shelves at home and so now her office is overflowing with enough books to fill
a library. Paintings covered the walls making me turn my head in every

direction to see them all. There was not a single surface left untouched by art
history, even her screensaver proudly displayed a painting by Kandinsky. A

painting above her desktop caught my eye and I realized it matched her

Mondrian earrings. Catherine explained that her daughter made it, and as I

continued to look around I noticed more and more art pieces also by her. I

realized that Catherine's philosophy was coming full circle. She is keeping art

Fig 5 Mondrian Painting by Catherine's daughter history alive by passing it to her daughter; She is passing on the legacy and

continuing the story of humanity through art.

The ability to share what she loves is her most important goal. While talking at a conference someone told Catherine how

privileged she was and she immediately replied "Yes I am! I watch people present research papers looking so sad, but think

about it, you should be so happy. I am very very very very lucky to share what I like."

Fig 6 Catherine in her office

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