The study of art history has long dealt with fragments and processes of fragmentation. Illuminated manuscripts and illustrated books in particular may have their fragments and folia fugitiva—pieces of material—separated from a whole collection or corpus. Many thousands of drawings and miniatures are dispersed around the world, including those donated to the National Gallery of Art by Lessing J. Rosenwald.
The adoption of open-access online collections has enabled new avenues for study. Open digital frameworks promise to bring new data and new attention to these objects and to ask critical questions about their provenance and conservation.
This conference will discuss fragments and frameworks, actual and conceptual, in art history and related disciplines, and address emerging questions in digital humanities. What kinds of afterlives are incurred by processes of fragmentation and cutting? How does the concept of the frame or framework inform the study of illuminated manuscripts and illustrated books? How does the concept of (digital) remediation inform our approach to these works?
Find out more here.
Advance registration required.
Conference Programme:
Morning Session: 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. (EDT)
Steven Nelson, The Center, National Gallery of Art: Welcome
Matthew J. Westerby, moderator, The Center, National Gallery of Art
Catherine Yvard, Victoria and Albert Museum: Framing the Gaze: Some Thoughts on Illuminated Manuscripts and Cuttings
Cristina Dondi, Lincoln College, University of Oxford, and Secretary of CERL: Books as Fragments of Libraries—Illustrations as Fragments of Books: A Digital Illustrated Census of Dante’s Comedia (1481)
John Delaney and Michelle Facini, National Gallery of Art: Collaborative Technical Study and a Machine Learning Future for Illuminated Manuscripts
Bryan Keene, Riverside City College: Encompassing the Globe: Digital Scholarship and Virtual Reconstructions of Illuminated Manuscripts
Afternoon Session: 2:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m. (EDT)
Peter M. Lukehart, moderator, The Center, National Gallery of Art: Welcome and introduction
Lisa Fagin Davis, Medieval Academy of America: Medieval Fragments and Modern Fragmentology
LauraLee Brott, University of Wisconsin–Madison: The Materiality of Medieval Maps in the Age of Digital Discovery
Heather Bamford, George Washington University: Out of Practice, Uncertain Cultures
Matthew J. Westerby, The Center, National Gallery of Art: Frameworks for Fragments: The Digital Lives of Miniatures
Medieval Art Research 