Scholarship: British Archaeological Association travel scholarship to April 2020 Romanesque Conference, Hildesheim, deadline 15 November 2019

The British Archaeological Association has a limited number of scholarships for their 2020 Romanesque Conference in Hildesheim. These scholarships are aimed towards students studying Early Medieval Art History/Archaeology or Architecture, especially those studying Romanesque.

Send a short CV & referee details to jsmcneill@btinternet.com or rplant62@hotmail.com by 15th November 2019.

More information about the conference:

The Year 1000 in Romanesque Art and Architecture

Date(s): 14 – 16 Apr 2020

Venue: Hildesheim, Germany

The British Archaeological Association will hold the sixth in its biennial International Romanesque conference series in conjunction with the Dommuseum in Hildesheim on 14-16 April, 2020. The theme is Romanesque and the Year 1000, and the aim is to examine transformations in the art and architecture of the Latin Church around
the turn of the millennium. The Conference will take place at the Cathedral Museum in Hildesheim, with the opportunity to stay on for two days of visits to Romanesque monuments on 17-18 April. The 30 years to either side of the year 1000 witnessed remarkable developments in iconography and stylistic expression. It saw portable devotional statues come into being, the revival of bronze-casting, the reemergence of architectural relief sculpture, and the application of novel, or at least re-understood, architectural forms. In addition to the above, individual papers are concerned with the impact of objects from the Carolingian past and Byzantine present, royal patronage, monastic reform, the organization of scriptoria, ‘authorship’, changes in representational strategies, and regional affiliation.

Speakers include Marcello Angheben, Claude Andrault-Schmitt, Michael Brandt, Jordi Camps, Hugh Doherty, Eric Fernie, Shirin Fozi, Barbara Franzé, Richard Gem, Agata Gomolka, Lindy Grant, Cecily Hennessy, Wilfried Keil, Sophie Kelly, Bruno Klein, Florian Meunier, Jesús Rodríguez Viejo, Tobias Schoo, Markus Späth, Béla Zsolt Szakács, Elizabeth Valdez del Álamo, Eliane Vergnolle, Michele Vescovi, Rose Walker, and Tomasz Weclawowicz

Found out more here: https://thebaa.org/event/hildesheim/

CFP: ‘Working Materials and Materials at Work in Medieval Art and Architecture’, 25th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium, The Courtauld Institute of Art, 7 February 2020, deadline 22 November 2019

Materials mattered in the Middle Ages. Only with the right materials could artists produce works of art of the highest quality, from jewel-encrusted crosses, gilded and enamelled chalices and ivory plaques to large-scale tapestries, wooden stave churches and stone cathedrals. This conference seeks to explore the qualities and properties of materials for the people who sourced, crafted and used them.

A critical examination of the physical aspect of materials, including stone, wood, metal, jewels, and textiles, can lead art historians to a deeper understanding of objects and their context. Medieval materials did not function as frictionless vehicles for immaterial meaning: materials, their sourcing, trade and manufacture all contributed to the reception and value of the object. In the vein of scholars like Michael Baxandall (The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany, 1980) and more recently Paul Binski (Gothic Sculpture, 2019), this conference asks participants to ground their papers in the messy realities of crafting materials, and to situate the object and its materials within a network of social, political and economic factors.

The Courtauld Institute of Art’s 25th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium invites speakers to build out from the object and consider the ways in which physical materials were used, manipulated and interpreted by craftspeople, patrons and audiences throughout the medieval world (understood in its broadest geographical and chronological terms). The colloquium encourages contributions from a range of backgrounds including but not limited to the art historical, technical, scientific and economic. Speakers are invited to consider the following and related questions:

Sourcing and Trade

  • What economic factors determined the value of medieval materials?
  • How did geography and trade impact the availability and use of materials?
  • How and in what quantities were materials sourced and did that affect the form and function of the art object?
  • How was the quality of materials determined and controlled?
  • Was trade in certain materials restricted to certain classes or groups of people?

Crafting and Making

  • How did the physical and technical requirements of working with different media shape objects for artists and how attuned were viewers to those requirements?
  • What technical virtuosity and experience did different materials demand and how did craftspeople learn and pass on these skills?
  • Did technical virtuosity affect the value of the object?
  • What do we know of the tools craftspeople used? Were the same tools used in different places and in different periods? What effect does this have on the use and shape of materials?
  • Medieval craftsmen occasionally manipulated certain materials to resemble others. Was this process of imitation always obvious to medieval viewers and how did they interpret this?

Function and Manipulation

  • How did the spaces or locations for which objects were intended shape the choice of materials?
  • Did the function of an object determine the materials of which it was made?
  • Were certain materials more attractive to certain patrons than others and why?
  • Do some medieval objects reveal deliberate references to their facture?
  • How did different materials cater to each of the senses?
  • Did materials always matter – is there a competitive/contested relationship between material reality and immaterial imagination?

The colloquium offers an opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the United Kingdom and abroad to present, discuss and promote their research. To apply, please send a proposal of up to 250 words for a twenty-minute paper, together with a CV, to Harry.Prance@courtauld.ac.uk, Nicholas.Flory@courtauld.ac.uk and Charlotte.Wytema@courtauld.ac.uk no later than 22 November 2019.

New Publication: Alfonso X of Castile-León: Royal Patronage, Self-Promotion and Manuscripts in Thirteenth-century Spain, by Kirstin Kennedy

Alfonso X ‘the Learned’ of Castile (1252–1284) was praised in his lifetime as a king who devoted himself to discovering all worldly and divine knowledge. He commissioned chronicles and law codes and composed poems to the Virgin Mary, he gathered together Jewish scholars to translate works of Arab astrology and astronomy, and he founded a university of Latin and Arabic studies at Seville. Moreover, according to his nephew Juan Manuel, Alfonso was careful to ensure that ‘he had leisure to look into things he wanted for himself’. The level of his personal involvement in this literary activity marks him out as an exceptional patron in any period. However, Alfonso’s relationship with the arts also had much in common with that of other thirteenth-century European royal patrons, among them his first cousin, Louis IX of France. Like his contemporaries, he relentlessly used literary works as a vehicle to promote his royal status and advance his claim to the imperial crown. His motivation for the foundation of the university at Seville was arguably political rather than educational, and instead of promoting institutional learning during his reign, Alfonso preferred to direct the messages about his kingship in the lavish manuscripts he patronized to a restricted, courtly audience. Yet such was the interest of the works he commissioned, that those who could obtain copies did so, even if these were still incomplete drafts. Three codices traditionally held to have been copied for Alfonso in fact show how this learning reserved for the few began to filter out beyond the Learned King’s immediate circle.

Kirstin Kennedy is a curator of metalwork (specializing in silver) at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She previously held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at King’s College London, in the Department of Spanish and Spanish American Studies (2000–2003).

Please click here for more information.

Study Day: BAA Tower of London Study Day, Saturday November 2nd, 2019

The British Archaeological Association Study Day at the Tower of London will enable us to look closely at some recent research, both historical and archaeological, to learn about curating practices and restoration of wall paintings at the tower, and to explore spaces that are often closed to the public.

Provisional programme:

11:30 Introduction (Sally Dixon-Smith)

12:30 Byward Tower Wall Painting (Group A) with Jane Spooner

12:30 Resent Research on the Historic Residential Accommodation at Tower Green (Group B) with Agnieszka Sadraei

1:00 Byward Tower Wall Painting (Group B) with Jane Spooner

1:00 Resent Research on the Historic Residential Accommodation at Tower Green (Group A) with Agnieszka Sadraei

1:30 Introduction to the Royal Lodgings Jeremy Ashbee
1:45 Independent Lunch Break and time to explore
3:00 Chapel of St John and White Tower with Jeremy Ashbee 3:45 Chapel of St Peter with Jessica Barker (in two groups)

Places for the Study Day are limited to 20, of which up to 10 are reserved for students.

The cost of the day will be £40 for members. The fee includes a ticket for the Tower of London. The event is free for students, for whom travel grants (to a maximum of £50) are also available.

To apply please e-mail studydays@thebaa.org – by September 20th, 2019.

Please state in the email whether you are a member of the BAA or a student.

All names will be entered into a ballot for the study day and the successful applicants will be notified by September 23rd.

New Book: Flamboyant Architecture and Medieval Technicality: The Rise of Artistic Consciousness at the End of Middle Ages (c. 1400 – c. 1530), Jean-Marie Guillouët

Flamboyant Architecture and Medieval Technicality: The Rise of Artistic Consciousness at the End of Middle Ages (c. 1400 – c. 1530)

By Jean-Marie Guillouët

xviii + 200 p., 70 b/w ills, 43 colour ill., 216 x 280 mm, 2019

ISBN 978-2-503-57729-6

More Info: http://bit.ly/2lB7Y76

This book seeks to further our understanding of the socio-genesis of artistic modernity by turning to microhistory. It explores a late-medieval decorative procedure that emerged and spread in northern and central France from the early fifteenth century to the start of the following century. Using the well-known miniature, the Building of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem from the fifteenth-century codex of Les Antiquités judaïques as a starting point, this study deals with architecture and technical knowledge of builders. This investigation unpacks and reveals many aspects of the technical and visual culture of late medieval craftsmen and artists. The virtuosic skills these artisans displayed are worthy of inclusion in the development of technical practices of Flamboyant Gothic architecture. They also reflect broader cultural and social configurations, which go far beyond the history of building. This micro-historical perspective on what can be called “hyper-technical” Gothic contributes to our appreciation of the role of technical mastery in establishing social hierarchies and artistic individuation processes during the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern period.

Jean-Marie Guillouët was trained at the Sorbonne (Paris-IV) where he began his teaching career. Since 2002, he is a professor at the University of Nantes and was also in charge of the Medieval Studies section of the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA), between 2008 and 2012. His principal field is fourteenth- and fifteenth-century sculpture and architecture in France and Portugal, but he also works on artistic and cultural interchanges in Gothic Europe. He has recently published several studies relating to microarchitecture in flamboyant Gothic and late medieval construction techniques as well as several books and papers on artistic production of the Late Middle Ages with a particular focus on sculpture and architecture. He is currently working on the social and cultural history of the technical gesture in late medieval craftsmanship. Since 2016, he is the scientific secretary of the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art (CIHA).

Table of Contents

Introduction

  1. TechnicalSavoir-Faireas Historical Topic
    Observations on a well-known Illumination
    Nantes, Tours and the Master of the Munich Boccaccio
    Representation of a technical Gesture and Jean Fouquet’s Heritage
    A French 15th-Century sculptural savoir-faire
    Late Medieval Gothic Building Sites and Technical Innovations
    First Conclusions
  2. Slate Inlay: A Technical History
    Functional Constraints
    Hollowed out blocks for Inlay
    The Practice of Preparatory Tracing
    Installation in the Archivolts
    An Operational Change at the Beginning of the 15th Century
    An Interruption in the History of Technique: Auxerre
    The Consequences of a new stereotomic System
    Choices of Stone Types
    Conclusions on Implementation
  3. Social History of a Skill
    Traces and Remains of a Valued Procedure
    The Practical Geometry of a Building Site at the End of the Middle Ages and its Tools
    The Tools and their Uses
    The Prevalence of the Square
    The insignological Uses of the Compass
    The Incisions at Tours and Rouen as Illustrations of Construction Practices
    Workers with Stone: social History of a Technique
    Masons and Sculptors
    Stone-cutters and Carvers of Images
    The Socio-Professional Distinction of the Creators of the Canopies – the Case of Bourges
    Technical One-upmanship and Informal Hierarchies at a Building Site
  4. Microarchitecture and Represented Space
    Architecture and Represented Space
    Towards 1400 in Central/Middle France: a Rupture
    Microarchitecture as a Locus
    Slate Inlay and the Depth of Fictive Space
    Baldachins, Canopies and Late-Medieval Sacral Regimes
    Monumental Syntax toward “Architectural Wit”
  5. Virtuosity,Varietasand Captatio benevolentiae
    Slate or Glass Insertion, Admiratio and Varietas
    Material and Colour Contrasts during the Late Middle Ages
    An Incunabula of c. 1400
    Slate Inlay as a “Technology of Enchantment”
    Late Gothic Art: A Hyper-Technical Cultural Regime
  6. Conclusion

Bibliography

Colour Plates

CFP: Enclosures: Women’s Religious Art and the Boundaries of Method, International Medieval Congress, Leeds 2020, deadline 10 September 2019

This panel seeks to explore new methodologies for studying the art of women’s religious communities in global and cross-cultural perspective from about 500 to 1525 CE. 

In the last few decades years, art historians have put women back on the map of European medieval art history. Harnessing the second-wave feminism, scholars, such as Caroline Walker Bynum and Madeline H. Caviness, paved the way for this radical shift. The generation that followed, most influentially Jeffrey Hamburger, has consolidated the study of the art and architecture of female monasticism, as manifested in the landmark exhibition of Crown and Veil (Essen and Bonn, 2005). In the process, art historians expanded our knowledge of the role of religious women as makers, commissioners, and recipients of art. The corpus of works of art has exponentially enlarged, fully encompassing the range of media engaged in women’s religious life, including objects previously relegated to margins of art history as crafts. To do so, art historians have employed a variety of methodologies, using interdisciplinary approaches. 

Now, it is time to refresh the methodological foundations and broaden the scope of inquiry of this field. To this end, we invite speakers working on topics of the art of religious women and communities in any cultural, religious, and geographic context. In particular, we encourage the submission of papers that examines the methodological challenges and/or engage in innovative approaches in the field. 

Potential questions may include, but are not limited to: 

  • New insights into the role women’s religious communities played in the production and commission of art.
  • Is the art of female monasticism a productive category of inquiry? If so, what can we learn from examining medieval art through this lens and what are its boundaries? If not, what are the other venues for studying the art of religious women?
  • What new venues do interdisciplinary collaborations open up for the study of female monastic art?
  • Do we need to reassess gender-specific approaches to the art of women’s religious communities in light of recent scholarship on gender?
  • What lessons might be learned from examining other cultural and religious traditions? What methods have proven productive in examining non-Christian/non-Western cultural and religious communities?
  • Case studies of inter-religious and/or inter-cultural exchange, interchange, influences, and entanglement among women’s religious communities
  • Are there media specific to or preferred by female audience? Are there any of these universal?
  • New technological/digital approaches to studying the art of women’s religious communities 

The session seeks to provide a forum for scholars at different career stages, across different art historical geographies. This session, we hope, will foster a dialogue across regions and religions of women’s religious communities, providing a fertile ground for discussion 

We invite interested applicants to submit a 250 word abstract and a short c.v. to Kristina Potuckova (kristina.potuckova@yale.edu) and Orsolya Mednyánszky (omednyanszky@jhu.edu) by September 10, 2019. 

CFP: Prologues in Learned Texts of Medieval Magic, Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (Kalamazoo 2020, Deadline 15th September 2019)

1.  Prologues in Learned Texts of Medieval Magic

Deadline for abstracts: 15 Sept 2019

Although the prologues of learned books of magic could take many forms, nearly all share at least one common characteristic: the claim to transmit a secret and pristine branch of knowledge. Such claims are frequently couched in the form of a narrative describing how this secret knowledge was originally revealed. Many employ the same actors (Hermes Trismegistus, King Solomon, Aristotle), the same objects (a tablet or disk made of precious material and inscribed with divine wisdom), and the same locations (a hidden cavern or lost pagan temple). These narratives helped to establish the authority of their texts, broadcast their affiliation with specific discourses, and signal how they should be read. Moreover, the prologues served to highlight the erudition of their authors through the use of classical and biblical references and often sophisticated word-play.

The aim of this session is to explore these still largely understudied prologues which testify to the variety of medieval approaches to “magic”. What do these prologues have to tell us about the institutional, cultural, and political milieux in which they were produced? How do certain recurring mythemes found in these prologues stand in relation to the various magical and divinatory arts, specifically those classified as natural or demonic? And to which philosophical, mystical, or religious beliefs do they appeal in order to justify the magical practices that they introduce?

Other potential topics relating to magical prologues include, but are not limited to

— the rhetoric of authority and the relation between power and secret knowledge

— the intersection of diverse intellectual traditions

— the continuity and reception of the Classical Tradition

— the appropriation of Jewish and Arabic traditions

— the relation between the tropes and mythemes found in magical prologues and those in other literary genres, such as prophecies and romances

— the assimilation of philosophical and medical texts

— the use of the Bible and biblical traditions

— philological and text-critical studies of magical prologues.

Please send your proposals to vajra.regan@mail.utoronto.ca by 15 September 2019.

More information here: http://manuscriptevidence.org/wpme/2020-international-congress-on-medieval-studies-call-for-papers/

Contact: Vajra Regan: vajra.regan@mail.utoronto.ca

Conference Programme: Women and Violence in the Late Medieval Mediterranean, ca. 1100-1500, 27 September 2019

The last decades have witnessed an increased interest in research on the relationship between women and violence in the Middle Ages, with new works both on female criminality and on women as victims of violence. The contributions of gender theory and feminist criminology have renewed the approached used in this type of research. Nevertheless, many facets of the complex relationship between women and violence in medieval times still await to be explored in depth. This conference aims to understand how far the roots of modern assumptions concerning women and violence may be found in the late medieval Mediterranean, a context of intense cultural elaboration and exchange which many scholars have indicated as the cradle of modern judicial culture. While dialogue across the Mediterranean was constant in the late Middle Ages, occasions for comparative discussion remain rare for modern-day scholars, to the detriment of a deeper understanding of the complexity of many issues. Thus, we encourage specialists of different areas across the Mediterranean (Western Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic world) to contribute to the discussion. What were the main differences and similarities? How did these change through time? What were the causes for change? Were coexisting assumptions linking femininity and violence conflicting or collaborating?

The conference will take place over two days thanks to the generous contributions of The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, the Maison Française d’Oxford, and the UMR Orient- Mediterranée Monde Byzantin.

Keynote speakers
Professor Carol Lansing (UC Santa Barbara)
Professor Élisabeth Malamut (Université de Provence)
Conclusion by Professor Annick Peters-Custot (Université de Nantes)

This event is free. To secure your place, please register here.

Job: Project curator for the British Museum’s exhibition on Thomas Becket

Vacancy for Project Curator: Becket

Project Curator: Becket
Britain, Europe and Prehistory
Full time
Fixed term (14 months in duration)
£25,285 per annum

Application deadline:  13 September 2019 by noon

 

The British Museum is seeking to recruit a Project Coordinator to support the Becket exhibition project team, working closely with the Lead Curators in the development and delivery of the exhibition and publication.

Key areas of responsibility:

  • To work as a core member of the Project Team, assisting the Lead Curators and Project Manager as well as liaising with other key internal stakeholders.
  • To manage and file project documentation and correspondence. To obtain necessary information on loans (dimensions, special condition requirements, credit lines and copyright) through liaising with lenders and International and Departmental loans officers.
  • To compile and manage a digital database with object list and images.
  • To track and monitor the movement of BM objects for the exhibition between departments (such as conservation and photography).
  • To assist the Lead Curators with background research, picture research and picture acquisition for the exhibition and publication, and to coordinate new photography and manage photographic orders.

Person specification:

With a degree in relevant subject, the successful candidate will have demonstrable museum experience, project experience and research experience. They will be an excellent communicator at all levels and a team player who thrives on challenge. They will be adaptable, resourceful, imaginative, with ability to assess priorities and meet deadlines. They will have high proficiency in Microsoft Office including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and managing digital imagery.

Salary: £25,285 per annum
Location: London

Further details: https://bmrecruit.ciphr-irecruit.com//templates/CIPHR/jobdetail_1758.aspx 

Research: On image copyright

Many followers of this blog doubtless struggle to obtain images for study, teaching and publication. Here are two recent and important contributions to the debate.

Kate Rudy considers the true costs of research and publishing in THE

An editorial in The British Art Journal (XX: 1) weighs in on the question of museums and copyright law in the UK (page 1 and page 2)

For OpenGLAM‘s list of institutions offering free access to images click here

What are your experiences?