Medieval Art Research

CONF: SAH 2019 Annual International Conference (Providence, 24-28 Apr 19)

Society of Architectural Historians Annual International Conference, 2019

Providence, RI, April 24 – 28, 2019

Architectural and art historians, architects, preservationists and museum professionals from around the world will meet in Providence, R.I., April 24–28, 2019, for the 72nd Annual International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians. Over 600 SAH members will convene at the Rhode Island Convention Center to share new research on the history of the built environment and address current issues in the field in paper sessions, roundtables, workshops, and panel discussions.

Continue reading “CONF: SAH 2019 Annual International Conference (Providence, 24-28 Apr 19)”

CFP: Revolution and Revolutions in Art (Ljubljana, 12-14 Sep 19)

5th International Conference for PhD Students and Recent PhD Graduates: “Revolution and Revolutions in Art”

Deadline: Apr 15, 2019

The University of Ljubljana, The Center for Iconographic Studies, The University of Belgrade, and The University of Split, introduce their 5th International Conference for PhD students and Recent PhD graduates, Revolution and Revolutions in Art. Challenging PhD students, young researchers and scholars from different fields of humanities and social sciences, the conference seeks to address a multitude of questions, dilemmas, perspectives and problems related to the idea of revolution in art. We welcome theoretical, empirical and methodological papers addressing the theme. We also encourage different aspects and approaches and especially invite submissions that address the following topics:

Workshop: ‘Inscribing Colonialism in Fifteenth-Century Portugal’, 26 March 2019, QMUL

The next meeting of the Maius Workshop will take place on 26 March, 4:30–5:30pm, in room Law G3 at QMUL (335 Mile End Rd, London E1 4FQ). Click here for a map of the Campus.

Jessica Barker, Lecturer in Medieval History at the Courtauld Institute of Art, will lead a seminar entitled Inscribing Colonialism in Fifteenth-Century Portugal. The session will consider inscriptions, readability and visibility in funerary monuments, and their intersections with early Portuguese explorations in West Africa.

Maius is a friendly platform for informal dialogue and collaborative research. Our sessions are open to all, and research in early stages of development is especially welcome. We look forward to seeing you at this event, and please feel free to email us with ideas and suggestions for future meetings.

New Publication: Cut in Alabaster: A Material of Sculpture and its European Traditions, 1330-1530, by Kim Woods

Cut in Alabaster is the first comprehensive study of alabaster sculpture in Western Europe during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.

While marble is associated with Renaissance Italy, alabaster was the material commonly used elsewhere in Europe and has its own properties, traditions and meanings. It enjoyed particular popularity as a sculptural material during the two centuries 1330-1530, when alabaster sculpture was produced both for indigenous consumption and for export. Focussing especially on England, the Burgundian Netherlands and Spain, three territories closely linked through trade routes, diplomacy and cultural exchange, this book explores and compares the material practice and visual culture of alabaster sculpture in late medieval Europe. Cut in Alabaster charts sculpture from quarry to contexts of use, exploring practitioners, markets and functions as well as issues of consumption, display and material meanings. It provides detailed examination of tombs, altarpieces and both elite and popular sculpture, ranging from high status bespoke commissions to small, low-cost carvings produced commercially for a more popular clientele.

Kim Woods is a senior lecturer in Art History at the Open University, and a specialist in northern European late Gothic sculpture. She combines an object-based approach with an interest in materials and cultural exchange. Her single-authored book, Imported Images (Donington, 2007), focussed on wood sculpture. Since then she has been working on alabaster. Her Open University distance learning materials include the Renaissance Art Reconsidered volumes (Yale, 2007) and Medieval to Renaissance (Tate publishing, 2012).

Conference: Innovation in Stone: Medieval Stone Sculpture from the Van Horne Collection, Sam Fogg, London, April 26th, 2019

A symposium to be held in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Innovation in Stone: Medieval Stone Sculpture from the Van Horne Collection’ at Sam Fogg (April 26th, 2019; 4:00 – 6:00 pm).

The exhibition presents stone sculpture, gathered together over several decades by the New York collectors Alexandra and Charles van Horne. Formerly occupying prominent places in other well-known collections, the works reflect van Horne’s fascination with objects that bear a resemblance to modern art of the early 20th century. There are the Romanesque ‘Picassos’, Celtic ‘Modiglianis’ and ancient ‘Henry Moores,’ and a wealth of research material that visualises the links between modernism and medieval art, which modernist artists themselves emphasised.

This emphasis is also reflected in the symposium, which examines stone sculpture from the 12th-century, a time when innovation and curiosity dominated the architectural and sculptural world. There was a tension with and an awareness of the classical past and an anticipation of change, which would be realised in the Gothic period, and it is within this dichotomy that the Van Horne collection is situated. The changes to architecture and sculpture in the 12th century allowed the art of the Middle Ages to let go of its grip on the ancient past and confidently look forward to its own distinctive style. The sculpted heads and architectural fragments, presented together publicly for the first time in the accompanying exhibition, originate in some of the most innovative and influential sites of 12th- and 13th-century Europe: Cluny, Toulouse, Paris, Parthenay. Having been separated from their context, they invite us to imagine the extraordinary sites in which they were invented, and the innovative sculptors who created them.

The lectures and discussions will be followed by a drinks reception and the opening of the exhibition in the gallery on Clifford Street.

PROGRAMME:

4:00 Introduction

4:10 Medieval Sculpture in Multiples: Illuminating Riddles for the Perplexed

(Charles Little, Metropolitan Museum of Art)

4:35 Focillon’s Jongleur or How to Define Creativity in Twelfth-Century Sculpture

(Alexandra Gajewski, Burlington Magazine)

5:00 Discussion

5:10 In-conversation with Charles van Horne

5:40 Discussion

5:50 Concluding Remarks and Introduction to the Show

6:00 Drinks Reception and Exhibition Opening in Clifford Street

Please register on EVENTBRITE. Contact jana@samfogg.com for any further questions.

Conference: Scaling the Middle Ages: Size and Scale in Medieval Art, 24th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Student Colloquium, The Courtauld Institute, 8 February 2019

The Courtauld Institute of Art 24th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Student Colloquium

Scaling the Middle Ages: Size and scale in medieval art

10:00–18:00 Friday 8 February 2019 (with registration from 9:30)

Lecture Theatre 1, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Vernon Square, Penton Rise, London WC1X 9EW

Size mattered in medieval art. Whether building a grand gothic cathedral or carving a minute boxwood prayer bead, precisely how big to make it was a principal concern for medieval artists, their patrons, and audiences.

Examples of simple one-upmanship between the castles and palaces of lords and kings and the churches and cathedrals of abbots and bishops are numerous. How big to make it was a principal concern for both patrons and makers of medieval art.

Scale could be manipulated to dramatic effect in the manufacture of manuscripts and the relative disposition of elements within their decorative programmes. Divine proportions – of the Temple of Solomon or the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – were evoked in the specific measurements and configuration of contemporary buildings and decisions were made based on concern with numbers and number sequences.

Left: North elevation (detail), Sainte Chapelle, Paris (1239-1248). Right: Reliquary of Saints Maxien, Lucien, and Julien (Paris, 1261-1262) Musée nationale du Moyen Âge, Paris.

In our age of viewing through digital surrogates, the Courtauld Institute of Art’s 24th Annual Medieval Postgraduate Student Colloquium invites its speakers to consider new approaches to issues of size and relative scale in relation to the making, meanings, and study of medieval art.

The Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium offers the opportunity for research students at all levels from universities across the UK and abroad to present and promote their research.

Organised by Teresa Lane (The Courtauld Institute of Art) and Oliver Mitchell (The Courtauld Institute of Art) with the generous support of Michael Carter and the Consortium for Arts and Humanities in South-East England.

Programme: Scaling the Middle Ages: Size and scale in medieval art

9:30-10:00 Registration – Front hall

10:00-10:10 Welcome – Teresa Lane & Oliver Mitchell (The Courtauld Institute of Art)

SESSION 1: ARCHITECTURAL MINIATURES Chaired by Giosue Fabiano (The Courtauld Institute of Art)

10:10-10:30 Sylvia Alvares-Correa (University of Oxford): The use of architecture in a 15th century panorama of the Passion of Christ in Jerusalem: structuring composition or ideology?

10:30-10:50 Niko Munz (University of York): Architectural ventriloquism in pre-Eyckian panel painting

10:50-11:10 Antonella Ventura (Independent scholar) Playing with scales: Relationships between monumental architectures and reliquary structures in Umbria and Apulia in the fourteenth century

11:10-11:30 Discussion

11:30-12:00 Tea & coffee break (Research Forum Seminar Room, Floor 2)

SESSION 2: SCALE MODELS Chaired by Bella Radenovic (The Courtauld Institute of Art)

12:00-12:20 Angela Websdale (University of Kent): Replication and Reproduction: Evoking the Cult of St Edward the Confessor and the Visual Culture of Westminster Abbey and Palace at St Mary’s Church, Faversham

12:20-12:40 Francesco Capitummino (Independent scholar): The ambo of the Capella Palatina in Palermo, a reduced scale of the Cefalù prototype

12:40-13:00 Discussion

13:00-14:00 Lunch (provided for speakers and chairs – Seminar Room 9, Floor 2)

SESSION 3: THE SCALE OF DEVOTION Chaired by Chloe Kellow (The Courtauld Institute of Art)

14:00-14:20 Sheridan Zabel Rawlings (University of Manchester): Scale matters: The intentional use of size to depict Christ in John Rylands Library’s Latin MS 344

14:20-14:40 Matko Marušić (University of Zagreb): Medieval crosses: Scale, typology, materials

14:40-15:00 Harry Prance (The Courtauld Institute of Art): Miniature materials/ concrete connections: The spaces of Byzantine liturgical objects

15:00-15:20 Discussion

15:20-15:50 Tea & coffee break

SESSION 4: AMPLIFICATION & DISSEMINATION Chaired by Laura Melin (The Courtauld Institute of Art)

15:50-16:10 Charlotte Wytema (The Courtauld Institute of Art), From abstract idea to scaled-up image: The case of the Virgin with fifteen symbols

16:10-16:30 Nicolas Flory (The Courtauld Institute of Art), Scaling Patronage in the Duchy of Burgundy: Isabella of Portugal and her Carthusian donations

16:30-16:50 Discussion

16:50-17:00 Closing remarks by Professor Joanna Cannon (The Courtauld Institute of Art)

17:00 Reception With special thanks to Michael Carter for his generous support

Call for Applications: 9th Bern Research Camp for the Applied Arts (Bern, 16–18 May 2019)

Deadline: Feb 28, 2019

9th Bern Research Camp for the Applied Arts
16 May–18 May 2019, University of Bern, Institute of Art History, Department History of Textile Arts

From the 18th century onwards, the concept of the genius and a preference for the “autonomous” art work led to a separation of the so-called fine arts (painting, sculpture, and architecture) from the applied, decorative or minor arts (gold- and silversmiths’ work, ivories, ceramics, furniture, textiles). The distinction gravely affected the choice of subjects and themes for art-historical research, and crafted objects continue to receive only marginal attention in academic art history, although they were held in high esteem by contemporary patrons, often commanded extremely high prices and played important roles in the representation of both the nobility and wealthy citizens.

The term “treasure art” not only reflects the material value and the extraordinary skills, even virtuosity, manifest in these objects; they often were of particular importance in situations that recent historical research has addressed with a view to symbolical communication and to aspects of performance/performativity. Studies that take the situative and performative contexts into account for which these objects were intended and in which they took effect, have therefore achieved more differentiated evaluations. In recent years, aspects of material culture and materiality have been considered or reconsidered in many disciplines of the humanities; art history in particular has re-established its competence in the study of objects. Analyses of the material qualities of art works, their effects and functions, of specific techniques, the organization of processes and workshop practices substantiate this renewed interest.

Founded in 2009, the Abegg-Stiftung’s Chair for the History of Textile Arts (Prof. Dr. Birgitt Borkopp-Restle) aims at establishing and encouraging an academic discourse on the applied arts from the early middle ages to the present. Material and technical aspects of the applied arts as well as their specific uses, functions and meanings in artistic, historical and political contexts are at the core of the department’s research and teaching. We explicitly seek to contribute to current interdisciplinary discourses on material culture and cultural transfer in the humanities, to studies on the history and practice of collecting and presenting art works, on concepts of space and performativity.

The Bern Research Camp for the Applied Arts, held annually since 2010, invites young scholars whose MA and PhD projects focus on object-based research in the applied arts. The workshop offers them a unique opportunity to present current projects to an audience of young scholars, academics and curators. We propose intensive discussions both of individual projects and of overarching questions and methodological approaches relevant for our themes, and actively encourage networking among the participants and with experienced scholars in the field. The program of presentations and discussions will be complemented by a visit to the Abegg-Stiftung, Riggisberg.

Please send us your proposal for a 30-minute presentation containing a description of your project and your methodological approach (not exceeding 300 words) and a short CV as a pdf-file until 28 February 2019.

Funding will be provided for the participants’ accommodation in Bern; if possible, we will also contribute to your travelling costs.

Please address proposals and questions to:
nora.rudolf@ikg.unibe.ch

Seminar and Book Launch: Speaking Sculptures, Research Forum, The Courtauld Institute of Art (Vernon Square), Wednesday 23 January 2019, 5:00 pm–6:00 pm

Many statues and works of sculpture made in the late Gothic and Renaissance period are represented with mouth open, as if caught in a mid-utterance. These ‘speaking sculptures’ have received remarkably little comment from art historians. What are these speaking statues meant to be saying? And what, as viewers, are we meant to ‘hear’ and respond? The aim of this paper is to begin to unravel this illusion of speech and the agency it implies.

It would be a mistake to dismiss the phenomenon of the ‘speaking sculpture’ as just another virtuoso feature that enhanced the illusion of life and, with it, the persuasive character of a late Gothic art or Renaissance work of art. The illusion of speech creates a different level of engagement and interaction with the viewer: faced with such an image we not only look but ‘strain to hear’. Does this suggest a sort of animation that demands a living presence response? Or does the illusion of speech enhance the potential surrogacy of the statue, ‘enacting’ the hopes of the viewer? Or could it be that a speaking statue is actually ‘saying’ something quite specific that the viewer in some sense might have ‘heard’ as part of their viewing experience. If so, how do we recover the ‘period ear’ to listen in? These are some of the questions that will be addressed.

The seminar will be followed by the launch of ‘Cut in Alabaster: a Material of Sculpture and its European Traditions 1330-1530′

Click here to book a free ticket for this seminar.

IX COLOQUIO ARS MEDIAEVALIS: Belleza, persuasión y retórica en el arte medieval (Aguilar de Campoo, Spain, 10 al 12 de mayo de 2019)

fmslr_cartel_arsmedievalis2019 Click here for more information

En las últimas décadas, los estudios de historia del arte medieval han pasado de estudiar el significado de las obras a analizar su materialidad. Más recientemente, Mary Carruthers, Paul Binski y otros académicos han renovado el estudio sobre la experiencia estética medieval. Para desentrañar y razonar las nociones sobre belleza y fealdad durante la Edad Media, estos autores han tomado textos dispersos en Agustín, Guido de Arezzo, Alain de Lille, Pedro de Celle, Bonaventura, Robert Grosseteste, Tomás de Aquino… con los que han compensado la ausencia de un corpus documental y una filosofía articulada. ¿De qué modo se entendía que los artefactos generaban deleite, disgusto, miedo y otras emociones? El estudio de esta cuestión capital ha puesto el foco sobre cuestiones como estilo, humor, artificio, dificultad y engaño. Este giro analítico ha acarreado una provechosa consecuencia: el placer derivado de la contemplación del ornamento superficial merece tanta atención como la exégesis de las imágenes bíblicas. La reconciliación de sensaciones diversas llega a ser tan importante como la iconografía de la materia. Las imágenes se distribuían, también, para aliviar el aburrimiento y esta cuestión debe considerarse junto con la especulación teológica. Dicho de otro modo: los falsos mármoles merecen tanta atención como la piedra real, incluso tal vez más.

Basándose en trabajos recientes, y conforme a las investigaciones desarrolladas en el coloquio Ars Mediaevalisde 2018 en torno al papel de los sentidos y la memoria, este noveno coloquio considerará el poder del arte medieval en dos planos complementarios: persuadir y construir conocimiento. El objetivo del coloquio Belleza, persuasión y retórica en el arte medieval no es rechazar ni cuestionar la importancia de las ambiciones intelectuales del arte medieval. Se examinarán los modos en que ornamentos y efectos de superficie, orden y variedad, imágenes curiosas o repulsivas, el humor y el ilusionismo, los efectos armónicos y discordantes, y los sistemas de retórica visual activaron las emociones y se emplearon para fines diversos.

PROGRAMA

Dirección:

Gerardo Boto Varela (Universidad de Gerona) – Alejandro García Avilés (Universidad de Murcia) – Herbert L. Kessler (Johns Hopkins University)

TEMPLA – GERM Estudios Visuales – Red ARSMED

PROGRAMA

Viernes, 10 de mayo (Sede Fundación Sta. Mª la Real)

Presidencia de sesión: Javier MARTÍNEZ DE AGUIRRE / Universidad Complutense de Madrid

09.15 h.: Recepción de participantes y entrega del material

09.45 h.: Presentación e inauguración del Coloquio

10.00 h.: Mary CARRUTHERS / New York University

Ordinary Beauty and Human Sensibility*

10.45 h.: Comunicación

11.00 h.: Debate

11.20 h.: Pausa-café

11.45 h.: Paul BINSKI / University of Cambridge

Aesthetic Attitudes in Gothic Art: thoughts on Girona Cathedral*

12.30 h: Comunicaciones

13.00 h: Debate

Sesión de tarde

Presidencia de sesión: Mª Dolores TEIJEIRA PABLOS / Universidad de León

16.00 h.: Francisco PRADO VILAR / Real Colegio Complutense, Harvard

El despertar de Endimión: Belleza, tiempo y eternidad en la escultura románica y su devenir fotográfico

16.45 h.: José Miguel PUERTA VILCHEZ / Universidad de Granada

Fantasía, placer y existencia en la estética árabe clásica

17.30 h.: Debate

17.45 h.: Descanso

18.00 h.: Vincent DEBIAIS / CNRS-EHESS

El color como camino de abstracción. Aproximación lexical e iconográfica*

18.45 h.: Debate

19.00 h.: Mesa redonda: Ante la belleza en la Edad Media: persuadidos y antagonistas

Sábado, 11 de mayo (Palencia. Diputación Provincial)

Presidencia de sesión: Fernando GUTIÉRREZ BAÑOS / Universidad de Valladolid

09.45 h.: Aden KUMLER / Chicago University

Periculum and peritia: aesthetics and affects in the medieval “ars market”*

10.30 h.: Descanso

11.00 h.: Joan MOLINA / Universidad de Gerona

Belleza y memoria en los contextos de Alfonso V

11.45 h.: Rocío SÁNCHEZ AMEIJEIRAS / Universidad de Santiago de Compostela

Lo sublime en la poética de lo visionario

12.30 h.: Debate

16.30 h.: Visita al monasterio de Santa María la Real de las Huelgas, Burgos. Gerardo BOTO / Universitad de Gerona

Domingo, 12 de mayo (Monasterio Sta. María la Real)

Presidencia de Sesión: Alejandro GARCÍA AVILÉS / Universidad de Murcia

09.30 h.: Herbert L. KESSLER / Johns Hopkins University

Eagle or Bear: Beauty as Restorative Sunlight or Spiritual Eclipse*

10.15 h..: Comunicaciones

10.45 h.: Debate

11.00 h.: Descanso

11.30 h.: Comunicación

11.45 h.: Jeffrey HAMBURGUER / Harvard University

Medieval Ut picture poesis: Beauty, Rhetoric and Monstrosity in a Twelfth-Century Illustrated Horace*

12:30 h.: Debate

13.00 h: Conclusiones y perspectivas

13.15 h.: Clausura y entrega de certificados a los asistentes

(*) Las conferencias serán impartidas en el idioma con el que se expresa su título. De las que se expongan en inglés se entregará a los asistentes el texto traducido al castellano

COMUNICACIONES

Este coloquio constituye una convocatoria abierta a aquellos investigadores que deseen presentar los resultados de sus análisis en esta materia. Los interesados deberán enviar un resumen del contenido de su comunicación, con una extensión máxima de 2 páginas DIN A4, a espacio sencillo (letra Times New Roman, de 12 puntos), además de una breve selección de las referencias bibliográficas fundamentales en las que se apoyará su discurso. Todo ello se enviará a la siguiente dirección de correo electrónico: plhuerta@santamarialareal.org

El plazo para la recepción de los resúmenes finalizará el 20 de marzo y se informará sobre la aceptación o no de la comunicación antes del 30 de marzo. En el caso de las admitidas se hará saber, igualmente, el tiempo disponible para su exposición en público (trámite obligatorio), la extensión requerida para su publicación en las actas y las normas de edición.

CFP: ‘Same Old Things? Re-Telling the Italian Renaissance’, London, 3 May 19

untitled-2-1024x1024 — Marcello Maloberti, Trionfo dell’Aurora (2018), courtesy of the artist and Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan

Courtauld Institute of Art London, May 3, 2019

Deadline: Jan 28, 2019

Same Old Things? Re-Telling the Italian Renaissance

Even today, the history of art is largely dominated by narratives that are for the most part style-based. They tell a story that is teleological, ever-progressive, and structured around influential artistic centres. Within this framework, the role of individual objects shifts depending on how they fit into the broader narrative that they articulate visually. By focusing on the objects and their potential to fashion and dictate stories, a different narrative is likely to emerge.

This conference seeks to identify individual objects, or small sets of objects, which have the potential to destabilise canonical art-historical narratives of Italian art. We are not looking for an alternative Renaissance – instead, we want to ask whether a different story can be told for the same, old things. In the last few decades, art historians have reevaluated the position of understudied works of works in an increasingly de-centred, non-linear history of art. Certain interpretative frameworks, such as queer or feminist approaches, that laudably seek to interrupt conventional readings of objects, have had modest consequences for their placement within a historical narrative, often because they seek to disrupt that narrative in the first place. Sometimes objects themselves show the insufficiency of traditional critical tools to do them justice. But seldom have newly-developed critical tools been used to renegotiate the historical framing of those objects that have long stood at the core of the Western canon.

Having long questioned the exceptionality granted Italian Renaissance art by the founding fathers of art history, academia has not yet modified radically the way we tell the story of the cornerstones of any Western museum. As a consequence, academic discourse has grown increasingly distant from museum spaces. On the whole, museums have not rejected the comforting principles of order inherent in traditional narratives, of which they are sometimes the unyielding outposts. Arguably, they also struggle to balance object-based displays with the disruption of narrative frameworks typical of recent academic discourse. As a result, celebratory, unwavering views of the Italian Renaissance have proved remarkably resilient among the general public.

Applicants are encouraged to shrug off the burden of prescribed narrative schemes; to use fresh critical tools to unravel celebrated artworks from the patchwork of narratives that stitch them together, at the same time as weaving them into new stories — stories that might be open-ended, interrogative, undetermined, and far distant from those previously told. Papers should be object-based, but not object-focused, in that their interpretation should not be confined to the inward-looking understanding of the object per se, but rather should look outwards towards their (potentially large) role in new narratives. The objects themselves should date to between the thirteenth to the early seventeenth century; they may be Italian or not, canonical or lesser-known.

Papers are sought from doctoral candidates, early career scholars and researchers. Preference will be given to candidates presenting unpublished material. Proposals of no more than 350 words should be submitted, together with a short C.V. to giulio.dalvit@courtauld.ac.uk and adriana.concin@courtauld.ac.uk by 5pm on Monday 28 January 2019. Papers should not exceed 20 minutes in length. We hope to be able to provide subsidy for travel and accommodation. We particularly encourage candidates from the U.K. and Europe. Successful candidates will be notified by mid-February.