MOVING MATERIALS: Medium, Meanings, and Technique in Transit, Leeds International Medieval Congress (thematic strand: Materialities), University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom, 1-4 July 2019
Sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) Student Committee
Organized by D. Esther Kim (Toronto), Maggie Crosland (Courtauld), and Xin Yue (Sylvia) Wang (Toronto)
The materials of the medieval artist, artisan, and architect were constantly on the move, travelling from one part of the globe to another through trade, gifting, looting, or theft. Likewise, the localized techniques of working with materials and media could travel near and far, through the movement of artists and objects, as well as written and visual descriptions such as artist manuals and travel guides.
While on the move, travelling materials such as stone and marble, metals, fur, textiles, coral, ivory, and pigment—and techniques of working with these materials—might retain their original meanings and function; or they could be integrated with local media, refined, or even significantly transformed to something drastically different, to suit the ideologies and ambitions of their destination.
This panel aims to engage with materials and techniques in transit, as well as the (trans)regionality of their meanings and significations, by asking: are we still able to trace the ‘origin’ and ‘originality’ of certain materials, techniques, and their meanings? How then would the fluidity and transformation of techniques affect our understanding when we are trying to ascribe a certain technique to a particular culture or region? How are old, new, and combined meanings assessed and understood in the Middle Ages and in scholarship today?
Possible topics of discussion include, but are not limited to: global movements and dissemination of artists and/or their materials and techniques; modes of transmission; regional/transregional meaning and significance of materials and techniques; reuse and repurposing of existing materials and/or artworks; reasons for shifts in meaning and function of materials within and outside particular regions; the integration of materials and medium, and intermediality; trans-temporal/ trans-regional use of spolia, among others.
How to apply: We welcome submissions for 20-minute papers from graduate student ICMA members, and encourage interdisciplinary submissions from students researching all parts of the globe from c.400-c.1500. To propose a paper, please send a title, abstract of up to 250 words, and CV to the organizers (de.kim@mail.utoronto.ca, margaret.crosland@courtauld.ac.uk, xw388@nyu.edu) by 21 September, 2018.
The International Center for Medieval Art Student Committee involves and advocates for all members of the ICMA with student status and facilitates communication and mentorship between student and non-student members.
This one day conference brings together the next generation of art history scholars to present and discuss their ongoing research. Papers will predominately focus on Italian and Northern Renaissance Art (c. 1400–1600) and will encompass diverse media including tapestry, painting, engraving and stained glass. The conference will comprise five sessions. In the first four, two PhD students (or recent graduates) will present on topics that are united by common themes such as patronage, attribution and materiality. The final session, entitled ‘Opening New Dialogues’, will feature a paper by Professor Michelle O’Malley (Deputy Director and former PhD student at The Warburg). In order to foster the intellectual exchange central to ‘New Dialogues in Art History’ , the key paper(s) of each session will be followed by 20 minutes discussion.
For centuries, objects from Islamic lands were unquestioned parts of the material and visual culture of pre-modern Latinate Europe. A textile from Fatimid Egypt, for instance, the so-called “Veil of Sainte Anne”, was kept in the cathedral treasury of Apt and venerated as a Christian relic.
The Greek term kairós expresses an idea of ‘grasping the right moment’, which travelled through art, literature, and philosophy. And even today, it is central to debates over, for example, time management. Combining perspectives from classical reception studies and iconology, this ongoing project at KU Leuven (2017-2021) is about the reception of kairós in the visual medium from antiquity to the Renaissance. How was the notion of kairós visualized in images throughout time, from antiquity to the early modern era? And more specifically, how did text and image work together to transform the notion of kairós in various contexts?
Chiaromonte—known as Steri—began in September 2017. The ceiling was crafted between 1377 and 1380, as attested by the inscription that runs along two sides of the ceiling between beams and lacunars, in which the name of the patron is also mentioned: the powerful and noble ruler of Palermo—Manfredi Chiaromonte (d. November 1391). The surface area of the wooden ceiling measures 23 x 8 meters. The iconography is displayed uninterrupted on the three sides of the 24 beams and on the 100 coffered lacunars. After the fall of the Chiaromonte family, the palace was first occupied by King Martin I, the Humane (29 July 1356 – 31 May 1410), then by the Viceroys of Aragon, and the House of Bourbon. Between 1601 and 1782 it became the Palace of the Inquisition and later the halls of the palace were used as the Court of Appeal. Today the building is home to the rectorate of the University of Palermo. The three linked sessions seek to be a fruitful occasion to study the ceiling of the Sala Magna in Palazzo Chiaromonte-Steri and medieval painted ceilings in the Mediterranean in general, in terms of conservation as well as visual culture through a multidisciplinary perspective.
historical and art historical studies might seem hazardous, or even paradoxical and provocative at best. Very few other labels have the power to evoke both the glories, achievements and limitations of traditional ‘Western’, and namely Eurocentric, art history. As a matter of fact, using the Italian word Trecento to mean the ‘Fourteenth Century’ in the visual arts, music and potentially any area of human endeavour adumbrates a clear hierarchy–with Italy at its top. It is meaningful, and perhaps no coincidence, that the term Trecento came into use in English in the same years that mark the tumultuous expansion of the new discipline of art history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and its usage has grown exponentially ever since. While much has been done in recent decades to broaden our understanding of the period both geographically and philosophically, the Trecento remains primarily the century of Giotto and of the great Tuscan painters and sculptors. At this time of building national ‘walls’, it seems particularly appropriate to think that the seminal and transformative character of the Trecento owes much to artistic and cultural exchanges, movement of artists and patrons, circulation of models and ideas across Italy, Europe, the Mediterranean and beyond. Our aim is to bring into conversation recent research on these issues.
witnessed the birth of Christian monastic life among saints who came to be known as the Desert Fathers. The heroic self-discipline and devoted ascetic endeavors of St Antony the Abbot, St Paul of Thebes and St Macarius, among others, became emblematic of an original and authentic form of the religious life. This eremitic tradition, transmitted to the west through hagiography and ascetic literature, exerted a profound influence over the formation of western monastic life in the fifth and sixth centuries, and continued to function as an ideological authority well into the late medieval period and beyond.
Medieval Art Research 