Medieval Art Research

CFP: Ars et Scientia (Cleveland, 27 Oct 17)

oresme Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, October 27, 2017
Deadline: Jul 16, 2017

Ars et Scientia: Intersections of Science and the Visual Arts

October 27th, 2017

Despite the semantic divide that seems to separate art and science in modern culture, the boundaries between the two disciplines have always been fluid and permeable. From the earliest recorded botanical illustrations, painted on papyrus scrolls in Egypt in the 2nd century AD, to contemporary artist Josh Kline’s use of 3D printing in his work, art and science have long been used in tandem to make sense of the world and explore our place within it. The working notes of printers like Louis-Marin Bonnet as they experimented with the technique of chalk-manner engraving resemble nothing so much as a scientist recording data and observations for his experiments. Representations of the scientist at work in his laboratory also abound, from Pieter Bruegel’s Alchemist to Joseph Wright of Derby’s An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, and serve as social commentaries on the role of the scientist in society. More recently, scientific technologies have proven to be invaluable tools for the modern art historian and museum curator, allowing us to better understand artists’ working methods and materials through the use of imaging technology and chemical analysis. This symposium seeks to foster a re-examination of the complex interactions between artistic and scientific disciplines that are more interdependent than they first appear.

We welcome innovative research papers from graduate students of all disciplines that challenge the divide between humanities and STEM fields. Papers may explore aspects of this topic across any time period, medium, or geographical region.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

depictions of scientists, doctors, astronomers, engineers, etc. at work
visual evidence for the transmission of scientific knowledge between cultures scientific diagrams: anatomical, botanical, astronomical, alchemical, etc.
technical art history
art that incorporates the use of novel technologies: for example early printing or photography, video art, 3D printing aestheticized technology, such as astrolabes and globes microphotography or photographs of patients/specimens
descriptions of artistic methodologies in terms of scientific
experimentation

For consideration, please submit a 350-word abstract and CV to clevelandsymposium@gmail.com by July 16, 2017. Selected participants will be notified by early August. Paper presentations will be 20 minutes in length, and participants will be invited to author a blog post about their research to be published at clevelandsymposium.tumblr.com.

Please direct all questions to Aimee Caya and Erin Hein at clevelandsymposium@gmail.com.

CFP: The Image of the Multitude in Art and Philosophy (London, 10 Mar 18)

medieval peasant revolts.jpg The Courtauld Institute of Art, London., March 10, 2018
Deadline: Sep 15, 2017

Imago Multitudinis. The Image of the Multitude in Art and Philosophy

An International Conference at the Courtauld Institute of Art London, on the 10th of March.

The Courtauld Institute of Art, The British Academy and the Collège International de Philosophie are pleased to announce a one-day interdisciplinary conference focusing on the philosophical representation and the artistic conceptualisation of the multitude and its associated concepts: the many, the masses, the crowd, the mob and the commonality.

A spectre is haunting our times: the spectre of the multitude. Uprisings, popular unrests, mass migrations, revolutions—the past ten years have been marked by unprecedented quests for freedom, embodied by unconventional political subjects pointing to the possibility of alternative outcomes of the crisis of both authoritarian regimes and representative democracies. Through the masterful drawing of Abraham Bosse, Hobbes attempted to tame the multitude forever. Constrained within the body politic of the monstrous Leviathan (1651), the multitude was transfigured into an obedient people and its potentia was (apparently) usurped. Yet, the multitude resisted—and still resists—this movement, challenging the predominant definitions of sovereignty. Following the collapse of modern master narratives, such as in the nascent seventeenth century, the multitude has returned.

Our investigation revolves around the political and aesthetic meanings of this omnipresent, if elusive, collective being. In particular, we would like to ask the following questions: how do philosophers represent the multitude and translate their concepts into cogent images? How do artists think about the multitude and its agency? This enquiry, which spans from the Middle Ages to the present, concentrates on the way in which images and iconographic motifs are elaborated in philosophy, as well as how political concepts are articulated in the visual arts. In order to understand the images pervading, and the concepts informing, recent collective political action (from Tahrir Square to the streets of Tunis, New York, Madrid, Ferguson via Rojava and Lampedusa), we intend to focus on their modern and contemporary genealogies. This is not only a historical enquiry. The history of the multitude can help us better understand the present. The aesthetic, agency and ambitions of this political subject do not only survive in books and museums, they also live on among us. The multitude resists, and if this is the conflict that characterises political modernity, then modernity has begun again.

Invited speakers: Horst Bredekamp (Humboldt-Universität); Claire Fontaine (artist); Sandro Mezzadra (Università di Bologna).

We invite submissions on the following topics including, but not limited to:
– Political iconography (from the Revolt of the Ciompi to the Arab Spring via the German Peasants’ War),
– Feminism and the multitude,
– The multitude in the USSR,
– The multitude and the English Civil Wars,
– Hobbes’ Behemoth,
– Spinoza’s, Machiavelli’s, Negri’s, Deleuze’s and Schmitt’s depictions of the multitude,
– The “popular hydra” in nineteenth-century Paris,
– Baroque and the multitude,
– The multitude and migrations in contemporary art.

Please send a title and an abstract of no more than 500 words together with a short CV to jacopo.galimberti@manchester.ac.uk by the 15th of September. Successful candidates will be notified in early October. Papers should not exceed 25 minutes in length.

Lecture: The Library of Saint Thomas Becket, Christopher de Hamel, The Society of Antiquaries, 2017

The Library of Saint Thomas Becket Collection

Lecture by Fellow Christopher de Hamel

Archbishop Thomas Becket, martyred in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, was among the earliest private book collectors in English history. The richly-illustrated lecture looks at the manuscripts he owned and what happened to them, and it concludes with the unexpected and recent discovery of Becket’s Psalter, which was kept on his shrine in the Cathedral throughout the Middle Ages.

CFP – PISTOIA CAPITALE ITALIANA DELLA CULTURA 2017

In occasione di PISTOIA CAPITALE ITALIANA DELLA CULTURA 2017, il Gruppo di Ricerca NUME ha ottenuto la concessione dal Comune di Pistoia per l’organizzazione di una sessione di conferenze (con data da definirsi) che abbiano per oggetto la Pistoia medievale.

pistoia

Pistoia fu già a partire dal V secolo sede vescovile, e vide avvicendarsi numerosi popoli conquistatori, tra Goti, Bizantini, Longobardi, Franchi. Da libero comune nel 1105 alla dominazione fiorentina e lucchese, secondo Villani proprio a Pistoia nacque la lotta tra guelfi e ghibellini. La sua storia e le sue testimonianze materiali sono l’oggetto della nostra indagine.

1. I temi accettati possono spaziare dalla pittura, all’architettura, all’urbanistica, alla storia medievale di Pistoia. Particolare attenzione sarà data ai contributi che affrontino il culto di San Jacopo, patrono della città, e di cui si conserva lo splendido Altare argenteo (1287-1456) nella cattedrale di San Zeno. Il tema può essere affrontato sotto molteplici sfaccettature, dalla questione iconografica a quella storica, dalla dimensione sociale e politica ai rapporti con le grandi vie di pellegrinaggio;

2. Si ricercano massimo n. 5 relatori;

3. Ogni intervento dovrà avere durata massima di 30 minuti;

4. Per partecipare, si prega di inviare un abstract di 300 parole, corredato di un CV, all’indirizzo di posta elettronica: info@nuovomedioevo.it

5. Il termine ultimo per l’invio di una proposta è il 10 MAGGIO 2017;

6. Entro il 15 MAGGIO sarà comunicato l’esito della valutazione. Il giudizio del Gruppo NUME è insindacabile;

7. Il Gruppo NUME si riserva l’utilizzo futuro (previa comunicazione all’autore) del materiale che gli perviene, in pubblicazioni cartacee o sul web.

Maggiori informazioni sul progetto PISTOIA CAPITALE ITALIANA DELLA CULTURA 2017 all’indirizzo web:

http://www.pistoia17.it/it/

CONF: Streets, Routes, Methods I (Florence, 5-6 May 17)

Florence, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, Palazzo Grifoni Budini Gattai, Via dei Servi 51, May 5 – 06, 2017

Streets, Routes, Methods I: Reflections on Paths, Spaces and Temporalities International Conference
khi_florenz
A cooperation of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max Planck Institute and eikones – NCCR Iconic Criticism, University of Basel Organized by Hannah Baader, Adam Jasper, Stefan Neuner, Gerald Wildgruber and Gerhard Wolf

Paths can be serpentine, straight and anything in between; they might traverse barely accessible mountains, like the Inca Trail, or be straight, like desire lines. Paths come before roads, survive into the time of roads, or reappear in response to them. Paths tend to be overgrown, to disappear—in the desert sand—to be overbuilt or abandoned. They have their temporalities, seasons and spatialities, between proximity and distance. Paths are therefore not purely spatial affairs. Paths have a genuine temporal dimension beyond the duration of a traveler’s journey. Paths can be seen as chronotopoi, with literary, pictorial and cinematographic histories. Paths must be trodden in order to survive, exemplifying the Heraclitian formula μεταβάλλον ἀναπαύεται (‘it is in changing that things find repose’). The temporal dimension of paths ultimately allows us to overcome the sterile dichotomy between real and imagined paths (metaphors, allegories, models). They have a rich life in the world of metaphors, intrinsic to the notion of met-hodos, based on the Greek word for way, or path. This allies paths to language and, more specifically, writing, whose elements are also repetitions, tracks that are ‘inked in’. It is the remembered, the described, and thereby the reusable and transferable path. Paths within language can become ritual tools for the creation of new ones.

Beyond the above mentioned approaches to paths, the conference will explore their relationship to the environment, in line with the eco-art historical project at the KHI. How do paths, trails and routes shape or even create landscape? What is the interplay of geomorphology, flora and fauna, animal and human agency? Paths introduce directionalities, itineraries and nets into the environment, they are linked to technologies of transport and movement; they offer viewpoints, changing horizons or deep immersion into flora or architecture; experiencing them is a multisensorial endeavor. Under the hodological conditions of global urban environments and post/industrial landscapes, paths run across streets, they can be subversive, democratic or pragmatic. They can be reinstalled as nostalgic evocations of a lost or overcome past,
of rural or pastoral life, or serve mass tourism as well as new ecological approaches.

Continue reading “CONF: Streets, Routes, Methods I (Florence, 5-6 May 17)”

Conference: Seeking Transparency, Florence, 19-20 May 2017

Seeking Transparency: The Medieval Rock Crystals International Conference

Florence, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, Palazzo Grifoni Budini Gattai, Via dei Servi 51, May 19 – 20, 2017

Organized by Avinoam Shalem (Riggio Professor, Arts of Islam, Department of art history and Archaeology, Columbia University, NYC) and Cynthia Hahn (Professor of Art History, Department of Art and Art History, Hunter College, NYC)

Like the sea, the history of the production of carved rock crystals during the Middle Ages has its ebb and flow. From Late Antiquity to the age of the great Portuguese expansion, centers of productions of rock crystal rose and fell, and yet the specific knowledge of carving the hard material was kept a closely guarded secret. Royal courts and wealthy churches were eager patrons for the luxurious objects produced by these centers because rock crystal was valued as one of the most desirable and precious of all materials, ascribed mysterious origins and powers, and renowned for both rarity and clarity. The conference Seeking Transparency: The Medieval Rock Crystals to be held on May 19-20 at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz aims at revealing the global and cross-cultural histories of rock-crystal production in and beyond the lands of the Mediterranean Sea. It investigates varied aspects such as the physical nature of the material, its manufacturing techniques, affiliations to other modus operandi of luxurious objects, like cut glasses and carved precious stones, legends and traditions associated with its aesthetic qualities, as well as issues concerning the historiography of rock crystal.

Programme

Friday, May 19

09.00 – 09.15
Cynthia Hahn and Avinoam Shalem
Opening Remarks

09.15 – 10.00
Jens Kröger
The State of Research on Rock Crystals from the Islamic Lands in the 20th century

10.00 – 10.30
Elise Moreno
Relief-Carving on Medieval Islamic Glass and Rock Crystal: a Comparative Approach to Techniques of Manufacture

10.30 – 11.00
Jeremy Johns
The Medieval Islamic Rock Crystal ‘Industry’: Problems and Approaches

Coffee Break

11.30 – 12.00
Marcus Pilz
Beyond ‘Fatimid’ – The Iconography of Medieval Islamic Rock Crystal Vessels and the Question of Dating

12.00 – 12.30
Isabelle Bardiès-Fronty
As Beautiful as Mysterious: Updating the State of Research on the Lionheads at the Musée de Cluny

12.30 – 13.00
Stéphane Pradines
Madagascar, the Source of the Abbasid and Fatimid Rock Crystals. New Evidence from Archaeological Investigations in the Comoros Islands

Lunch Break

14.30 – 15.00
Venetia Porter
Amulets of Rock Crystal

15.00 – 15.30 Genevra Kornbluth
Transparent, Translucent, and Opaque: Merovingian and Anglo-Saxon Crystal Amulets

Coffee Break

16.00 – 16.30
Gia Tousaint
Rock Crystals in Church Treasuries. A Survey of Form and Function
16.30 – 17.00
Beate Fricke
Traveling Treasures – from Leo Insidiabatur to Agnus Dei

Saturday, May 20

10.00 – 10.30
Ingeborg Krueger
Man-Made Crystal: Crystal like Glass in the Middle Ages

10.30 – 11.00
Patrick Crowley
Rock Crystal and the Alchemical Sublime in Ancient Rome

Coffee Break

11.30 -12.00
Stefania Gerevini
Paradoxes of Material Implication. Medieval Rock Crystal between Clarity, Poverty and Splendor

12.00 – 12.30
Bissera Pentcheva
Shimmering Dualities: Crystal and the Poetics of the Resurrected Body

12.30 – 13.00
Hannah Baader
Transparency and the Landscapes of Quartz

Lunch Break

14.30 – 15.00
Brigitte Buettner
Solidly Transparent: Rock Crystal in Lapidary Knowledge

15.00 – 15.30
Farid Benfeghoul
Through Islamic Lenses: Rock Crystal and other Gems as Visual Aids

Coffee Break

16.00 – 16.30
Concluding Remarks
Gerhard Wolf’s ‘Reflexions’

CONTACT
Ester Fasino
fasino@khi.fi.it

FURTHER INFORMATION
Internet: www.khi.fi.it
Newsletter: www.khi.fi.it/newsletter
Facebook: www.facebook.com/khi.fi.it/

Resource: Bibliothèque virtuelle du Mont-Saint-Michel

Accès : ici

Le site de la Bibliothèque virtuelle du Mont Saint-Michel permet d’accéder aux notices descriptives et aux fac-similés de livres, manuscrits ou imprimés, qui peuvent être identifiés comme ayant appartenu, à un moment de leur histoire, à l’abbaye du Mont Saint-Michel.

Continue reading “Resource: Bibliothèque virtuelle du Mont-Saint-Michel”

CONF: Chivalry Reimagined (Cambridge, 22 May 17)

German, documented 1513–1579 Equestrian Armour of Emperor Charles V

The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, May 22, 2017

Armour Study Day
University of Cambridge, 22 May 2017

“Chivalry Reimagined: Collecting and Displaying Renaissance Armour in the Late 19th Century”

When: Monday, 22 May 2017, 9:00-4:30pm
Where: Museum Seminar Room, Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge Who: Open to all, £25 registration fee (includes lunch and tea/coffee)

In nineteenth-century Britain and the United States, a strong affinity for the medieval period permeated contemporary art, literature, and architecture. This interest was mirrored in the art market, and fine and decorative art collectors sought rare objects that romanticized centuries past. Armour was particularly prized among male collectors,
as it embodied the knightly virtues of honour, chivalry, and martial ability.

At this Armour Study Day, historians and curators from some of Europe’s most prominent museums will speak about collecting and display practices of Renaissance armour in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Who were the men that collected these objects, what qualities were considered favourable, and how did collectors and museums choose to display this armour once acquired?

Lunch and tea/coffee will be provided. The day will also include a handling session, giving attendees the opportunity to handle pieces of fifteenth and sixteenth century armour.

Programme:

9:00-9:30am: Registration (via Courtyard Entrance)

9:30-9:45am: Welcome, Tim Knox, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum

9:45-10:00am: Introductory remarks, Prof. Peter Mandler (University of Cambridge)

10:00-10:45am: Keynote speaker, Angus Patterson (Victoria & Albert Museum), “Ministrations to the Improvement of Society”: Electrotypes of Armour, 1850-1914

10:45-11:15am: Tea/coffee break (Courtyard)

11:15-12:00pm: Victoria Avery (Fitzwilliam Museum), Cambridge Connections and Collections: Arms and Armour at the Fitz

12:00-12:45pm: Stefan Krause (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), The Imperial Collection of Arms and Armour in Vienna in the 19th and Early 20th Century

12:45-1:45pm: LUNCH (Courtyard)

1:45-2:15pm: Armour-handling session for attendees with Technician Andrew Maloney (Fitzwilliam Museum)

2:15-3:00pm: Victoria Bartels (University of Cambridge), The Courtship of a Collection: William H. Riggs and The Metropolitan Museum of Art

3:00-3:45pm: Tobias Capwell (Wallace Collection), A Museum of a Museum: The Past, Present and Future of the Galleries of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection, ca. 1880-2020

3:45-4:00pm: Closing remarks, Prof. Ulinka Rublack (University of Cambridge)

4:00-4:30pm: Afternoon Tea reception (Courtyard)

4:30pm: Delegates and speakers leave (via Courtyard Entrance)

For more information and/or to register, please visit
http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/calendar/whatson/armour-study-day

Seminar Series: KRC Research Seminars: The Archaeology and Material Culture of the Medieval Islamic West

Tuesdays, 2 PM, KRC Lecture Room 3 St John St, Oxford OX1 2LG

25 April 2017: ʿAlā fuwīr Tuṭīla. Bilingual contracts and written culture during the Christian conquest of al-Andalus, Mr Rodrigo García-Velasco Bernal (University of Cambridge)

2 May 2017: The origins of royal funerary architecture in al-Maghrib al-Aqṣā, Mr Péter Tamás Nagy (Khalili Research Centre)

9 May 2017: The written culture in Medieval and Early Modern Islamic Spain, Dr Nuria Martínez de Castilla (Paris, EPHE)

16 May 2017: Light and Lighting in al-Andalus, Dr Tom Nickson (Courtauld Institute)

23 May 2017: Writing a New History of Western Islamic Architecture, Professor Jonathan Bloom (Boston College)

30 May 2017: Life beyond the medina of Cordoba: districts (rabad) and cemeteries (maqābir), Dr María Teresa Casal García (Madrid, CSIC)

6 June 2017: New (graphic) documents for the study of Almoravid and Almohad architecture, Professor Antonio Almagro Gorbea (Granada, CSIC)

13 June 2017: Berbers and Borderlands: state formation and urbanisation in early medieval Morocco, Dr Corisande Fenwick (University College London)

Seminars TT

CFP: St Luke Drawing the Virgin and Child (County Durham, 19 Jun 2017)

St Luke Drawing the Virgin and Child' by Dieric Bout the Elder — ‘St Luke Drawing the Virgin and Child’ by Dieric Bout the Elder

County Durham, The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, June 19, 2017
Deadline: May 8, 2017

CVAC Study Day ‘St Luke Drawing the Virgin and Child: Constructing Narratives’

Following an export bar in July 2016, The Bowes Museum acquired the outstanding painting, ‘St Luke Drawing the Virgin and Child’ by Dieric Bout the Elder with support from the the Art Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund and a number of private donors. The painting is of major importance due to its connection with the artist, deemed one of the leading and most influential Netherlandish painters of his time.

This interdisciplinary study day aims to look at the painting ‘St Luke Drawing the Virgin and Child’ in the broad context of visual culture: exploring sainthood and investigating visual representations of sanctity, looking at perspective, with a particular attention to interiors and architecture in early modern Europe, and analysing identity and self-imagery.

The event is designed to be a cross- and inter-disciplinary study day where scholars, postgraduate and early career researchers can meet, debate, and collaborate on all issues pertaining to visual culture.

The Bowes Museum and CVAC invite proposals for thirty-minute papers from scholars, postgraduate and early career researchers that address any aspect of art, literature, history, and culture, with a particular attention to:

– Sainthood from Medieval to contemporary time;
– Visual representation of saints;
– Architecture and interiors in early modern Europe;
– Portraiture and identity;
– The theory and practice of perspective;
– Patronage and trade and circulation in early modern Europe.

The study day will take place at The Bowes Museum on 19 June 2017, with a number of thirty-minute papers, followed by discussion, and including lunch and morning and afternoon refreshments.

Abstracts of up to 200 words along with a brief biography should be submitted in the body of an email to
catherine.dickinson@thebowesmuseum.org.uk .

The closing date for submissions is Monday 8 May 2017, at 5pm.

For more details, please contact
catherine.dickinson@thebowesmuseum.org.uk