Medieval Art Research

Conference: Choir stalls and their workshops (Greifswald, 23-26 June 2016)

Choir stalls were not only simple seating for the priests and monks. With their highly complex imaging systems they were also one of the most important and complex artistic tasks in medieval cathedrals, monastic churches, and even parishes.

In recent years, research has focused primarily on iconographic research and formal and stylistic analysis, as has the research of Misericordia International. There are very few studies dedicated to the workshops and their working conditions. Therefore this year the Misericordia International conference in Greifswald will deal with the workshop context of the choir stalls for the first time. In addition to questions about substantive and economic mechanisms of art production the conference will deal with basic knowledge craftsmanship such as the structure studies. It also examines the use of drawings and models in the production of choir stalls.

The venue Greifswald is chosen wisely. North Germany has a rich “choir landscape” whose research is a rewarding task. Nevertheless, despite work by relevant scientists that wealth is not well known, let alone scientifically. The colloquium will thus stimulate a reinterpretation of the liturgical furniture and provide new impulses.

Programm

23. Juni 2016

12.45 Registration

13.00 Frédéric Billet, President of Misericordia International (Sorbonne Paris IV): Welcome

13.10 Gerhard Weilandt (Universität Greifswald): Introduction

Section I
Workshop practices

13.20 Thomas Eißing (University Bamberg): Science of Joining structures as knowledge reservoir for workshop practices? A methodological introduction

14.00 Anja Seliger (Cluster of Excellence Image Knowledge Gestaltung Berlin): To get an idea -Visualization as a starting point in the manufacturing process

14.40 Pause

14.50 Angela Glover (University of Toronto): Module as Model for Early Modern Choir Stalls

15.30 Kristiane Lemé-Hébuterne (Amiens): Big seats for fat Benedictines, small ones for slender Cistercians? – Some statistics on the size

16.10 Pause

Section II
16th- and early 17th-century choir stalls – Tradition or restart?

16.25 Volker Dietzel (Dresden): Berufsbezeichnungen und Werkzeugnamen der Tischler, Schreiner und Kistler

17. 05 Ulrich Knapp (Leonberg): The Choir stalls of Salem Cistercian Monastery Church as testimony of liturgical and economical reforms (1588 till 1593)

17.45 Jörg Lampe (Academy of Science Göttingen): The choir stalls of the monasteries of Pöhlde and St. Alexandri in Einbeck – Observations on their time of origin from an epigraphical and historical point of
View

18.25 Pause

19.00 Abendvortrag
Dorothee Heim (Berlin): The woodcarver Rodrigo Alemán. An international acting choir stalls maker and businessman in Spain about 1500.

20.15 Get-together

24. Juni 2016

09.30 Begrüßung

Sektion III
Choir stalls made of stone – A forgotten furniture

10.00 Jörg Widmaier (University Tübingen): The stone bench of Burs – Gotland’s masonry in context and their connections to the main land

10.40 Erika Loic (University Harvard): Liturgical Activation of Master
Mateo’s Stone Choir in Santiago de Compostela

11.20 Pause

11.40 James Alexander Cameron (The Courtauld Institute of Art, London): Microarchitectural reflexivity in the design of sedilia and choir stalls

Section IV
Authorshift and groups of work – Case studies

12.20 Willy Piron (Radboud University, Nijmegen): The bilobate misericords of the Lower-Rhine area: a local phenomenon?

13.00 Mittagspause

14.20 Christel Theunissen (Radboud University Nijmegen): Jan Borchman and his fellow craftsmen. The creation of choir stalls in the Low Countries

15.00 Barbara Spanjol-Pandelo (University of Rijeka): Matteo Moronzon – an artist or a project manager of a woodcarving workshop?

15.40 Pause

16.00 Detlef Witt (Greifswald): Die Wangen der Anklamer Chorgestühle

16.40 Kaja von Cossart (Drechow): The choir and other 13th century furniture in the Cistercian Monastery Doberan

17.20 Final Discussion

18.30 General Meeting of Misericordia International

20.00 Get-together

Samstag, 25. Juni 2016

Ganztagesexkursion (Bus)
35 Euro Fahr- und Eintrittskosten
Treffpunkt: 8.00 Uhr Bahnhofsvorplatz

Bad Doberan, Münster
Retschow, Dorfkirche
Rostock, Kulturhistorisches Museum Heiligkreuz und Universitätskirche
Ribnitz-Damgarten, St. Klarenkloster

Sonntag, 26. Juni 2016

Halbtagsexkursion nach Stralsund (Bahn)
12 Euro Fahr- und Eintrittskosten
Treffpunkt: 9.00 Uhr Bahnhof Greifswald

Wir werden die Stadt Stralsund zu Fuß erkunden. Bitte berücksichtigen Sie dies bei der Wahl ihres Schuhwerkes und der Kleidung.

St. Nikolaikirche
St. Jakobikirche (Depot)
Kulturhistorisches Museum Stralsund (ehemals St. Katharinenkloster)

Ende der Tagung gegen 15 Uhr.

Official page:

http://www.chorgestuehle-und-ihre-werkstaetten.bwg.hu-berlin.de/en.html

Seminar: ‘Talking Back to Power? Art and Political Opinion in Early Fourteenth-Century England’ with Dr Laura Slater, Murray Research Seminar at Birkbeck, 29 June 2016, 17.50pm

‘Spin’ and reputation management were an established part of medieval politics. Laura Slater explores the role of art and architecture in challenging political ideas and opinions in early fourteenth-century England, focussing on the activities of Queen Isabella of France during the 1320s. Successful in invading England, deposing her husband Edward II and establishing herself as de facto regent in place of her teenaged son, Edward III, Isabella managed to use art and architecture to present herself as a loving, loyal and virtuous wife. Yet the queen’s subjects may still have ‘talked back to her’ responding to these PR efforts in a similarly public and permanent setting.

29th June 2016

All seminars are held at 5pm in the Keynes Library at Birkbeck’s School of Arts (Room 114, 43, Gordon Sq., London, WC1H OPD). A break at 5.50pm is followed by discussion and refreshments

Tenth International Conference of Iconographic Studies Rijeka, Croatia 2-3 June 2016.

Marian Iconography East and West

The Tenth International Conference of Iconographic Studies will be held in Rijeka, Croatia 2-3 June 2016.

Full details of the programme can be found below:

Marian Iconography Conference programme

CFP: Trecento Art beyond Italy Deadline 28th May 2016

Panel Session at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, 30 March – 1 April, 2017

Trecento Art beyond Italy (session sponsored by the IAS at the Chicago RSA):

There is a great corpus of scholarship regarding the debts of Trecento visual culture to Byzantine, Gothic, and Islamic art or architecture. There remains considerable space, however, to explore how Trecento architects, artists, and objects shaped contemporaneous visual culture beyond the Italian peninsula, in regions including the Latin East, the Balkans, Byzantium, Bohemia, England, and the papal court of Avignon. The multiple sources of transmission involved traveling artists, churchmen, crusaders, courts, merchants, and portable objects themselves. In 1373, for instance, the merchant Francesco di Marco Datini asked an agent to buy devotional panels in Florence to resell at Avignon: “Let there be in the center Our Lord on the Cross, or Our Lady, whomsoever you find—I care not, so that the figures be handsome and large…and the cost no more than 5.5 or 6.5 florins.”

This panel investigates the impact of Trecento visual culture on monuments abroad, taking a critical approach to causation in artistic practice. Speakers might focus on workshop technologies and other mechanisms of distribution, international networks of patronage, the relative competencies of patrons and craftsmen in constructing specific images and buildings, and examples of assimilating new visual idioms with preexisting ones. They are further encouraged to take a critical approach to the ritual or ideological implications of artistic transmission. Lastly—recognizing the fluidity of objects, ideas, and people—speakers are welcomed to comment on the rewards or pitfalls of recasting the Trecento artistic domain as a more dynamic, relative, and international phenomenon than traditional narratives have permitted.

Please send a brief abstract (no more than 150 words); a selection of keywords for your talk; and a brief curriculum vitae (300-word maximum in outline rather than narrative form) to amy.gillette@temple.edu by 28 May 2016.

Conference: Modelling Medieval Vaults London, 14 July 2016

The University of Liverpool in London, Finsbury Square. Seminar Room 4,
July 14, 2016 Registration deadline: Jul 7, 2016

The use of digital surveying and analysis techniques, such as laser scanning, photogrammetry, 3D reconstructions or reverse engineering offers the opportunity to re-examine historic architecture.

Digital analysis has enabled new research into design processes,
construction methods, structural engineering, building archaeology and
relationships between buildings. Recent research on Continental
European and Central American architecture has established the
significance of these techniques, however, as yet there has been little
exploitation of digital technologies in the context of medieval
architecture in the British Isles. This is despite international
recognition of the importance of thirteenth and fourteenth-century
English vault design to the history of Gothic architecture in an
international context.

The aims of the present symposium are to present new research in this
emerging field to establish appropriate methodologies using digital
tools and identify significant questions for future research in the
area.

The symposium will be relevant to anyone with an interest in:
Medieval architecture
Three-dimensional digital methodologies
Digital techniques used for the analysis of historic works of
architecture

PROGRAMME
09:00
Welcome (tea and coffee)
09:30
Introduction
09:40
Keynote: Prof Norbert Nussbaum, Thomas Bauer and Jörg Lauterbach:
Benedikt Ried’s Deconstructive Vaults in Prague Castle – Design,
Construction and Meaning
10:30 Tea and coffee break

Digital processes 1
10:50
Carmen Pérez de los Ríos:
Researching tas-de-charge Design and Construction Methods: an Approach
Supported by Digital Techniques
11:10
Danilo Di Mascio:
Morphological and geometric complexities of built heritage
11:30
Marco Carpiceci and Fabio Colonnese:
Medieval vaults for Renaissance architecture. Modelling the vaults on
sheet 10 of Leonardo da Vinci’s Code B
11:50
Enrique Rabasa-Díaz, Ana López-Mozo, Miguel Ángel Alonso-Rodríguez and
Rafael Martín-Talaverano:
Technical knowledge transfer in European Late Gothic: multi-star vaults
12:10 Questions
12:20
Keynote: Prof Santiago Huerta:
Cracks and distortions in masonry arches and vaults

13:10 Lunch break

New questions in 14th-century vaulting
13:50
Nick Webb:
Wells cathedral choir aisle vaults: digital documentation and analysis
14:05
Alex Buchanan:
Wells cathedral choir aisle vaults: issues of interpretion
14:20
Andrew Budge:
Design changes: the macro- and micro-architectural vaults of
fourteenth-century collegiate churches
14:40
Sophie Dentzer-Niklasson:
From Two to Three Dimensions: Drawings and Design Processes in Medieval
Vaulting
15:00 Questions
15:10 Tea and coffee break

Digital processes 2
15:30
Rosana Guerra and Paula Fuentes:
The construction of the vaults of Mallorca cathedral
15:50
Weiyi Pei and Lui Tam:
Comparison of Digital Documentation Methodologies of Neo-gothic
Vaulting System: A Case Study of Dominican Church, Ghent, Belgium
16:10
Balázs Szőke, Balázs Szakonyi and Gergely Buzás:
Role of the “Horizontal ribs” in late gothic vault constructions in
Hungary.
16:30 Questions
16:40 Keynote: Prof Benjamin Ibarra-Sevilla

Enquiries to be addressed to njwebb@liverpool.ac.uk

Further information about the symposium can be found at:
http://www.tracingthepast.org.uk/events

Lecture: ‘Warfare, Christianity and the ‘Peace of God’: Non-Combatant Immunity in Medieval Reality and Theory’ with Professor John Gillingham, University of Southampton, 7 June 2016, 6pm

The Reuter Lecture this year will be given by Professor John Gillingham, FBA, Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the London School of Economics.

‘Warfare, Christianity and the ‘Peace of God’: Non-Combatant Immunity in Medieval Reality and Theory’

Tuesday 7 June 2016 at 6pm

For many historians of war and society it remains an article of faith that the medieval Christian church attempted to mitigate the horrors of war. The “Peace Movement” of the tenth and eleventh centuries is thought to have made a significant contribution to the early development of laws of war in the West on the grounds that it aimed at protecting not only ecclesiastical persons and property but also non-combatants in general, above all women and children. In this lecture I question and qualify this orthodoxy, in part by analysis of the provisions of early church councils, in part by considering the discontinuance in practice of ancient and early medieval ‘total war’..

This lecture will be chaired by Professor Peter Clarke, Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Director of the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Culture.

The speaker is an eminent scholar of the political history of the Central Middle Ages, especially the Angevin Empire, and his many distinguished publications include a biography of Richard I (the Lionheart) in the Yale English Monarchs Series, published in 1999. He shared with Timothy Reuter, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Southampton (1994-2002), not only an interest in European politics of the Central Middle Ages but also a personal and professional friendship which makes him a highly suitable speaker to give a lecture in Reuter’s memory. The lecture will be introduced by another close friend and colleague of Timothy Reuter’s and a previous Reuter Lecturer, Dame Jinty Nelson, FBA, Emeritus Professor of Medieval History, King’s College London.

Event Information

Venue
Avenue Campus
University of Southampton
SO17 1BF

RSVP by 31 May
This event is free however you must register to attend and receive joining instructions. There will be refreshments served before the lecture and a drink reception to follow the lecture. To register for a place please emailtps@southampton.ac.uk

If you have any further questions or queries about this event please contact Tracy Storey ontps@southampton.ac.uk

Illuminating the Past: A Workshop on the Making and Meaning of Gothic Colour 16th June 2016

Eastridge Hospital Canterbury, 16th June 2016

Illuminating the Past is an informal sharing of research. Included in the day’s activities are a series of exciting talks led by graduates and early career scholars, demonstrations on the making and use of medieval colour, an exhibition including objects from The Beaney and interactive activities.

It’s hard to think of a better setting as the event will take place inside Eastridge Hospital Canterbury, a 12th-c pilgrims’ residence right in the centre of town (with breaks and drinks taking place in the beautiful Greyfriars’ garden).

Please feel free to drop in at any time during the day between 9.30am -5pm without booking. However, attendance for the talks needs to be pre-booked. In order to do this, and to view the talks programme, please visit:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/illuminating-the-past-a-workshop-on-the-making-meaning-of-gothic-colour-tickets-24988550427?aff=es2

Dr Jayne Wackett, AHRC Cultural Engagement Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Kent

Musea Brugge Research School November 19-21, 2016 & February 25–27, 2017

The Flemish research centre for the arts in the Burgundian Netherlands is organising the second edition of its museum research school in 2016-2017. The innovative formula of this Musea Brugge Research School allows motivated art history students to study 15th and 16th century art works from the Bruges museum collections in depth, as part of a select group of other students, docents, and curators from various national and international universities and institutions. The research school targets art history students at the BA or MA level who have a strong interest in Netherlandish art and who intend to embark on a career in the field. The research school provides participants with the opportunity to delve into selected works of art from the collections for three consecutive days and introduces various research methodologies that help in understanding and interpreting art and its context. The research school presents workshops and lectures on historiography, methodology, technical art history, and archival research, as well as possibilities for extensive study and ample discussions in the museum during closing hours.

The research school will take place in Bruges on November 19 – 21, 2016 and February 25 – 27, 2017 and consists of two three-days sessions. The first will offer the participants an occasion to study the objects of the collections in depth and to discuss various relevant aspects of 15th and 16th century Flemish art. During the second session in February contributions of the participants, based on the results of the first session, will be presented and discussed among the docents and participants. Participation to the Musea Brugge Research School is free but students must take care of their travel and lodging expenses.

Three lunches and two dinners are included. There are 15 places available. Studentsfrom all universities are eligible to apply. Students must be able to follow and hold a discussion in English.

For more information and to stay posted, follow us on Facebook. Interested students should send a motivation letter in English and a CV to museabruggeresearchschool@brugge.be by 10 June 2016. They will be notified of a place in the research school by 30 June 2016.

The Musea Brugge Research School is an initiative of the Flemish research centre for the arts in the Burgundian Netherlands, the Groeningemuseum and Hospitaalmuseum. These institutions are supported by the Flemish government.

The mission of the Flemish research centre is to initiate, facilitate, stimulate and disseminate research related to 15th and 16th century Flemish art.

Conference Sicily: Heritage of the World British Museum 24-25th June 2016

This two-day conference accompanies the exhibition Sicily: culture and conquest. It will focus on two periods of enlightenment that stand out in Sicily’s history – Greek settlement from the 8th to 3rd centuries BC, and Norman rule in the 11th and 12th centuries AD. There will be papers on recent research, new excavations, and the economy and architecture of the island, as well as highlighting the importance of the island’s UNESCO sites.

A full programme is attached. Booking is essential through the British Museum website.

Tickets £50
Members/Concessions £35

The event will be held in the Stevenson Lecture Theatre. Registration begins at 09.30 with the first presentation at 10.00.
Organised by the British Museum in collaboration with the Assessorato dei Beni Culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana.
Sicily conference programme 24-25 June 2016

CFP: In Search of Wisdom: Knowledge Spaces and Networks across the Mediterranean Sea November 2nd, 3rd, and 4th 2016

In Search of Wisdom: Knowledge Spaces and Networks across the Mediterranean Sea

10thCOMPLUTENSE CONFERENCE ON MEDIEVAL ART

NOVEMBER 2nd, 3rd, AND 4th 2016

RESEARCH PROJECT: “Al-Andalus, the Hispanic Kingdoms and Egypt: Art, Power and Knowledge in the Medieval Mediterranean. Exchange Networks and their impact on the Visual Culture”(HAR2013-45578-R)

The aim of this conference is to deepen into the various insights of the construction of spaces and the production of works of art linked to sciences and knowledge in the Middle Ages, throughout different geographical, cultural, and social realms within the Mediterranean area.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Paper proposals should include an abstract of the issue written in Spanish, English or French languages (a maximum of ca. 1,000 words), a bibliographical reference’s list on the subject (a maximum of 10 references), and a short Curriculum Vitae of the submitter (a maximum of ca. 500 words). Proposals should be framed within one of the four indicated sessions by the submitter. Priority will be given to those innovative approaches, critical analyses or insights into the specific framework of the session topics, especially those linked to al-Andalus, Hispanic Kingdoms or Medieval Egypt. Proposals should be send to jcam@ucm.es before June, 15^th 2016; once they have been selected by the scientific committee, their acceptance will be notified to authors before June, 30^th 2016.

SESSIONS

“Mirror of Princes: paideia, uirtus and adab” is focused on secular places of knowledge.
“Science and its usages” deals with those spaces and networks where medieval science was developed.
“Books and their spaces” is devoted to the production of Medieval manuscripts and the places for books.
“Masters, sages, and patrons” analyzes the relationship between patrons, artisans, and knowledge producers, paying special attention to synergies of all those linked to scientific development.

INVITED CONTRIBUTORS

Evelyne Berriot-Salvadore (Université Montpellier 3), Eduardo Carrero (UAB), Miquel Forcada (UB), Ángel Fuentes Domínguez (UAM), Emilio González Ferrín (Universidad de Sevilla), Alfonso Jiménez (Universidad de Sevilla), Miguel Marañón (Instituto Cervantes), Rafael Ramón Guerrero, María Jesús Viguera (UCM), Gerhard Wolf (Kuntshistorisches-Max Planck Institute, Florencia).

SCIENTIFIC AND ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Alexandra Uscatescu e Irene González Hernando (coordinadoras), Susana Calvo Capilla, Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, Azucena Hernández Pérez, Víctor Rabasco García, Pilar Martínez Taboada, Herbert González Zymla, Noelia Silva Santa-Cruz, Javier Martínez de Aguirre, Marta Poza Yagüe, Óscar Monterreal, Elena Paulino, Manuel Parada y Laura Molina.