Medieval Art Research

Chiaroscuro as Aesthetic Principle, 1300-1600 (Bern, 29-30 April 2016)

Taddeo Gaddi, Annunciation to the Shepherds, Baroncelli Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence, c.1330

Chiaroscuro since Leon Battista Alberti’s De pictura (1435) has been one of the central subjects characterising painting and sculpture in practice and theory in Italy. Primarily, it concerns the articulation of plastic qualities, the formulation of relief, both in painting and sculpture. In the northern tradition, too, chiaroscuro has been highly valued. Through chiaroscuro, the textures of materials and the structural fabric of their surfaces, including their eye-catching highlights, have been evoked. Chiaroscuro goes hand in hand with an intensification of optical qualities.

In the Cinquecento, the significance of chiaroscuro underwent an
important change. The evocation of plasticity and corporeality through a chiaroscuro that created relief was now in part replaced by a tonally defined chiaroscuro, which focused on pictorial qualities. This is the case, for example, in the Clair obscur prints, which developed in both, northern and Italian art. These different uses of chiaroscuro are each linked to differently grounded aesthetic commitments.

Within the context sketched above, we want to understand chiaroscuro as
a distinctive aesthetic principle. Our chronological focus is on the
period from 1300 to 1600.

The following sections are envisaged:

– chiaroscuro and monochrome painting
– chiaroscuro in the context of drawing and prints
– chiaroscuro and sculpture
– chiaroscuro in the art of Leonardo da Vinci

Further relevant proposals may be added: suggestions will be gladly
received.

Interested scholars are cordially invited to present their researches
and ideas in the framework of the conference. Please send your abstract
(max. 300 words) for a c. 20-minute presentation together with your
Curriculum Vitae by August 15, 2015 by email to:
claudia.lehmann@ikg.unibe.ch

Presenters will be contacted in September 2015.

Taking architectural history to the bridge: International Bridges Group inaugural meeting report

The study of architecture largely focuses on the study of buildings: constructions with their most essential function as shelter for the human body. But architectural history can forget that constructions with other functions are also ripe for interpretation of their structure and ideologies. This is what the ambitiously-named International Bridges Group intends to promote for crossings of all kinds, but beginning with a focus upon the medieval. Hence we at MedievalArtResearch.com were invited to their inaugural meeting at Westminster Hall on the banks of the Thames, followed by a day of in-depth (hopefully not literally) investigation of medieval bridges in the Nene and Great Ouse valleys. It as an opportunity to experience the fledgling sub-discipline of gephyrology: a neologism which currently only returns fifty results on Google.

Delegates assembled under the flying buttress of Westminster Hall

As the current writer specialises on ecclesiastical architecture, one thing that emerged in the day in Westminster Hall was how similar working on the English bridge is to studying English parish church. Opening lectures from John Blair and John Chandler established thinking about English bridges is closely linked to unravelling the origins and operation of the English parochial system. Many current bridges can be traced back to the increasing importance of kingdoms in the late eighth century, and the establishment of centres of power. Just like churches, sometimes the opportunity to build a bridge was seized upon by institutions, monastic, parochial or secular to make a powerful architectural statement. Equally, institutions could be less responsible: maintenance neglected and pontage tolls embezzled.

P2060031 — David Harrison addresses delegates

Also like English churches, English bridges are uniquely weird and wonderful in equal measure. John P. Allan showed us, via the Exe bridge at Exeter, how independent masons may have been happy to meet in the middle with rounded and pointed arches; while Peter Cross Rudkin showed the English fondness for soffit ribs under the arches, akin to the complicated mouldings of English churches. The rib may have originally had a functional purpose centring the arch before it was built up: especially important for a rounded arch that cannot support itself. But since the ribs are often spaced wider than the length of the stones on top, it would appear that they have assumed the status of a skeuomorph: a decorative form derived from a practical necessity. Having a bridge that had distinctively bridge-like forms was clearly as essential as its structural practicality.

Jana Gajdošová and the tower of the Charles Bridge, Prague

Just as a church spire provided an opportunity to dominate the sky, a bridge provided a powerful opportunity to assert ideology through these unique architectural semiotics. Susan Irvine used Anglo-Saxon literature to consider the bridge as a liminal space: a meeting point between two places. The potential of using this category of space was explored by Jana Gajdošová and Gerrit Jasper Schenk, both presenting papers on bridges rebuilt after disaster. The Gothic Charles Bridge in Prague, with its enormous bridge-tower and scheme of regal architectural sculpture, Jana showed to be a powerful expression of the megalomaniacal ambition of the Holy Roman Emperor. Gerrit compared the rebuilt Ponte Vecchio to the Florentine Bapistery: a pagan monument to Mars reclaimed for John the Baptist, expressed through inscriptions that speak of the enlightened commune of the city.

The final session brought us to how the established concept of a bridge worked in larger societal concepts: Jacopo Turchetto took us to medieval Anatolia, demonstrating how magnificent Ottoman bridges represented much older meeting places of travelling caravans. Roberta Magnusson and David Harrison both gave rich lectures about the bridge in the frameworks of English urban infrastructure and society that proved vital for enlightened conversation on the group’s trip out the Nene and Great Ouse Valleys the next day.

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Great Barford, Bedfordshire — Great Barford (Bedfordshire), c.1428

After an early Sunday-morning start, the first bridge the delegates encountered was Great Barford in Bedfordshire, dated by a major bequest of 1428. Much of the problem of looking at bridges is that, unlike a building, it faces not just the usual climatic elements, but also heavy traffic, perpetually flowing water, and wandering boats. Therefore it is inevitable that they fail and are rebuilt. Great Barford was also slightly spoiled by the 1874 widening – a common solution to the problem of increasing road traffic in the Modern age – here achieved by building out the bridge on the west side with a brick refacing.

Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire — Irthlingborough (Northamptonshire), 13th or 14th century

Many medieval bridges are isolated from the main traffic flow: Irthlingborough now has a rather precarious-looking 1930s concrete Art-Deco bypass running alongside it. But in the Middle Ages it was a main road: therefore it was an inevitable structure unlike the grand statement at Great Barford, and probably with much earlier origins. Ditchford, on the other hand, had no such modern rerouting and was very much in use, with signal lights controlling the two-way traffic not used to a group of architectural historians examining its structure (see featured image). This bridge, made largely of attractively-tinged ironstone, was funded by the two parishes of which it lay on the boundary line: charmingly expressed on the central cutwater by the symbols of churches’ dedicatees, St Peter and St Catherine.

Huntingdon, Huntingdonshire — Huntingdon to Godmanchester bridge, corbel table, c.1300-20

Two major urban bridges finished the trip. The very handsome bridge over the Great Ouse outside Huntingdon, called ‘lately built’ in 1322, reveals at close inspection its English eccentricities: different mouldings, designs and widths for every arch. It has the most attractive feature of a trefoil-arched corbel table, very much confirming the early-fourteenth-century date, which may have marked the place of a bridge chapel. Very few of these survived the Reformation: Wakefield, Rotherham, Bradford-upon-Avon and St Ives being the exception. However, we found the chapel over the Great Ouse locked, but had plenty to admire in the St Ives bridge itself: built in the 1420s at the behest of some generous Benedictines.

St Ives, Huntingdonshire — St Ives bridge and chapel, 1420s

While very rich and informative, this meeting established only mere stepping stones to the establishment of gephyrology as an active discipline. If you are a budding gephyrologist, especially of the medieval period (or at least, initially, hanging around with a bunch of medievalists) and would be interested in attending future meetings of this research group, then email Jana Gajdošová with your name, institutional affiliation and a brief description of your studies.

For the full resumé of pictures of the day (including cheeky opportunistic solo church visits) see the Flickr set.

Call for Papers: The Architecture of Death (London, 11 March 2016)

The Mausolea & Monuments Trust Student Symposium
The Forum, Bloomsbury Baptist Church
Friday 11 March 2016

Call for papers of 20 minutes: for the inaugural student symposium of The Mausolea
& Monuments Trust to be held in The Forum, Bloomsbury Baptist Church, London
on Friday 11 March 2016. This event will provide an opportunity to present an aspect of your research in front of an engaged and extremely well-informed audience, providing ample time for discussion and forging new links and contacts.
The Mausolea & Monuments Trust is a highly regarded institution; acting as
guardian to six important mausolea, campaigning for the preservation of many
more, and running a series of scholarly lectures and visits each year:
www.mmtrust.org.uk

The theme of the symposium is deliberately broad ranging, allowing varied
perspectives on the purpose, design, construction, use, importance, care,
conservation, history and legacy of mausolea and monuments. It is hoped that we
will explore the field through a range of interdisciplinary approaches, showcasing
current post-graduate research on a variety of subjects. Papers should be illustrated
by PowerPoint, and speakers should expect to take questions following their
presentation. It is hoped that a selection of papers will be published in a special
edition of the Mausolea and Monuments Trust journal, Mausolus. Speakers coming
from outside London will be offered a £20 contribution towards their travel
expenses. If you are interested in contributing, please submit an abstract of 300
words maximum and a brief biography to Frances Sands: fsands@soane.org.uk by
Monday 31st August 2015.

CfP: Netherlandish Art and Luxury Goods in Renaissance Spain (Leuven, 4-6 Feb 2016)

Call for Papers deadline 1 Oct 2015

University of Leuven, Belgium, 4-6 February 2016
International conference

Initiated and organized by
Illuminare – Centre for the Study of Medieval Art | KU Leuven

Anonymous (Antwerp), Carved retable of the Passion of Christ, c. 1510. Burgos, San Lesmes, Capilla de Salamanca (Hans Nieuwdorp Archive, Illuminare – Centre for the Study of Medieval Art | KU Leuven).

In 2010, Illuminare – Centre for the Study of Medieval Art (KU Leuven) acquired the archive of the eminent Belgian art historian professor Jan Karel Steppe (1918-2009). Steppe is internationally renowned for his groundbreaking research on the influx of Netherlandish art and luxury goods in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Spain. By springtime 2016, his documentation will be archived and the inventory made accessible online. To celebrate this accomplishment, Illuminare is organizing an international conference on Steppe’s long-term and much loved research topic.

This conference will focus on a large variety of media, ranging from painting and tapestry to broadcloth and astrolabes. Special attention will be paid to the driving forces behind this export-driven market, such as artists, patrons, collectors and merchants. By taking into account cultural, religious, political and socio-economic dynamics, this conference aims to shed new light on the multifaceted artistic impact of the Low Countries on the Iberian Peninsula in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

We welcome 20-minute papers by established and early career scholars that revisit or expand Steppe’s topics of research and, equally important, enhance these with recent methodologies and theoretical frameworks. The official language of the conference is English, although papers in French might be taken into consideration. Proposals of no more than 300 words and a brief CV should be submitted to drs. Robrecht Janssen (robrecht.janssen@arts.kuleuven.be) and drs. Daan van Heesch (daan.vanheesch@arts.kuleuven.be) by the 1st of October 2015. Speakers will be invited to submit their papers for a peer-reviewed publication on the topic.

Find out more on their website
netherlandishartinspain.wordpress.com/

Scientific committee

Barbara Baert (KU Leuven), Krista de Jonge (KU Leuven), Bart Fransen (KIK-IRPA, Brussels), Robrecht Janssen (KU Leuven / KIK-IRPA, Brussels), Maximiliaan Martens (Ghent University), Werner Thomas (KU Leuven), Paul Vandenbroeck (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp / KU Leuven), Jan Van der Stock (KU Leuven), Daan van Heesch (KU Leuven), Koenraad Van Cleempoel (Hasselt University), Annelies Vogels (KU Leuven), Lieve Watteeuw (KU Leuven)

Images: Signs and Phenomena of Time (Hamburg 12-14 Nov 2015)

A trans- and interdisciplinary conference at the University of Hamburg, 12–14 November 2015

Simone Martini, Agostino Novello polytych, simultaneous narrative showing resurrection of a child

The capacity to distinguish between past, present, and future plays an important role in the formation of (self-)consciousness. Time is an essential criterion to order the flow of contingent events and experiences and to build up coherence and meaning. In turn, the narratives emerging from such temporal ordering are crucial for the development of identities. However, theoretical concepts of time in philosophy, physics, biology, sociology, or cultural studies are numerous and often opposing. It only remains obvious that humans have the ability to make some sort of experience of time. Images have always played a part in these processes. Moving and still images represent time and duration and contribute to the organisation of temporality or atemporality in many ways. They may represent the flow of time, or singular moments or – through their subjects, modes of representation, or being objects of preferences or dislikes – stand as signs for the period in which they were produced or shown. Often the material body of the images becomes an indicator of time or a trigger of dynamic experiences of time. By means of their modes of representation, images also facilitate various experiential dimensions of time such as eventful or presentist moments and the stretching or folding of time. The relationship between the pictorial representation of time and perception of time is influenced by various factors. Experience of time may be seen in relation to the different senses constituting such experience. On the other hand, it may be influenced by cultural concepts of time, time regimes, practices of perception, and environmental processes. To analyse time experience one may apply semiotic or phenomenological methods or turn to integrative concepts like cybersemiotics, biosemiotics, or theories of embodiment. Therefore, basic questions for the conference could be:

– How do images represent time?
– How is it possible that images represent time or duration?
– How are representations and experiences of time influenced by concepts and regimes of time?
– Which senses take part in the experience of time?
– How are the materials of media involved in the experience of time?

This third conference on visual culture at the University of Hamburg which is organised by students and postgraduates of archaeology, art history, and cultural anthropology will provide lectures on the main topics and opportunities for detailed discussion. We are particularly looking for trans- and interdisciplinary contributions which deal with the above questions in visual media of all kind (still images, sculpture, installation art, film etc.). There is no limitation to certain periods or cultures. The contributions will be published after the conference.

Proposals for lectures (30 min) in German or English may be sent to mail@kulturkundetagung.de (organisational team: Jacobus Bracker, Clara Doose-Grünefeld, Tim Jegodzinski und Kirsten Maack) until 31 July 2015. Abstracts should not exceed 300 words. Furthermore, we would be grateful for the inclusion of a short academic CV. We especially encourage young scholars and students of all levels to contribute. Funding of speakers’ travel and accommodation expenses cannot currently be guaranteed. However, participation in the conference is free of any charge. The conference will take place in the Warburg-Haus in Hamburg.

CFP: Memory and Identity in the Middle Ages: The Construction of a Cultural Memory of the Holy Land in the 4th-16th centuries (Amsterdam, 26-27 May 2016), deadline 1 December 2015

The Holy Land has played an important role in the definition of the identities of the three major
Abrahamic religions. Constitutive narratives about the past of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were
largely bound to this shared and contested space. As put forward both by Maurice Halbwachs and Jan Assmann, memory adheres to what is ‘solid’, stored away in outward symbols. The Holy Land is a focal point around which the shared memories of these different groups formed, and has been crucial for defining their identities. Accordingly, the definition of this shared memory can be traced as a process of elaborating a cultural memory: an ‘artificial’ construction of developed traditions, transmissions and transferences. This process of construction was pursued through different media that cast the past into symbols. The period between the age of Constantine and the late Renaissance was formative for constructing this memory. It saw the valorization of Christian holy places under Constantine, the birth of Islam, the construction of an important Jewish scholarly community in the Holy Land, the Crusades, the massive growth of late medieval pilgrimage involving Jewish, Christian and Islamic groups, as well as other crucial events.
The conference aims to bring together scholars who study the memories of the holy places
within these religious galaxies from various disciplinary perspectives, in order to achieve a constructive exchange of ideas. Scholars of all so-called Abrahamic religions are invited to submit proposals, including scholars of Western and Eastern Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The call is open for historians, art historians, literary scholars, theologians, philosophers working on topics ranging from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance.

This conference is organized by the team of the research project Cultural Memory and Identity in the Late Middle Ages: the Franciscans of Mount Zion in Jerusalem and the Representation of the Holy Land (1333-1516): Michele Campopiano, Valentina Covaci, Guy Geltner and Marianne Ritsema van Eck. The project is funded by the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO).

Papers should be 30 minutes long, and will be followed by 15 minutes of discussion. Participants are
asked to send an abstract of 300 words to memory.and.identity.conference@gmail.com before 1 December 2015, together with information concerning their academic affiliation. Travel costs and two nights of accommodation will be financed by the project. Please do not hesitate to contact us for
additional information.

Call for Papers: ‘Shared Invention: From Antiquity to the 21st Century’ (Clermont-Ferrand, Aubusson and Limoges, 6–8 April 2016)

An international colloquium entitled ‘Shared Invention: From Antiquity to the 21st Century’ will be held 6–8 April 2016, and proposals for papers are now being accepted. The colloquium is being organized by Laurence Riviale and Jean-François Luneau, lecturers at Blaise Pascal University, Clermont-Ferrand (France), in partnership with Musée national Adrien Dubouché, Limoges (France) and Cité de la Tapisserie, Aubusson (France). It will take place in Clermont-Ferrand, Aubusson and Limoges. ‘Shared invention’, or collective creation, is the chosen theme for this international colloquium, whose aim is to enable art historians working in a range of fields to understand better creation in the fine arts and production in the decorative arts.

When an artist’s work of art is translated into another medium, if the craftsman is not himself the inventor, but only a docile workman, how can differences in two items made by two craftsmen according to the same design be accounted for, but by a margin of liberty and sensitivity in which the very personality of the maker expresses itself? This margin will be at the heart of the debate, taking into account historical, social, and cultural contexts of all the periods in question.

After the Middle Ages, during which painters and sculptors belonged to a regular, legally instituted trade, those whom we now denote ‘artists’ tried to distinguish themselves by invention, leaving execution or transposition to craftsmen, and strove to elevate their trades to the dignity of liberal arts. For Giorgio Vasari, such a claim is satisfied by the expression ‘arts of design’, which were to become the ‘fine arts’, that is, painting, architecture and sculpture. ‘Design’ thereby has became the discriminating point for all academies that were subsequently founded, from the Accademia delle arti del disegno in Florence (1563) to the French Académie royale (1648), and later on, the British Royal Academy (1768). Art historians have seldom questioned this hierarchy and have more readily studied the creations of a ‘genius’, leaving the craftsman’s production in the shadow.

But is invention only the privilege of the artist who provides the design? Recent scholarly studies have striven to understand the processes of creation at the heart of workshops through artistic documentation, such as the miscellanies of modelli and inventories of human positions collected by painters in the sixteenth century, revealing the almost universal use of what has been called, paradoxically, the ‘invention copy’ – that is, the creation of a new composition achieved by putting together heterodox bits from everywhere. This type of process highlights the role of the patron, who may be the true inventor, as he owns designs and ideas and is responsible for this aspect of the composition from beginning to end. In this case, the so-called ‘artist’ is but a kind of go-between, and can only be understood as a mere workman.

Papers devoted to etchings or engravings, stone masonry, wall-painting or paper, furnishing or fashion fabrics, chinaware, stoneware, stained glass, etc., are welcome, especially if they emphasize not only the margin of liberty mentioned above, but also the aspects of works of art appropriate to their destination and intended meaning. Summaries of 2500 or 3000 characters will be submitted, along with a short CV (three lines), before 22 June 2015, to laurence [dot] RIVIALE [at] univ-bpclermont [dot] fr, or laurence [dot] riviale [at] orange [dot] fr, or J-Francois [dot] LUNEAU [at] univ-bpclermont [dot] fr. Applicants will receive a reply in September 2015.

Languages: French, English (there will be no interpreters).

Image Matter: Art and Materiality (Manchester, November 6, 2015)

Call for papers deadline: Aug 1, 2015

Image Matter: Art and Materiality
AAH New Voices Conference
MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University
6 November 2015

Keynote: Professor Carol Mavor (University of Manchester)

How do art historians interpret matter? And how about artists, makers,
theorists and critics? Much recent art historical and visual culture
literature has argued for the reinstatement of the bodily and the
material in art and its encounter, rejecting the pre-eminence of a
disembodied eye in favour of a wider range of somatic responses:
touching, hearing, tasting, smelling. Similarly, the material
physicality of the art object in its myriad forms—surface, texture,
weight, spatial extension, sound etc—has recaptured our attention.

New Voices 2015 will explore approaches to materiality and the material
in light of developing discourses that implicate art history, as well
as visual and material culture studies. Even if there has been a
‘material turn’, James Elkins (2008) argues that art history remains
fearful of the material: ‘art history, visual studies,
Bildwissenschaft, and art theory take an interest in materiality
provided that the examples of materiality remain at an abstract or
general level …’. If the sensorium of seeing, tasting, feeling and
hearing exceeds the rationality of disciplinary categories and the
systematisation of knowledge, how can writing about and through art
accommodate affective objects? How have artists negotiated the conflict
of a spectatorship, which disregards hapticity, surface and substance?
How do traditions of connoisseurship engage with contemporary theories
of materiality?

As a ‘somaesthetic’ approach of beholding (re)gains currency the
primacy of sight decreases (for example, in the re evaluation of
medieval artefacts that were touched, kissed and smelled).
Alternatively, vision may at least be understood as opening haptic and
experiential exchanges between object and maker, object and viewer. But
perhaps the questionable pre-eminence of visuality also evidences an
increased derogation of manual labour in lieu of what is perceived as
more cerebral, more elevated from the yucky material of bodily
production. New Voices 2015 takes place within the intellectual and
creative space of the art school, the messy realm of art production. It
therefore asks how (the) material and its associated places of
production and ‘consumption’—from the studio to the gallery—can be
integrated in the discourses of art history and its objects.
New Voices welcomes contributions from all periods and contexts which
address the relationship between visual and material studies and
practices. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Haptic encounters with artworks (incl. performative, virtual,
conceptual works)
• Historiographic reflections on attitudes towards material(ity)
• Explorations on the relationships between visuality and materiality
• Historiographic and methodological approaches to the material of
art (and its making)
• Social, technological, historical and cultural contextualisations
of the material turn
• Art and materiality in a digital age

Abstracts of no more than 300 words for 20-minute papers should be
submitted along with a 100-word biographical note to
ImageMatterAAH@gmail.com by 1 August 2015. Although the conference is
open to all, speakers are required to be AAH members. Convenors: Liz
Mitchell, Rosalinda Quintieri, Tilo Reifenstein and Charlotte Stokes.

New Voices are annual, one-day conferences of new doctoral scholarship
that take place at different universities throughout the UK.

Stained Glass PhD Summer Symposium 2015 (University of York, United Kingdom, May 21-22, 2015)

The Stained Glass Research School at the University of York warmly
invite postgraduate students to attend their two-day PhD Summer
Symposium.

The Symposium will take place Thursday 21st – Friday 22nd May,
encompassing a day of research papers at King’s Manor with a set site
visits, in York and the surrounding area, to stimulate further
discussion.

PROGRAMME

21st May

10.30-11.00
Registration, King’s Manor, University of York

11.00-11.15
Welcome

11.15-12.45 – Group 2. Theme: Text and Image

1. Amanda Daw – “St Anne, the Virgin and the Eucharist: image and text
in the stained glass of Thomas Spofford”
2. Dr. George Younge – Old English in the Twelfth Century Glass at
Canterbury Cathedral
3. Katie Harrison – “Unravelling the narrative of the St Cuthbert
Window, York Minster”

12.45-13.45
Lunch

13.45-15.45 – Group 1. Theme: Style and Craft

1. Anya Heilpern – “Early 16th-century glass from Winchester Cathedral:
the problem of style”.
2. Oliver Fearon – “Glazier, Patron and the Virtuoso Crafting of
Heraldry in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century England.”
3. Jo Dillon, “…et plana et rade…” Challenging persistent theories of
medieval lead came production, with particular focus on evidence for
the form and facture of English medieval window lead pre-c1548
4. Alishka, ‘Crafting With Light’

15.45-16.15
Tea Break

16.15-17.45 – Group 3. Theme: Appropriation and Re-appropriation Chair:
Katie

1. Hilary Moxon – “Presenting and Patterning Virginities in York
Minster’s Chapter House: the cases of Margaret and Katherine”
2. Emma Woolfrey – “The stained glass in the clerestory apse of
Westminster Abbey: perception and reappropriation of the Gothic in
early 18th Century England.”
3. Catherine Spirit, ‘Continental Stained Glass in East Anglia:
Deciphering Early Nineteenth-Century Glazing Schemes.’

17.45
Closing Remarks

18.00
Wine Reception

22nd May

– St. Michael-le-Belfry (Lisa Reilly giving presentation and
discussion) 9.00-10.45
– Depart Union Terrace 11am
– Arrive at St. John the Baptist, Kirky Wharfe 12.15 (journey time 1h
15 mins)
– Depart St. John the Baptist, Kirkby Wharfe 13.15
– Arrive for Comfort Break at Sainsbury’s Tadcaster 13.30
– Depart Tadcaster 14.30
– Arrive at All Saint’s, Bolton Percy 14.50
– Depart All Saint’s, Bolton Percy 15.50
– Arrive Holy Trinity, Acaster Malbis 16.30
– Depart Holy Trinity, Acaster Malbis 17.30
– Arrive in York 18.00

Please see the following link for further informations:
https://www.york.ac.uk/history-of-art/news-and-events/events/2015/stained-glass-summer-symposium/

All postgraduate students with research interests in stained glass are
welcome! Registration is free but limited! Please do so follow the
Doodle Poll link to sign up for the two-day event:
https://doodle.com/85qs2p3r8sst3857

Please direct any queries to Katie Harrison
keh504@york.ac.uk and Oliver Fearon of509@york.ac.uk

Conference: Frankfurt als Zentrum unter Zentren? Kunsttransfer und Formgenese am Mittelrhein 1400 – 1500 (Frankfurt, Historisches Museum, 5-6 June 2015)

Die Auf- und Abwertung der „Kunstlandschaft“ als Terminus operandi ist ein Dauerthema der Kunstgeschichte. So fragte die ältere Diskussion der Kunst am Mittelrhein beispielsweise vor allem danach, wie der Mittelrhein als Kunstlandschaft geografisch zu bestimmen und die „mittelrheinische Kunst“ formal zu spezifizieren sei. Die Entwicklung
der spätgotischen Kunst am Mittelrhein, die bekanntlich von
wiederholtem, strukturellem Wandel begriffen war, wird jedoch besser
fassbar, wenn man sie als dynamische Einheit im engen Verbund mit
verschiedenen kulturellen Faktoren sowie überregionalen Einflüssen
betrachtet. Der Begriff der Kunstlandschaft versteht den Mittelrhein in
dieser Sichtweise als Kommunikationsgefüge durchlässiger Grenzen
zwischen mehr oder wenig stark ausgebildeten (über-)regionalen
Kunstzentren. Die Kategorie „Stil“ stellt sich hierbei als Medium
historischer, ästhetischer und kultureller Kommunikation dar. Mit Blick
auf die Kunst am Mittelrhein kann Stil einerseits als Ausdrucksform
sich wandelnder regionaler Repräsentationsformen bestimmt werden,
andererseits als Vermögen, sich vorgegebenen Bildkonventionen zu
entziehen und so eine reflexive ästhetische Identität zu erzeugen.

Entscheidend ist zudem, dass beide Aspekte „Kunsttransfer“ und
„Formgenese“ im Zusammenhang produktiver, nicht selten sich sprunghaft
wandelnder Netzwerke unterschiedlicher Kulturträger gesehen werden. Es
wird davon ausgegangen, dass die frappierende künstlerische
Heterogenität, die sich formal äußert, ihre Grundlage in der
spezifischen Transfer- und Kommunikationsstruktur am Mittelrhein hat
und auf diese zurückwirkt und dass sich darin beispielsweise die
innovativen Formexperimente um 1400 beschreiben lassen, in der
Neugierde am Fremden, an der Verbindung verschiedener Gattungen etc.
dominieren. Demgegenüber steht wiederum die passive Heterogenität der
lokalen Kunstproduktion um 1500.

Die dynamischen Netzwerke – etwa der Auftraggeber und Künstler – am
Mittelrhein aufzuspüren und repräsentative Ausdrucksformen in ihrem
kausalen Facettenreichtum zu rekonstruieren, ist Ziel der
internationalen Tagung. Erstmals soll insbesondere auch die Rolle der
Freien Reichs- und Messestadt Frankfurt als Produktions- und
Distributionsort spätmittelalterlicher Kunst genauer beleuchtet und zur
Debatte gestellt werden. Es wird weiterhin gefragt, ob die Betrachtung
der Kunst am Mittelrhein unter den Parametern der Vernetzung und des
(über-)regionalen Kunsttransfers zu übergeordneten Erkenntnissen über
die Formgenese im Allgemeinen führen kann.

Konzeption: Martin Büchsel, Hilja Droste, Berit Wagner
(Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main)

Programm:

Freitag, 05. Juni 2015

09.30 Uhr Corinna Engel/Historisches Museum Frankfurt, Begrüßung der
Tagungsteilnehmer

09.40 Uhr Begrüßung und Einführung: Formgenese und Kunsttransfer
Martin Büchsel (Frankfurt am Main)

Sektionsleitung: Berit Wagner (Frankfurt am Main)

10.15 Uhr Regina Schäfer (Mainz): Lokale Zentren ohne Mitte –
herrschaftliche Heterogenität und überregionale Vernetzung am
Mittelrhein im Spätmittelalter

11.00 Uhr Uwe Gast (Freiburg): Von mittelrheinischer Kunst zur Kunst
am Mittelrhein – Glasmalerei um 1430 – 1450 in Frankfurt, Oppenheim und
Partenheim

11.45 – 13.30 Uhr Mittagspause

13.30 Uhr Marc C. Schurr (Straßburg): Die stilgeschichtliche Verortung
der spätgotischen Architektur des Mittelrheins – ein Problem von
Zentrum und Peripherie?

14.15 Uhr Ute Engel (München/Mainz): Virtuosentum. Hängemaßwerk als
Import-/Exportgut der Gotik am Mittelrhein

15.00 Uhr Kaffeepause

Sektionsleitung: Jacqueline Jung (New Haven)

15.30 Uhr Bruno Klein (Dresden): “Die Sippe der Eseler“

16.15 Gregory Bryda (New Haven): Raum, Rahmen, und Reliquie: die
Eselers am Mittelrhein und in Mittelfranken

17.00 Uhr Assaf Pinkus (Tel Aviv): Materia and Res of Late Medieval
Wooden Sculpture in the Middle Rhine

Samstag, 06. Juni 2015

Sektionsleitung: Martin Büchsel (Frankfurt am Main)

09.00 Uhr Juliane von Fircks (Berlin): Vernetzt: Bildaufgaben,
Auftraggeber und Formfindung in der Skulptur um 1400 am Mittelrhein

09.45 Uhr Hilja Droste (Frankfurt am Main): Konservatismus als
Statement? Die zögerliche Aufnahme von Neuem in der Retabelkunst um
1500 am Mittelrhein

10.30 Kaffeepause

11.15 Uhr Berit Wagner (Frankfurt am Main): Gemälde und Skulpturen
für den Kunsthandel? Die Frankfurter Messe als Drehscheibe für den
Kunsttransfer im 15. Jahrhundert

12.10 Uhr Michaela Schedl (Bozen): Tafelmalerei in Frankfurt um 1500:
eigene Kunstproduktion und Importe

12.45 – 14.30 Uhr Mittagspause (ab 13.30 Kaffee im Rententurmfoyer vor
dem Sonnemann-Saal)

Sektionsleitung: Hilja Droste (Frankfurt am Main)

14.30 Uhr Stephan Kemperdick (Berlin): Ein unbekanntes Zentrum der
Malerei im 15. Jahrhundert: Frankfurt am Main

15.15 Uhr Martin Büchsel (Frankfurt am Main): Das Gothaer Liebespaar
oder Theseus und Ariadne?

16.00 Abschlussdiskussion

Im Anschluss besteht für die Tagungsteilnehmer die Möglichkeit einer
gesonderten Turmführung im Kaiserdom St. Bartholomäus im Rahmen der
Veranstaltung: „Domturmtag – 600 Jahre Grundsteinlegung“ (Organisation
Dommuseum).

Veranstaltungsort: Historisches Museum Frankfurt, Leopold Sonnemann-Saal
Kontakt: bwagner@kunst.uni-frankfurt.de sowiedroste@kunst.uni-frankfurt.de
Eintritt: frei, verbindliche Anmeldung nicht erforderlich