Conference: Architectures of Knowledge: Objects and Inventories in the Pre-modern World, Courtauld Institute, 15th May

Detail of the tympanum of the Duomo of San Giovanni, Monza, fourteenth century. © Stefania Gerevini

Speaker(s): Charles Burnett (Warburg Institute), Joanna Cannon (The Courtauld Institute of Art), Donal Cooper (University of Cambridge), Philippe Cordez (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich), Stefania Gerevini (The Courtauld Institute of Art), Valentina Izmirlieva (Columbia University), Tom Nickson (The Courtauld Institute of Art), Judith Pfeiffer (University of Oxford), Giacomo Todeschini (University of Trieste)

Ticket/entry details: £10 (£5 students, Courtauld staff/students, concessions). BOOK ONLINE: or send a cheque made payable to ‘The Courtauld Institute of Art’ to: Research Forum Events Co-ordinator, Research Forum, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN, stating your full name and ‘Architectures of Knowledge’.

Organised by: Drs Stefania Gerevini and Tom Nickson (The Courtauld Institute of Art). Funded by The Courtauld’s Research Forum and the Economic History Society

The technological transformations brought about by the Internet have given unprecedented political, social and economic relevance to questions of management, transmission and organisation of knowledge. They have focused public attention on the importance of the correct and secure preservation of information, and on the imperative for efficient measures against misuse. These have become matters of great concern for public bodies and for the civic and political community at large. But are these concerns entirely new?

This interdisciplinary workshop examines a particular (and particularly widespread) form of organisation and preservation of knowledge in the pre-modern Mediterranean: inventories. Looking beyond the function of medieval inventories as lists of objects, our workshop will explore their historical, legal and epistemological complexity in the Christian and Islamic Mediterranean. Our speakers will reflect upon the different textual and visual formats of medieval inventories, their physical appearance and organisation, and the different ways in which they referred to and provided information about objects and collections. What were the legal, economic and social functions of inventories, and what connections can be traced between practices of inventory-making and broader epistemological developments in the later Middle Ages? Ultimately, this workshop aims to explore the ways in which inventories contributed to produce, organise and transmit knowledge, and the ways in which they operated (together with the objects that they recorded) to maintain or undermine social, religious and political order.

10.45 – 11.15: Registration
11.15 – 11.30: Introduction
Stefania Gerevini (Courtauld Institute) and Tom Nickson (Courtauld Institute)
11.30 – 12.00: Charlemagne and the Saints: Hierarchy in Latin Relic Inventories
Philippe Cordez (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich)
12.00 – 12.30: The New Sciences and their Books in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
Charles Burnett (Warburg Institute)
12.30 – 12.45: Discussion
12.45 – 14.00: Lunch (provided for speakers only)
14.00 – 14.30: Abundance, scarcity, poverty, wealth: the notarial inventories as a textual mirror of economic and theological discourses on the common good (Italy, 13th-14th
centuries)
Giacomo Todeschini (University of Trieste)
14.30 – 15.00: ‘Fiat unum librum inventarium de omnibus notabilibus loci…’: Sacristy inventories as sources for Franciscan art and architecture
Donal Cooper (University of Cambridge)
15.00 – 15.15: Discussion
15.15 – 15.45: Tea for all
15.45 – 16.00: Order in the Sacristy: The Dominicans of Lucca in 1264
Joanna Cannon (Courtauld Institute)
16.00 – 16.15: Inventorying medieval Venice
Stefania Gerevini (Courtauld Institute)
16.15 – 16.30: Memory and Invention: the medieval inventories of Toledo cathedral
Tom Nickson (Courtauld Institute)
16.30 – 17.00: The inventory of Rashid al-Din
Judith Pfeiffer (University of Oxford)
17.00 – 17.30: Discussion
18.00 – 19.00: Keynote lecture: The Inventory Trope
Valentina Izmirlieva (Columbia University)
19.00 – 19.30: Drinks reception

http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/events/2014/summer/may15_ArchitecturesofKnowledge.shtml

The Medieval Bible, A Round-table Discussion (23rd May 2014)

The Medieval Bible
A Round-table Discussion Occasioned by Two Recent Publications

with:
David d’Avray (UCL)
Julia Boffey (QMUL)
Sara Lipton (SUNY)
Eyal Poleg (QMUL)

Celebrating the publication of Approaching the Bible in Medieval England, Eyal Poleg (MUP 2013)  and Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible, ed. Eyal Poleg and Laura Light (Brepols 2013)

16:00, Friday 23 May 2014, room 2.17 Arts2 Building, Mile End Campus

  Please RSVP on goo.gl/T6GXFe
  Travel information:  goo.gl/ZpyWd6

Resources: Society of Antiquaries London Youtube lectures

Missed a lecture at the Society of Antiquaries? Many of the society’s events, including conferences, public lectures and ordinary meetings of fellows are available on their Youtube channel!

https://www.youtube.com/user/SocAntiquaries/videos

Some talks include:

The recent Church Treasures conference on the 2nd May, featuring John Goodall, Loyd Grossman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1gmV2I6Mgw)

Sophie Oosterwijk on medieval child monuments (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2ZdKOhp8V8)

Sally Badham on ‘Seeking Salvation: Commemoration of the Dead in the Late Medieval English Parish’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOWJLnmeH5Q)

Michael Carter on Cistercian art and architecture in the late Middle Ages (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2CM15ZMoIw)

All medievalists are bound to find something to occupy themselves on a quiet evening, so have a look!

https://www.youtube.com/user/SocAntiquaries/videos

Conference: The Art of Ritual: Object, Image and Space in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (17th May 2014)

Senate Room, Senate House, London, United Kingdom, May 17, 2014
Registration deadline: May 6, 2014

This conference is organized by three Junior Fellows of the Institute
of Historical Research from diverse scholarly backgrounds: Dhwani Patel
(KCL), Wendy Sepponen (University of Michigan) and Jo Edge (RHUL). It
will bring together two fields of research – the material and the
ceremonial – that are intimately connected but rarely explored together
in a conference setting.

The Art of Ritual aims to bring focus to how material culture and art
(broadly defined) fits into and shapes ritual, and will be organized
into three principal thematic strands. The first is art that influenced
ritual, for example space and site specificity, or the importance and
history of a particular place, site or space in connection with ritual.
The second is art that reflected ritual, for example representations of
processions. The final strand concerns objects and images that
functioned as an integral part of ritual, for example relics and
magical diagrams.

PROGRAMME

9.00-9.30
Registration and coffee

9.30-10.45
Urban Architecture and Religious Ritual
Chair: Dhwani Patel

Zoë Opacic (Birkbeck)
‘The Architecture of Ritual in Central Europe’

Tom Nickson (The Courtauld Institute)
‘New Rituals? Art in the Age of Reconquest’

10.45-11.15 Morning coffee

11.15-12.30
Art and Communal Devotion
Chair: Wendy Sepponen

Achim Timmermann (University of Michigan)
‘Golgotha, Now and Then: Image and Sacrificial Topography in Late
Medieval and Early Modern Europe’

Marianne Gilly-Argoud (Université Pierre-Mendès-France)
‘Living Incarnation within depictions of the sacraments: art and ritual
in late medieval alpine iconography’

12.30-1.30 Lunch

1.30-2.45
Ritual and the Unorthodox Imagination
Chair: Jo Edge

Natalia Petrovskaia (University of Cambridge)
‘Literary Fiction or Anthropology: Mapping Imaginary Ritual’

Sophie Page (University College London)
‘Art and ritual in medieval learned magic’

2.45-3.15 Afternoon coffee

3.15-4.30
Place, image and everyday ritual
Chair: Wendy Sepponen

Andrew Murray (University College London)
‘Everlasting and Transitional Rituals Amongst the Mourners of Philip the
Bold’

Adriana de Miranda (University of Bologna)
‘Ancient custom between Art and Rituality’

4.30-5.00
Round table discussion

5.00-7.00 Wine reception

Registration costs £10 (£5 students/retired/unwaged) which includes
refreshments, lunch and wine reception on the day. Registration deadline
is Tuesday 6 May 2014.

To reserve your place please email artofritualconference@gmail.com as
soon as possible.

Call for Papers: Beguiling Structures Architecture in European Painting 1300-1550

Beguiling Structures
Architecture in European Painting 1300-1550
19th September 2014, National Gallery, London

“Is it not true that painting is the mistress of all the arts or their principal ornament? If I am not mistaken, the architect took from the painter architraves, capitals, bases, columns and pediments, and all the other fine features of buildings. The stonemason, the sculptor and all the workshops and crafts of artificers are guided by the rule and art of the painter. So I would venture to assert that whatever beauty there is in things has been derived from painting.”

Leon Battista Alberti – De Pictura, Book II, Chapter XXVI.

So runs Leon Battista Alberti’s famous claim for architects’ indebtedness to the creativity of painters. His words draw attention to the close relationship between illusionistic representations of architecture and its actual three-dimensional forms. Indeed, the prominence given to architecture within painting before and after Alberti’s lifetime has long been noted, though its presence is easily overlooked and its precise meaning often elusive. This conference for graduate students and early-career scholars will explore this relationship in all its multifaceted complexity. Conceived to complement The National Gallery’s exhibition Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting, this event will look afresh at architecture’s place within European painting and reassess established interpretations. Why were buildings included in pictorial representations? What is their purpose and what do they do for the picture? The answers to these and other questions may well uncover a far more complex interchange between painting and architecture than Alberti’s straightforward assertion would suggest.

Students and scholars working in the visual arts of the late-Mediaeval and Renaissance periods are therefore warmly invited to submit proposals for twenty-minute papers. Interdisciplinary approaches to these subjects and discoveries of current research are particularly welcome. Potential topics for consideration may include:

-The use of architecture to demonstrate perspectival devices and to structure pictorial composition.
-The adoption of elaboration, ornamentation and the ‘fantastic’ in depicted architecture.
-The use of architectural forms to visualise historical time and specific topographies within narratives.
-The theoretical discourse of perspective and its terminology within contemporaneous accounts.
-The creation of dialogues between the architecture of the painting and that of its original location.
-The use and significance of architectural frames both within paintings and surrounding them.

Whilst papers on these themes are encouraged, submissions for proposals on topics across the broader spectrum of artistic media, chronological periods and geographical locations are also welcome. Proposed papers’ titles and abstracts of 250 words, and any additional enquiries, should be forwarded to beguiling.structures@gmail.com by Monday 16TH June 2014. This conference, organised by Alasdair Flint, James Jago and Livia Lupi, forms part of the Galleries & Museums Research Partnerships Programme between The National Gallery, London and the Department of History of Art, The University of York.

Call for papers: Alfonso VIII and Eleanor of England, Artistic Confluences Around 1200 (Madrid, November 12-14, 2014) – Deadline 25th May

October 6, 1214. The Castilian monarch, Alfonso VIII, died on his way to Plasencia. Before the month had ended, his wife Eleanor Plantagenet followed him in the monastery of Las Huelgas in Burgos. To celebrate the eight-hundredth anniversary of their passing, the UCM’s Department of History of Art I (Medieval) organises the VIII edition of their International Seminar-Complutense Conference in Medieval Art (12-14 November 2014), under the title “Alfonso VIII and Eleanor of England, Artistic Confluences Around 1200″.

There are four scheduled sessions:

Session I: Alfonso VIII, culture and image of a Kingdom

This first session will explore the memory of the Castilian royal family and its repercussions on cultural and artistic manifestations linked to the regal environment. It will accommodate contributions related to the figure of the monarch and his lineage, his image, or his role as an artistic patron.

Session II: Eleanor of England, women’s artistic patronage

Starting with the figure of Eleanor as queen and patroness of the arts, we suggest a reflection on the role of women in the field of artistic promotion, both in regal and aristocratic spheres.

Session III: Artists, workshops and exchanges

During Alfonso VIII’s time, figurative arts experimented a deep transformation encouraged by workshops and artists’ mobility, sharing knowledge and using the same solutions in often distant territories. The third session will address all figurative artistic expressions during this long reign (1158-1214).

Session IV: Peninsular architecture around 1200, changes and international connections
Alfonso VIII and Eleanor of England’s reign coincided with a time of change in the religious architecture of the Peninsular kingdoms, both Christian and Muslim. New liturgical necessities, together with artistic exchanges within the Hispanic and European territories, had an impact on the renovation of the Spanish monumental landscape.

Invited speakers: Martin Aurell (CESCM-Université de Poitiers), Claude Andrault-Schmitt (CESCM-Université de Poitiers), Isidro Bango Torviso (UAM), Gerardo Boto Varela (Universitat de Girona), Susana Calvo Capilla (UCM), Eduardo Carrero Santamaría (UAB), Therese Martin (CCHS, CSIC), Javier Martínez de Aguirre (UCM), Dulce Ocón Alonso (Universidad del País Vasco), Olga Pérez Monzón (UCM), Marta Poza Yagüe (UCM), Ana María Rodríguez López (CCHS, CSIC), Marta Serrano Coll (Universitat Rovira i Virgili) and Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo (Montclair State University)..

Scientific committee:Marta Poza Yagüe (coordinadora), Diana Olivares Martínez (secretaria), Javier Martínez de Aguirre, Pilar Martínez Taboada and José Luis Senra Gabriel y Galán.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Paper proposals of about 1000 words -including a brief CV- may be submitted in English, Spanish or French. Only those papers presenting new research or critical contributions will be considered. They must fit within the themes of the above sessions. Proposals should be sent to the email address VIII.jornadas@ucm.esby May 25, 2014. After evaluation, the scientific committee will inform the authors of their acceptance on June 20, 2014.

As with previous editions of the Jornadas Complutenses de Arte Medieval, the proceedings of the congress are planned to be published.

For more information, please visit the following website: https://www.ucm.es/artemedieval/8jornadas

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C14 stained glass of hare riding hound, Great Gonerby church, Lincolnshire

This is only the beginning of the third academic term for this blog, but we are delighted by the postive response it has received. Just remember, it is intended as a totally free resource for all: if you have a medieval event coming up, whether it be an international conference or faculty reading group, please do send it into medievalartresearch@gmail.com and we’ll put it up! The same goes for your own short reviews and opinion pieces: for instance if you are going to Kalamazoo this year, we’d love to hear from you.

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Conference: Connecting the Silk Road. Trade, People & Social Networks (c. 400-1300 AD) May 17-18, 2014

Leiden University (Leiden Global Interactions – Project ‘Guiding Travelers’) has organized in cooperation with the Hermitage Amsterdam the conference Connecting the Silk Road. Trade, People & Social Networks (c. 400-1300 AD) on May 17 and 18, 2014 (see attached programme). The occasion for this symposium is the exhibition Expedition Silk Road. Treasures from the Hermitage, in the Hermitage Amsterdam on view from March 1 until September 5, 2014. Responsible for the conference organization are: Joanita Vroom (Archaeology, Leiden University) & Gabrielle van den Berg (Area Studies, Leiden University), and Birgit Boelens & Vincent Boele (Hermitage Amsterdam).

For thousands of years, land and sea routes served to exchange goods and ideas over thousands of kilometers from the Pacific East to the Atlantic West. Contacts between east and west are often assumed to have developed first in the Roman period, and then re-established again in the post-Marco Polo era. Exchange however continued, evolving along clusters of networks and changing routes and roads, which were commonly known as ‘the Silk Road’. Networks were created with commercial, social, religious, diplomatic incentives and connected geographical regions over any distance.

In this conference, we aim to highlight the complexity and sophistication of interactions through and between such networks by exploring their diversity, connective infrastructure and organization across natural or human-imposed boundaries. In addition, we hope to discuss development over routes and roads under influence of political, religious, economic and social changes.

Poster presentations for the conference are welcome (please contact: Gabrielle van den Berg: g.r.van.den.berg@hum.leidenuniv.nl, or Maria Riep: m.riep@hum.leidenuniv.nl).

Entrance is free, but registration (from April 23 onwards) for the conference is required. Please contact for further information the Hermitage Amsterdam: pressoffice@hermitage.nl

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME: http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/program-17-and-18-may.pdf

OFFICIAL WEBSITE AND REGISTRATION: http://research.leiden.edu/research-profiles/global/guiding-travelers/news/conference-2014.html

Conference: Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting XIX and Ghent altarpiece study day, 11-13 September 2014

The Université catholique de Louvain (UCL, Louvain-la-Neuve), the Laboratoire d’étude des œuvres d’art par les méthodes scientifiques (Musée de Louvain-la-Neuve) and the Flemish research centre for the arts in the Burgundian Netherlands of the Groeningemuseum (Musea Brugge) are honoured to announce the XIXth symposium for the Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting which will be held in Bruges on 11-13 September 2014. This series of prestigious conferences, already in their nineteenth edition, was initiated in 1975 by the Université catholique de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve (UCL). The colloquium is alternately organized by the UCL, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KULeuven) and the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK/IRPA) and its Centre for the Study of the Flemish Primitives, who hosted the XVIIIth symposium dedicated to Jan van Eyck in 2012.

The 2014 colloquium is dedicated to Technical studies of paintings: problems of attribution (15th-17th century). Attributions are central questions in art history. Since the introduction of new examination methods such as radiography, infrared photography and reflectography, conventional art history has undergone major changes. Technical examinations can provide additional arguments for attributing works of art to individual artists or their workshops. However, technical studies often also reveal complex working methods, while new scientific imagery sometimes challenges accepted attributions and instigates reconsiderations of traditional attributions. This symposium focusses on the various ways in which technical studies can provide answers to the often complex issue of attribution and will discuss the challenges that art historians face in proposing conclusive theories.

Scientific Committee

Till-Holger Borchert (Musea Brugge, Flemish research centre for the arts in the Burgundian Netherlands), Jacqueline Couvert (UCL, Laboratoire d’étude des oeuvres d’art par les méthodes scientifiques), Christina Currie (KIK/IRPA), Anne Dubois (UCL, FRS-FNRS), Bart Fransen (KIK/IRPA), Valentine Hendericks (ULB, KIK/IRPA), Vanessa Paumen (Musea Brugge, Flemish research centre for the arts in the Burgundian Netherlands), Cyriel Stroo (KIK/IRPA), Jan Van der Stock (KULeuven), Anne van Oosterwijk (Musea Brugge, Flemish research centre for the arts in the Burgundian Netherlands), Dominique Vanwijnsberghe (KIK/IRPA), Lieve Watteeuw (KULeuven)

Ghent Altarpiece International Study Day

The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK/IRPA) and the University of Ghent (UGent) are honoured to announce the Ghent Altarpiece International Study Day that will take place in Ghent on 10 September 2014. This is one day before the renowned Symposium XIX for the Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting in Bruges (11-13 September 2014).
The day is intended for art-historians, curators, conservators, scientists and other scholars studying Early Netherlandish painting.
In the morning session, six conferences will present a wide range of aspects of the current research and conservation/restoration treatment on the Ghent Altarpiece. In the afternoon, you will be enabled to witness the progress of the treatment in the Museum of Fine Arts of Ghent, and to informally meet with the members of the treatment and research teams. You are also invited to visit St Bavo’s Cathedral and the two exhibitions on the Ghent Altarpiece in the Caermersklooster.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Till-Holger Borchert (Groeningemuseum), Annick Born (UGent), Christina Ceulemans (KIK/IRPA), Bart Fransen (KIK/IRPA), Maximiliaan Martens (UGent), Ron Spronk (Queen’s University, Canada-Radboud University, Holland), Cyriel Stroo (KIK/IRPA), Anne van Grevenstein (St Bavo Cathedral)

Full Conference Registration (registration before 1 july 2014): 250 €
Full Conference Registration (registration after 1 july 2014): 300 €
One Day Registration: 150 €
Speakers: 190 €
Student: 120 € (please include a copy of your student ID)
Conference dinner: 60 €

OFFICIAL WEBSITE AND REGISTRATION: http://symposiumxix.wix.com/underdrawing

CFP: Gotische Skulptur um 1300 (Berlin, 7-8 May 2015), deadline 8 June 2014

Gotische Skulptur um 1300 in Frankreich und Deutschland Tagung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin im Bode-Museum

Die in den Jahrzehnten um 1300 in Frankreich und den angrenzenden Territorien des Deutschen Reichs entstandene, deutlich von wechselseitigen Bezügen geprägte gotische Skulptur wurde lange kontrovers diskutiert. Ziel der meisten Debatten war die Erstellung einer Chronologie der wichtigsten Objekte – ein Bestreben, dem aber allein schon dadurch Grenzen gesetzt waren, dass nur erstaunlich wenige Ensembles oder Einzelwerke datiert bzw. Auftraggebern und Bildhauern sicher zugeschrieben werden können. Daher dominierten stilkritische Zuschreibungen nolens volens das Feld. Sie waren nicht nur Grundlage eines instabilen, gleichwohl allgemein akzeptierten Entwicklungsmodells gotischer Skulptur dies- und jenseits des Rheins, sondern bestimmten auch Überlegungen zu Themen wie Werkstattmigration, Kunst- und Materialtransfer, zur Wahrnehmung der Objekte oder politischen Intention von Kopien prominenter Bildwerke. In jüngster Zeit sind die Diskussionen
wieder lebhafter geworden. Denn neuere bauarchäologische und dendrochronologische Untersuchungen haben überraschende Zeitstellungen gebracht, und Revisionen älterer Datierungsvorschläge lassen das mühsam aufgerichtete chronologische Gerüst kippen.

Die Frage nach den Folgen für die angerissenen Themenkomplexe ist Anlass der geplanten Tagung. Es sollen keine neuen Chronologiemodelle aufgestellt, sondern in erster Linie aktuelle Forschungsergebnisse von Kunsthistorikern, Bauforschern und Restauratoren gebündelt und somit neue Perspektiven für den gesamten Forschungsbereich gefunden werden. Eine wichtige Rolle sollen auch neuere restauratorische Untersuchungen spielen, die sich vermehrt Steinbildwerken widmen. Die gotische Skulptur, so lauten häufig die Schlussfolgerungen, war viel häufiger und früher monochrom, als bislang angenommen. Die Interpretation dieser Befunde in Hinblick auf Bildwirkung und Rezeption steht oft noch aus.

Einen Schwerpunkt der Tagung wird die Diskussion vor den Objekten der in vielerlei Hinsicht aufschlussreichen Berliner Skulpturensammlung sein, die in einem im Sommer 2014 erscheinenden Bestandskatalog erstmals seit 1930 wieder zusammenfassend gewürdigt wurden.

Erbeten werden Vorschläge zu Vorträgen à 25 Minuten zu den oben genannten Themen, sowohl monographische Präsentationen einzelner Objekte als auch Übersichten zu komplexen Zusammenhängen. Vorträge können in deutscher, französischer und englischer Sprache gehalten werden. Angestrebt wird eine Bezuschussung (Reise- und Übernachtungskosten der Referenten). Eine rasche Publikation (innerhalb eines halben Jahres) ist geplant.

Vorschläge (max. 2000 Zeichen) richten Sie bitte bis zum 8. Juni 2014 an.

Michael Grandmontagne (medrikat-grandmontagne[at]t-online.de) & Tobias Kunz (t-w-kunz[at]web.de)
La sculpture gothique vers 1300, en France et en Allemagne Colloque organisé par les Musées de Berlin, Bode-Museum, 7 et 8 mai 2015
Appel à contribution

Depuis plus d’un siècle, le développement conjoint, autour de 1300, de la sculpture gothique en France et sur les territoires limitrophes de l’Empire allemand a fait l’objet de controverses notoires. L’objectif premier de la plupart des chercheurs aura souvent été d’établir une chronologie des œuvres les plus importantes – effort louable mais qui fut longtemps limité, peu d’œuvres ou même d’ensembles pouvant être datés avec certitude, tandis que force noms d’artistes ou de commanditaires sont tombés dans l’oubli. Bon gré mal gré, le terrain fut donc occupé par les « connaisseurs », qui fondent leurs jugements sur des critères stylistiques, une méthode qui présuppose un développement continu de la sculpture gothique des deux côtés du Rhin, ce qui n’a rien d’évident. De nombreuses recherches ont également été dédiées à des thèmes tels que la migration des ateliers, des œuvres ainsi que des matériaux, jusqu’à la perception des objets ou à la volonté politique de copier certaines sculptures majeures. Ces dernières années, les discussions sont devenues particulièrement animées du fait de nombreuses découvertes, effectuées dans le domaine de l’archéologie du bâti et de la dendrochronologie, et dont les résultats surprenants démentent parfois les certitudes les plus établies. De toute évidence, une révision du cadre chronologique s’impose.

Ce colloque cherche à établir, dans le champ de la sculpture gothique, les conséquences des changements méthodologiques induits par la recherche récente. Il ne s’agira aucunement de proposer un nouveau modèle chronologique, mais avant tout de présenter les recherches actuelles des historiens de l’art et de l’architecture, ainsi que des restaurateurs, ce qui devrait permettre de définir de nouvelles perspectives pour l’ensemble des études dans ce domaine. Une place importante sera consacrée aux problèmes qui ont récemment émergé à l’occasion de certaines restaurations, notamment celles concernant la sculpture sur pierre : la sculpture gothique, nous disent des analyses récentes, était bien plus monochrome qu’on ne le pensait jusqu’à présent. L’interprétation de tels résultats, du point de vue de l’histoire de la réception des œuvres, doit encore être formulée.

La discussion se fondera en grande partie sur les récentes découvertes ayant émaillé l’étude des œuvres de cette période appartenant aux collections de sculptures des Musées de Berlin et conservées au Bode-Museum, anticipant la parution prochaine, à l’été 2014, d’un nouveau catalogue raisonné de ces sculptures, plus de quatre-vingts ans après la dernière édition, publiée en 1930.

Les propositions de communication (de 2 000 signes maximum, espaces compris) devront être envoyées avant le 8 juin 2014 aux adresses ci-dessous. Les conférences seront d’une durée de 25 minutes et pourront être prononcées en allemand, en français ou en anglais. Le déplacement et l’hébergement des intervenants devraient pouvoir être pris en charge, tandis que les actes de ces journées devraient être publiés avant la fin de l’année 2015.

Michael Grandmontagne (medrikat-grandmontagne[at]t-online.de)

Tobias Kunz (t-w-kunz[at]web.de)