CFP: ‘Velum Templi: Veiling and hiding the sacred’, 2nd Colloquium on Art and Liturgy, deadline 1 April 2024

We are pleased to announce that we will celebrate the 2nd Colloquium on Art and Liturgy in October, entitled ‘Velum Templi: Veiling and hiding the sacred.’

It is a specialised Colloquium at the University of Cádiz (Spain). We invite the academic community to submit Spanish, English, Italian, and French abstracts before April 1, 2024.

‘Velum Templi: Veiling and hiding the sacred. 2nd Colloquium on Art and Liturgy’

The veiling or hiding of the sacred has been a constant feature of Christian worship since its late Antique origins. With powerful precedents in the temple of Jerusalem, as well as in paganism, it is a characteristic that tends to be associated with Eastern Christianity and its iconostasis. However, it was also practised by the Latin church, in whose early Christian basilica the vision of the altar of the Eucharistic sacrifice was already limited and dosed. This ritual attitude, which continued throughout the Middle Ages and even beyond, took the form of veils and curtains suspended from the pergolas or beams that divided the presbytery from the rest of the nave, or using the tetravela that ran along the rails of the baldachins that covered the altars.

Guillaume Durand, in the 13th century, describes in detail the practices that were established at that time, including the great velum templi of Gallican origin, a piece that would be kept for centuries during Lent as a living vestige of this liturgical practice. Several examples of notable antiquity have survived, as does the memory of its use.
Closely related to this, the veneration of sacred images was also marked by a desire for safe preservation, as can be inferred from the design of medieval tabernacles and winged altarpieces. Both took part in the wish to protect physically the paintings and sculptures and a desire for gradualness in the vision of the mystery of the sacred that the images themselves embody. In Spain, the extraordinary development of the altarpiece required bold, eye-catching solutions for its concealment, such as the enormous doors of some Aragonese examples or the woven twills which, when unfolded, are a sort of trompe l’oeil of the work they conceal.

Relics, sacred vessels and even the consecrated Host itself have also been the object of ritually regulated display and concealment, depending on the feasts of the liturgical year or the specific moment of the sacred ceremony taking place in the church. To satisfy this need for visual preservation, reliquary cabinets, the curtains of expositors and tabernacles or chalice veils were created during the Middle Ages, among other pieces of furniture that have also undergone formal and ornamental reformulations during the Renaissance, the Baroque and later.
Through the diachronic and transhistorical study of the phenomenon of display and concealment, this 2nd International Meeting on Art and Liturgy of the University of Cadiz aims to recover for the History of Art the memory of these singular works within the context of the cultic functionality with which they were conceived, where they also acted as vectors of ephemeral transformation in the visual appearance of the temples. For this purpose, renowned specialists such as Eduardo Carrero Santamaría, Fernando Gutiérrez Baños, Josefina Planas Bádenas, Antonio Sántos Márquez and Héctor Ruiz Soto, among others, will take part.

SESSIONS

Session I. Ritual occultation in liturgical, literary and graphic sources. Testimonies of synods and councils, rubrics in missals, references in customary books, testimonies in travel books. Graphic sources: paintings, drawings, engravings, manuscript illumination and historical photography.

Session II. Veils and altar curtains in the context of Latin Christianity (Velum templi, Velum quadragesimal, lateral curtains…) Origins, typological evolution and local particularities

Session III. The veiling of crosses, images, relics and sacred vessels. Liturgical, devotional and conservation aspects. Reliquary cabinets, display ceremonies.

Session IV. From the medieval open tabernacle to the great Baroque altarpieces. Functional principles and devotional implications.

More information can be found here: https://arteyliturgia-uca.weebly.com/

CALL FOR PAPERS

We invite the academic community to submit abstracts in Spanish, English, Italian and French consisting of a 500-700 word summary highlighting the innovative nature of the paper together with the chosen session and a brief curriculum vitae before 1 April 2024 to the following address: arteyliturgia@uca.es.

The organising committee shall acknowledge receipt of submissions and select those considered most closely aligned with the meeting objectives, responding before 15 May 2024. Following peer review, these will be published in a monograph. Texts should be sent by 15 November 2024.

SPEAKERS REGISTRATION

Speakers: 40 €
Speakers members of CEHA: 20 €

In both cases, the registration includes a copy of the book with the proceedings of the Meeting.

After acceptance, speakers will have until 15 June 2024 to pay the registration fee via bank transfer to the University of Cádiz account (Banco de Santander: IBAN ES48 0049 4870 8529 1609 2739; SWIFT: BSCHESMM).

IMPORTANT: The concept of the transfer should be ARTEYLITURGIA followed by the speaker’s SURNAME and NAME. The speaker should send a copy of the bank transfer receipt via email to arteyliturgia@uca.es

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Pablo J. Pomar Rodil (Universidad de Cádiz), Elena Escuredo (Universidad de Sevilla) y Diana Olivares Martínez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
TECHNICAL SECRETARY
Pedro Herrera Ruiz


SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Eduardo Carrero Santamaría (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona), Fernando Gutiérrez Baños (Universidad de Valladolid), Justin Kroesen (Universidad de Bergen),
Teresa Laguna Paúl (Universidad de Sevilla), Amadeo Serra Desfilis (Universidad de Valencia), María Dolores Teijeira Pablos (Universidad de León), Fabio Massaccesi
(Universidad de Bolonia), Giovanna Valenzano (Universidad de Padua), Irma Patricia Díaz Cayeros (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), Cécile Vincent-Cassy (CY Cergy Paris Université) y Adam Jasienski (Southern Methodist University).

CFP: ‘Medieval Sensorium: Medieval Sensorium: Exploring the Archaeology of the Senses’, EAA Annual Meeting, deadline 8 February 2024

EAA Annual Meeting, Rome 2024, 28-31 August 2024

Session #542: ‘Medieval Sensorium: Medieval Sensorium: Exploring the Archaeology of the Senses’ 

In recent decades, the exploration of sensory experiences in the Middle Ages has attracted increasing attention across diverse scientific disciplines. This session is envisioned as a dynamic platform that fosters interdisciplinary dialogues, delving into the multifaceted sensory landscape of the medieval world. The central question addresses how medieval communities perceived, understood, and harnessed their sensory reality. Therefore, this session aims to uncover the intricate interplay of senses within their spatial contexts, the portrayal of sensory experiences in visual arts, and the sensory encounters that enriched the lives of rural and urban medieval communities. It sets out to discuss a wide spectrum of sensory encounters, encompassing both interior and exterior spaces, including those of sacred and secular significance. Particular interest is placed on the methodologies employed for researching the sensory experiences of the medieval world, as well as the presentation of research outcomes. Consequently, contributions that employ cutting-edge technologies to explore and map sensory experiences within historical contexts are warmly welcomed. Embracing an interdisciplinary approach, this session promises to illuminate and broaden our understanding of the medieval sensorium and the profound role that the senses played in shaping cultural practices and landscapes of the medieval world.

Abstracts up to 300 words are accepted until February 8th 2024. More information on applying can be found here.

Workshop: Rediscovering the Cultural Heritage of Upper Svanti in Georgia, deadline 15 March 2024

Date: 26 July – 4 August 2024
Destination: Mestia, Svaneti
Deadline for applications: 15 March 2024

This workshop takes place in Upper Svaneti, the spectacular mountainous region of Western Georgia, which not only has an abundance and variety of cultural heritage, but also a unique way of life. Even today, the local population preserves various pre-Christian beliefs and rituals. In Upper Svaneti, medieval churches and residences with defense towers have been preserved in their original forms. Almost all these churches are decorated with paintings, and original treasuries are kept in most of them: medieval painted and revetted icons, crosses, ecclesiastic vessels created in local workshops or many other regions of the Christian East and the West. Exposure to this extraordinary material will provide all students of medieval art with an entirely new perspective on their field.

The ten-day workshop will enable ten PhD and MA students to visit significant monuments of cultural heritage in Upper Svaneti, to take part in discussions on-site, and to engage in various field activities.

The workshop will be held in English.

The International Cultural Workshop is organized by the Institute of Art History and Theory at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, in cooperation with the College of Arts & Sciences at Syracuse University and the Art History Department at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. The project partner is the Svaneti Museum of History and-Ethnography.

The International Cultural Workshop (RCHUS) is funded under the US Embassy Georgia Cultural Small Grants Program.

Application period:

  • 22 January to 15 March 2024 (00:00/Georgian Time Zone: UTC + 4)
  • The selection results will be announced on 8 April 2024.

Eligibility:

  • Applicants of any nationality must currently be enrolled in an MA or PhD program in Medieval or Byzantine art history or a related field.

Documents to be submitted:

  • Application form with other three documents:
    • Curriculum vitae (with list of publications/presentations, maximum 3 pages)
    • Cover letter outlining interest in the program (maximum 300 words)
    • Recommendation letter
  • The application must be in English.
  • See here for the Application form: https://forms.gle/GLAacswWY5VBHDrk7

Fees and Funding

The International Cultural Workshop (RCHUS) is free of charge: will cover travel from Tbilisi to Mestia, field trips, hotel accommodation and meals in Upper Svaneti.

The workshop participants must cover their own international flights to and from Georgia, and hotel accommodation in Tbilisi. However, there are limited funds for participating students in the project budget for partial covering the international transportation and accommodation in Tbilisi. Please clarify your need for funding on your Application form.

For further information, please contact: svaneti.workshop@gmail.com

New Resource:  BASIRA (Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art)

Announcing BASIRA (Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art), a new digital resource for book history

Following its official launch at the 16th annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age, the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies is pleased to introduce the scholarly community to BASIRA (Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art), a new, open-access online database of representations of books and other textual documents in the figurative arts between approximately 1300 and 1600 CE, the period encompassing the advent of print culture in Europe and its neighboring regions. Users anywhere can browse and query thousands of images of books from a constantly expanding dataset. Dozens of aspects of a book’s depiction can be searched, including details of its binding, bookmarks, contents, and position. In addition, users may search for the particulars of who or what is interacting with the book, and how that action is taking place.
Over time, we plan to expand the chronological and geographic reach of this resource, making it a central hub for historic depictions of the book. As a project, BASIRA aims to foster connections between scholars, curators, conservators, and all other persons interested in book history and the visual arts. We encourage you to explore the data base for research and teaching, propose new artworks for inclusion through our online portal, and contact us with any questions or remarks.

Nicholas Herman and Barbara Williams Ellertson, co-directors, BASIRA Project

Enter the database: https://basira.library.upenn.edu

Contact us: info@basiraproject.org

Lecture: ‘tannczen, helsen, kussen, vnd rawmen: Of Dancing and Dalliance in the Late Middle Ages’, with Nina Rowe, Vernon Square Campus, Courtauld Institute of Art, Wednesday 7 February 2024, 5.30-7pm (GMT)

In the German realm in the late Middle Ages, dancing was cause for both celebration and concern. Poets crafted animated accounts of boisterous roundelays welcoming winter and summer, municipal leaders designated festival days when citizens were permitted to whirl and shuffle in city squares, and churchmen admonished Christian youths to beware the seductions of frivolous young ladies on the dance floor. In short, literary and administrative texts evoke the appeal and hazards of dance, both as pastime and performance, in the southern part of the Holy Roman Empire, circa 1450 to 1500. Scholars of medieval art, however, have seldom probed the array of images showing couples spinning, performers leaping, and folks on the sidelines being enticed into the joyful fray. This lecture examines illuminations, wall paintings, prints, and sculptures that capture a variety of attitudes toward dancing in the regions of Bavaria and Austria in the second half of the fifteenth century. Clerics may have condemned dancing as a tool of the devil that irresistibly leads to unchastity and thereby damnation, but artistic evidence indicates that laypeople were willing to take their chances. In public images and small-scale works targeted to wealthy urban audiences, viewers could learn about the risks of dance, but also find encouragement to step out and join the party.

Nina Rowe is a Professor of Medieval Art History at Fordham University in New York City. Her books include The Jew, the Cathedral, and the Medieval City: Synagoga and Ecclesia in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge UP, 2011) and The Illuminated World Chronicle: Tales from the Late Medieval City (Yale UP, 2020), as well as edited volumes, most recently: Whose Middle Ages?: Teachable Moments for an Ill-Used Past (Fordham UP, 2019). She has held fellowships from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies, and she served as President of the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA), 2020-2023.

Find out more information and book tickets here.

Organised by Dr Tom Nickson (The Courtauld) and Dr Jessica Barker (The Courtauld). 

This event is kindly supported by the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA). 

Research Grants: Grants for Research on Chartres Cathedral, deadline 29 March 2024

Grants for Research on Chartres Cathedral for PhD Candidates and Emerging Scholars

The American Friends of Chartres is accepting proposals from current graduate students and emerging scholars for its annual research grant for the study of Chartres. The American Friends of Chartres will provide a grant of $2,500.00 and will facilitate lodging, as well as access to the cathedral, the Centre International du Vitrail, the municipal library, archival collections and related resources.

The grant will help to support a research project requiring on-site research in Chartres that promises to advance knowledge and understanding of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Chartres or its historical contexts in the medieval to early modern period. Topics in the fields of art history, history, or related disciplines might include architecture, stained glass, sculpture, urban development, economy, religious practices, manuscripts, or the cathedral treasury, among others.

Applicants should currently be pursuing a Ph.D. or have received the degree within the last six years. Following the research project, the grantee is asked to provide a synopsis of the research and conclusions, which will be publicized through the cultural activities and website of the American Friends of Chartres. Questions about the grant may be addressed to ChartresResearchGrant@gmail.com.

Applicants should supply:

  • A description of up to 500 words of the proposed project, including:
    • questions to be researched and their importance to scholarship on the art, culture, or history of Chartres;
    • requirements for access to monuments, works of art, and archival resources;
    • projected length of time and tentative dates to be spent in Chartres;
    • expectations for publication of conclusions, whether alone or as part of a larger project, including a Ph.D. dissertation, article, or book.
  • A current Curriculum Vitae
  • Names and contact information of two references

Please send application materials as e-mail attachments in Word or PDF format to ChartresResearchGrant@ameliahyde

The deadline for applications is 29 March 2024.

More information can be found here.

The Servane de Layre-Mathéus Fund for Research on Chartres Cathedral

The American Friends of Chartres has established a special fund honoring the memory of Servane de Layre-Mathéus (1939-2020), co-founder of Chartres–Sanctuaire du Monde, of the Centre International du Vitrail, and of American Friends of Chartres. Servane dedicated much of her life to the preservation of Notre-Dame de Chartres Cathedral, and to the pursuit and transmission of knowledge of medieval art, culture, and spirituality. In recognition of her contributions, she was made chevalier of the Légion d’honneur, officier des Arts et des Lettres, and officier de l’ordre national du Mérite. The fund is intended to support research that furthers her work.

Lecture: Murray Seminar at Birkbeck: ‘Faith, Race and the ‘Other’ in North Italian Sculpture, c.1480-1700’ with Andrew Horn (6 February 2024, 5pm)

Link to book live-streamed seminar on Eventbrite | Link to book a place at the seminar in person

Northwest Italy in the early modern period witnessed a flourishing of religious sculptural ensembles, rendered in polychrome terracotta and wood, representing scenes from Christ’s Passion and death. Works of this genre range from intimate scenes of the Deposition and Lamentation above altars in churches, to series of elaborate multimedial chapels situated on the ‘Sacri Monti’, pilgrimage sites at the foot of the Italian Alps. In addition to the main protagonists, the dramatic casts of these ensembles often feature characters whose skin colour, costume or physical characteristics identify as non-European, non-Christian or in some way set apart from European Christian society of the time. Examining a selection of these artworks in relation to devotional treatises, religious plays and historical records of public policy from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this paper considers what the representation of these outsiders––these ‘others’––may reveal about faith and society in premodern Europe. What roles do such figures serve within the drama of Christian salvation history?

Andrew Horn is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews, where he recently completed a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. Andrew’s research, which focuses on Italian religious art of the late fifteenth through seventeenth centuries, is concerned with the theme of performance in early modern religious culture, and how it informs our reading of the period’s works of art, buildings, and spaces. His first monograph, Andrea Pozzo and the Religious Theatre of the Seventeenth Century, was published by Saint Joseph’s University Press (Philadelphia) in late 2019.

His current book project, The Drama of the Passion: Theatre, Sculpture and Society in Northwest Italy, c. 1480-1700, centres on sculptural ensembles in early modern Lombardy and Piedmont and their relationship to religious theatre and devotional practice. In addition to the Leverhulme Trust, his research has been supported by the Association for Art History, the Renaissance Society of America and the Edinburgh College of Art.

Lecture: ‘Chivalry, justice and love: Royal architecture in fourteenth-century Castile’, with Elena Paulino-Montero, Vernon Square Campus, Courtauld Institute of Art, Wednesday 6 March 2024, 5.30-7pm (GMT)

14th-century Castile was characterized by great creativity in the field of architecture, culminating with the construction of the famous Alcazar of Seville and reforms to the Alcazar of Segovia. Those monuments were possible thanks to the previous decade’s artistic experimentation in which cross-cultural exchanges with al-Andalus and the Mamluks played a key role. During this time, the kingdom of Castile was marked by a profound political crisis and architecture, sculpture and literature were crucial in the construction of an ideal image of power, in which queens assumed a leading role.

This talk will analyze the process of codification of royal spaces in Castile in the 14th century. The objective is twofold. On the one hand, it will analyze the development of this architecture in parallel to the development of a courtly and chivalrous image of the Castilian monarchs in which Islamic models played a fundamental role. On the other hand, it will present the active role of the queens in the realm of architecture.

Elena Paulino-Montero is lecturer of Medieval Art at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. Previously she was assistant professor at the Complutense and postdoctoral fellow at the UNED. Her research is devoted to patronage and transcultural artistic during the Late Middle Ages in the Iberian Peninsula. She is part of the Cost-Action 18129 “Islamic Legacy. Narratives East, West, South North of the Mediterranean (1350-1750)”. She is also the principal investigator of the project “Women and the Arts in Medieval Castile: Patronage, reception and agency”, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

Organised by Dr Tom Nickson (The Courtauld) as part of the Medieval Lecture and Seminar Series. 

Find out more information and book your tickets here.

Scholarship: British Archaeological Association 2024 OCHS Scholarship, deadline 1 February, 2024

The Ochs Scholarships are awarded annually by the British Archaeological Association for research projects which fall within the Association’s fields of interest. These are defined as the study of archaeology, art and architecture from the Roman period until the nineteenth century, principally within Europe, though the core interests of the BAA are Roman to 16th century. We only entertain applications that cover the 17th to 20th centuries that are of an historiographical, conservationist or antiquarian nature. The scholarships are intended to provide post-graduate students striving to write up theses with late-stage funding. Applicants should either be UK citizens, registered at a UK University, or undertaking work on material in the UK. Only one of these criteria is necessary, but there should be a connection with the UK.

Applications are thus invited from students who are completing theses for post-graduate degrees and who are facing financial hardship. It must be demonstrated that the award of an Ochs scholarship will enable a thesis to be completed satisfactorily within the period of the Scholarship. Applications where a substantial amount of fieldwork remains to be done are unlikely to succeed.

Applications for research projects conducted either privately or at post-doctoral level are not eligible for Ochs scholarships. The Association has a separate fund for research awards.

Application process:

  • In preparing the application, all information should be typed.
  • Additional information may be attached on a separate sheet or in a covering letter.
  • Applications should give a detailed account of proposed expenditure, which may include a reasonable level of subsistence. Allowance may not be made for any imputed salary, nor do awards cover the costs of books or equipment such as computers. For post-graduate students allowable expenditure includes supervision and examination fees, as well as thesis-binding costs. While bearing in mind that scholarships up to the value of £5,000 are available, we ask applicants not to ask for more than the minimum they require, as this may enable the Scholarship Committee to make an additional award.
  • Applicants should supply the names and contact details of two referees, one of whom in the case of degree candidates should be the main supervisor and ask their referees to forward references (either by post or as email attachments) to the Hon. Secretary by 21 February.
  • The scholarship is tenable for one year and may be taken up at any time between March and October 2024, so only work which is capable of submission by October 2025 will be considered by the Scholarship Committee.

Scholarships are awarded annually in April on the recommendation of a Scholarship Committee. The committee reach a decision primarily on the basis of the application (plus any supporting documents), though committee members will take account of remarks made by the applicant’s referees.

Members of the Scholarship Committee will not discuss applications with candidates once they have been submitted, nor offer feedback; it is the role of the applicant’s sponsors and supervisors to advise them on the tone and content of applications. However, the Secretary is happy to advise on procedure prior to the submission of an application. While all applications are regarded as confidential, the Association will publish the names of the successful applicants and the title of the work for which their Scholarship was awarded.

The award is payable in three instalments; half on acceptance of the Scholarship, one quarter at the half-way stage, and one quarter on submission (or publication if a non-degree research project). Arrangements will be made to pay the first instalment on a date agreeable to the successful candidate.

Application forms can be downloaded from the BAA website, or obtained by sending a stamped addressed envelope to John McNeill (Secretary, BAA), 18 Stanley Road, Oxford OX4 1QZ. Completed applications, together with any covering letter or enclosures, should be returned to John McNeill not later than 1 February, 2024, either by post – or as email attachments to jsmcneill@btinternet.com

Lecture: ‘The House of Mirth: the ethics of laughter and ridiculous Gothic art’ with Alixe Bovey, Vernon Square Campus, Courtauld Institute of Art, 26 March 2024, 6-8pm (GMT)

Medieval art frequently juxtaposes sacred texts and spaces with witty, satirical, silly, and sometimes arrestingly crude images.  Nuns dance barefoot, fox-bishops preach to their prey, and disembodied bottoms trumpet in stained glass, sculpture, and the margins of books that contain scripture, prayers, and liturgy.

From the time that they were made, such images have provoked amusement and bemusement, ire and iconoclasm. They have found new admirers in the instagram age, harp-playing donkeys and knights riding chickens offering radically-decontextualised micro-jolts of dopamine to doom-scrollers.

Responding to the ideas of other scholars (including Huizinga, Bakhtin, Eco, Randall, Camille, Binski, Sandler and Jones) who have considered seriously the comical medieval image, this lecture surveys the problem of laughter in medieval art. It sets intentionally ridiculous Gothic images in the context of biblical ambivalence about laughter; medieval preachers’ understanding of the rhetorical power of comedy; and Thomas Aquinas’s attempt to reconcile canonical Christian authorities’ views on mirth with Aristotle.

With a particular focus on visual humour in the places where Thomas lived and worked during his lifetime (c.1225-1274), this lecture explores how Thomas’s laughter ethics might relate to the play of images around him. With Aristotelian-Thomistic laughter in mind, it then considers the implications of visual jokes originally conceived by and for small, elite groups in the Middle Ages as they reach a mass audience on social media today.

Find out more information and register here.