The latest research, news, and reviews from the world of Medieval Art History
Join Professor Paul Binski, Dr Emily Guerry, and Dr Lucy Wrapson in this online lecture to hear about their work on the Gothic Wall Paintings in Angers cathedral as part of the Cambridge Medieval Art Seminars at the University of Cambridge.
Book your tickets for the online lecture here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/binski-guerry-wrapson-the-wall-paintings-of-angers-cathedral-tickets-742045757837?aff=oddtdtcreator
Dr Krisztina Ilko, University of Cambridge
Wednesday 8 November 2023, 9am-10.30am GMT
World History Seminar, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Online via Zoom
How could the game of chess facilitate cross-cultural interaction? To perambulate this question, this talk explores medieval images of chess games between players of contrasting skin colour. Key pieces of medieval art, like the lavishly illuminated gaming manual commissioned by King Alfonso X of Castile, are brought into conversation here with little-known pieces, such as a fourteenth-century Mallorcan altarpiece. Despite chess often being perceived through the lens of western European chivalric culture, these examples highlight a much more diverse social and cultural spectrum for this ‘game of kings’. This talk investigates the crucial role of colour in the chequered world of chess, and highlights new avenues to refine our understanding of the representation of skin colour and diversity in the Global Middle Ages.
Follow the link to join through Zoom: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/99088684183
This month’s British Archaeological Association Lecture will occur in person and online, with our very own Dr Roisin Astell presenting on the relationship between text and image in an intriguing early fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript.
The lecture will take place at the Society of Antiquaries of London, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BE.
Tea is served from 4.30 p.m. and the Chair is taken at 5.00 p.m.
You can also tune in to hear Roisin’s talk live on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnDiIFzhv_s&ab_channel=BritishArchaeologicalAssociation
2024 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Association for Art History. We are delighted to announce that next year’s conference will be held in collaboration with the History of Art department at the University of Bristol.
Proposals are invited for the conference session ‘Ecologies of Visual Culture in the Global Middle Ages’.
The study of medieval art and visual culture has recently seen a flourishing of ecocritical and environmental approaches that invite us to explore new ways of thinking about objects, buildings and landscapes. Drawing on the material, spatial, and post-human turns in humanities research, these have highlighted the complex ways in which human creativity and acts of making are entangled with non-human processes and agency. One aspect emphasises the landscape as integral to sacred space, placing built structures within their topographical and ecological contexts, and attending to other kinds of material intervention. Another focuses on materiality, the ‘stuff’ of the natural world from which both buildings and objects were crafted, to better understand their making and meaning. Across the globe, such interactions were inflected by different environments and cultural frameworks. This panel thus aims to bring together new research on visual cultures of the natural world, as these relate to any medium and geographic region, c.500-1500.
Proposals for papers are invited on topics including, but not limited to: visual representations and perceptions of the natural world; the materiality of objects and buildings, whether animal, vegetable or mineral in origin; the impact of cultivating and extracting such materials on landscapes and ecosystems; lasting interventions in the natural world, from free-standing buildings and monuments to rock-cut structures and gardens; ephemeral engagement with natural environments, through ritual and performance, mobile objects and temporary creations; the relationship between the non-human world and the human body, including sensory experience; intersections between environmental science and visual culture. We welcome submissions that together represent a variety of methodologies and perspectives, and a range of cultural contexts.
To offer a paper:
Session convenors:
Art-historical studies of an inter-connected globe have understandably focused on mobile objects, materials, patrons, and artists. But how does architecture fit into discourses of globality, especially in periods before the widespread circulation of architectural drawings and designs? Scholars have long recognised the impact of Italian and northern European prints on the architecture of sixteenth-century Spain and colonial Latin America, or the movement of architects and ideas between Spain and Mexico, or Portugal and Goa. Yet focus on architectural producers or design similarities overlooks ways of using and experiencing architecture that leave little material trace but were nonetheless learnt in distant lands. In this paper, Dr Tom Nickson considers one such experience, an architectural ‘habit’ or behaviour familiar to modern tourists around the world: climbing tall buildings to enjoy the view. From the late fifteenth century onwards evidence multiplies that the great towers of medieval Europe were being climbed regularly by international travellers, who surveyed the cities from their summit and relished the view. This paper focuses principally on tall buildings in Europe and the Mediterranean, but expands to explore related phenomena in Mexico and China. To what extent does tower climbing relate to new methods of surveying and cartography? How do people behave in buildings, and how are expectations about behaviour shaped by encounters with other buildings?
Tom Nickson is Reader in Medieval Art and Architecture at The Courtauld. His research and teaching focus on Spain and England from the 12th to the 16th centuries.
The Medieval Lecture and Seminar Series is kindly supported by Sam Fogg.
The Index of Medieval Art are pleased to announce that they will be holding a new online training session for anyone interested in learning more about the database! It will take place via Zoom on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 from 10:00 – 11:00 am EST.
This session, led by Index specialists Maria Alessia Rossi and Jessica Savage, will demonstrate how the database can be used with advanced search options, filters, and browse tools to locate works of medieval art. There will be a Q&A period at the end of the session, so please bring any questions you might have about your research!
Over the last three decades, research on Gothic ivories has seen a significant shift from studies concerned with stylistic attribution and classification towards the investigation of their materiality, iconography, function, and – last but not least – patronage. Although we now have a much better understanding of the social, devotional, and cultural contexts in which especially religious ivories were commissioned and produced, overall, we still know comparatively little about the owners of Gothic ivories. This is especially true for the secular sphere, where it has not yet been possible to link any surviving fourteenth-century carving to its first owner.
This conference aims to return to the question of the ownership of Gothic ivories, an area which offers great potential for further discoveries, particularly (but not only) through the combination of art historical object analysis with evaluations of contemporary written sources such as inventories, wills, and other documents. Illuminating the stories of historic owners, be they individuals or institutions, and their Gothic ivories is the first aim of this two-day conference, while the second is to shed light on the later life of these objects, and on their transition into new ownership contexts and uses.
We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers exploring material across these themes that deal with either case studies or broader methodological questions. Papers which take an interdisciplinary approach, breaking the traditional boundaries between art history, history of collecting, museum studies or conservation, are particularly welcome. Topics of interest may include but are not limited to:
Individual patrons and collectors of Gothic ivories.
Please submit your abstracts of 250 – 300 words and a short biography of 100 words in one PDF document to Manuela Studer-Karlen (manuela.studer-karlen@unibe.ch), Naomi Speakman (nspeakman@britishmuseum.org) and Michaela Zöschg (m.zoschg@vam.ac.uk ) by 15 January 2024. Please note that travel and accommodation costs for speakers will be covered, and that the conference papers will be published.
Conference and Publication Timetable:
Organised by Manuela Studer-Karlen (University of Bern), Naomi Speakman (British Museum, London) and Michaela Zöschg (Victoria and Albert Museum, London). This conference is supported by the project “Love and War. Secular images on Gothic ivories”, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
St Catherine’s College, Oxford, Arumugam Building, Thursdays 5 pm (Except for Wednesday 18 October), all welcome
Convenors: Elena Lichmanova (elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk), Gervase Rosser, Martin Kauffmann, Hannah Skoda
Week 2, 18 October 2023
Giosuè Fabiano (Courtauld Institute of Art), ‘Illuminavit hunc diem’: Natural Lighting, Liturgical Time and Frescoes in late Medieval Italian Churches
Week 4, 2 November 2023
John Munns (University of Cambridge), Topographical Realism in Winchester’s Holy Sepulchre
Week 6, 16 November 2023
Liz James (University of Sussex), The Remembrance of God’: Theologising Wall Mosaics
Week 8, 30 November 2023
Alexandra Gajewski (The Burlington Magazine), Theodechilde, Potentin and Osanna: Saints and Cult at Jouarre Abbey in the Middle Ages
A Three-Day International Conference in Valladolid on the relationship between material culture and monasticism during the 11th and 12th centuries. There is also an opportunity to stay on for two days of visits to Romanesque buildings.
For a booking form send an email to conference@thebaa.org.
The British Archaeological Association will hold the eighth in its biennial International Romanesque conference series in conjunction with the Universidad de Valladolid on 8-10 April, 2024. The theme is Romanesque and the Monastic Environment, and the aim is to examine the design and functioning of monastic space as found in the Latin West between c.1000 and c.1200. The Conference will be held at the University of Valladolid with the opportunity to stay on for two days of visits to Romanesque buildings on 11-12 April.
While a particular approach to monastic planning can be observed in Carolingian Benedictine circles in the early 9th century – one in which ranges were organized on three sides of a garden with the church on a fourth – the extent to which this arrangement was widely adopted before the second half of the 11th century is unclear. Nor was it the only type of monastic plan in circulation. Semi-coenobitic orders had little use for ranges, even if the adoption of a garden surrounded by covered walks on four sides became more or less de rigeur in Latin monastic planning by c. 1100. When cloisters, chapter-houses, refectories, dormitories and work-rooms were established with clear relationships to each other and to the monastic choir, it becomes possible to speak of a core precinct, but what of other facilities, or precincts; infirmaries, outer courts, cemeteries, kitchens, gatehouses, and monastic choirs?
Speakers include Dustin Aaron, Verónica Abenza, Kirk Ambrose, Claude Andrault-Schmitt, Peter Scott Brown, Eric Cambridge, Eduardo Carrero Santamaría, Mañuel Castiñeiras, Kathleen Doyle, Barbara Franzé, Alexandra Gajewski, Richard Gem, Cecily Hennessy, Wilfried Keil, Nathalie Le Luel, Javier Martínez de Aguirre, John McNeill, Juan Antonio Olañeta, Julia Perratore, Neil Stratford, Béla Zsolt Szakács, Elizabeth Valdez del Álamo, Rose Walker, Tomasz Weclawowicz and Angela Weyer.
CONFERENCE (8-10 APRIL 2024)
The conference will open at 09.30 on Monday, 8 April with lectures in the University of Valladolid’s Palacio de Congresos Conde Ansúrez. Teas, coffees and lunch will be provided on all three days, in addition to dinner on two evenings. The conference will also include an evening reception. More information will be provided in the joining instructions.
Participants will need to arrange their own travel and accommodation. Valladolid is well provided with hotels and bed and breakfasts, and the conference organisers will send a list of hotels and B&Bs when they acknowledge receipt of your booking form.
VISITS (11-12 APRIL 2024)
We will also organise two days of visits to Romanesque sites for those who wish to stay on. These will include major surviving Romanesque monuments in Salamanca along with Santa Maria la Mayor in Toro, and a special out-of-normal-hours visit to the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos.
SCHOLARSHIPS
A limited number of scholarships for students are available to help cover the cost of the conference. Please apply by 31 January 2024, attaching a short CV along with the name and contact details of one referee. Applications should be sent to: jsmcneill@btinternet.com or fbanos@fyl.uva.es
It would not be possible to mount this conference without John Osborn, and the British Archaeological Association wishes to take this opportunity to thank him for the boost to Romanesque scholarship afforded by his great generosity.
Conference Convenors: Fernando Gutiérrez Baños and John McNeill
Conference Secretary: Kate Milburn
Conference organized by: Thomas Flum, Jean-Marie Guillouët, Sophie Jugie, Michele Tomasi
Free but mandatory registration: Melissa Nieto (melissa.nieto@unil.ch)
Salle de l’Académie des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Dijon.
Présidence : Sophie Jugie
9h – 10h30am:
11h – 12h30:
Présidence : Michele Tomasi
14h30 – 16pm:
16h30 – 18pm:
Amphithéâtre de la Bibliothèque Colette/La Nef.
Présidence : Thomas Flum
8h45am: Mots de bienvenue de Mme Christine Martin, 3e adjointe à la mairie de Dijon
9h – 10h30am:
10h45 – 12h15pm:
Présidence : Jean-Marie Guillouët
14h – 15h30pm:
16h – 17h30pm:
Salle de l’Académie des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Dijon.
Présidence : Françoise Perrot
8h – 10am:
10h15 – 11h45am:
Medieval Art Research