Since 1 September 2020, the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) has led the research project titled Transformations – from Material to Virtual. Digital Corpus of Mural Painting – New Dimensions of Medieval Art Research in Slovenia. The project partner is the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana. The project’s main goal is to set up an online scientific corpus of medieval mural painting in Slovenia with the universal title Corpus picturarum muralium medii aevi. Within this project, we are developing a corpus of mural paintings in Slovenia until circa 1380, which will be expanded with further projects to include paintings until around 1500. Another project objective is to organise an international conference on medieval mural painting at the transition between the Romanesque and Gothic style, the creation of medieval art heritage corpora, and various aspects of medieval art analysis with an international discussion about the establishment of the joint international database Corpus picturarum muralium medii aevi.

The transition between the first two universal European art periods – the Romanesque and the Gothic – has been a major research topic for a long time. Nevertheless, this transition still represents an enormous methodological challenge, even in the field of mural painting. Outside its homeland of France, the Gothic style asserted itself very gradually and through various paths, spreading throughout the rest of Europe and even beyond. The characteristics of this expansion can be gleaned precisely from the mural paintings dating back to this period – particularly in the case of buildings that would later be heavily reconstructed and whose movable furnishings (table paintings, altars, manuscripts, reliquaries, etc.) have been long lost. Especially the examples from Central Europe, featuring phenomena such as the zig-zag style and the often robust Romanesque tradition up to the 14th century, indicate that the process of the Gothic style reception was exceedingly complex. The medieval late Romanesque and (early) Gothic mural painting thus calls for a constant questioning of the established hypotheses and a broadening of the methodological and increasingly also technological approaches – both in the fields of interpretation and discovery as well as conservation, restoration, and documentation. The advances in the field of digital humanities, in particular the creation of digital databases that facilitate the overview of such dispersed subjects, also play an increasingly important role in medieval mural painting research.

Therefore, the upcoming conference aims to open a discussion on the new approaches to the study of medieval mural painting and seek answers to questions such as: how do the discoveries of new paintings or the development of new approaches expand on the ideas about the iconographic and stylistic profile of mural painting between the Romanesque and the Gothic periods? To what extent do new technologies or their increased availability influence research? What has been the experience in creating and linking (digital) corpora of medieval art heritage? What is the significance of discovering, exhibiting, and reinterpreting medieval mural paintings in the broader political context of the 20th century in particular?

The proposed topics may include but are not necessarily limited to the following:
– new medieval mural painting research discoveries;
– spatial or visual references of medieval mural paintings to other art genres;
– new discoveries about the roles of artists, commissioners, and reception;
– comparative analyses with other periods and regions (the influences of Byzantine, Islamic, and other art);
– new technical methods for research, discovery, restoration, documentation, etc.;
– issues related to collecting, editing, and presenting research in the digital media;
– digital corpora of medieval wall paintings;
– new overviews and outlooks on the history of medieval mural painting research;
– reception of mural painting between the Romanesque and Gothic styles in the subsequent periods;
– broader socio-political analysis of mural paintings in the context of the 20th-century medieval art research.

Proposals for contributions in the English language and approximately 20 minutes long, consisting of a title and an abstract not exceeding 250 words, should be sent together with a short CV of no more than a single page to cfp.uifs@zrc-sazu.si, by 30 April 2022. The selection is expected to be completed by 30 June 2022.

Organisers:
Assistant Professor Dr Mija Oter Gorenčič, ZRC SAZU, France Stele Institute of Art History, Ljubljana, and Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor
Assistant Professor Dr Gašper Cerkovnik, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana

In the summer of 2020, one of several dozen protests organised throughout the world in response to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis (USA) culminated in the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston being dumped into the water of Bristol Harbour (England). The ripples were felt across the globe. In the ensuing days, weeks and months, scores of other monuments depicting historical figures were variously defaced, toppled, removed from view, or placed under new scrutiny. Many of these had played prominent roles in the slave trade and/or in European colonialism. Some of these monuments were of medieval figures, while others were evocative—to varying degrees of credibility—of the (faux-)chivalric codes and rose-tinted regalia of the medieval past. Of course, to medievalists, the convergence of civic and civil statuary with protest and activism was nothing new. In fact—from the damnatio memoriae of later Roman Emperors to Saints Florus and Laurus smashing statues in Kosovo; Byzantine Eikonomachía; Aniconism in medieval Islam; the Huichang Persecution of Buddhist images; the Ghaznavid plundering of Mathura and Somnath; the Khmer intolerance of Jayavarman monuments in Angkor; the Strigólnik stripping of Pskov and Novgorod; and the First and Second Suppression Acts of the 1530s—many of its roots actually lie in the medieval world. What use then, or advantage, might the study of the Middle Ages hold in evaluating these modern political struggles? This workshop will address precisely this question.

The workshop has three aims. Firstly, it will explore examples of statues, monuments and related forms of public sculpture which speak to the ongoing making and unmaking of medieval figures, images and histories: what we term ‘Monumental Medievalism’. Secondly, in addition to considering the ‘when’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of monuments’ original production, it will interrogate the varied and often contested meanings that monuments later acquired over time. Of special interest, moreover, will be papers that address not only the use but the misuse of the Middle Ages, in connection to questions of local identity, gender, sexuality, race, religion and/or marginalisation. Thirdly, it will take the measure of nostalgia for the Middle Ages in the twenty-first century, asking questions of appropriation, anachronism, authenticity, nationalism and reflecting upon the possibilities and pitfalls of conscripting medieval images to serve as contemporary cultural conduits.

The topics of papers may include, but are not limited to:

– The intersection of statuary invoking the Middle Ages with protest and awareness/activism in popular or political thought
– The global and/or post-colonial Middle Ages and monumental evocations of the medieval world in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe
– The creation, alteration or removal of statues of medieval figures in any context
– The use of medieval figures, tropes and traditions in memorials to frame post-medieval history
– The commemoration of medieval figures by, inter alia, national, civic and civil communities
– The role of monuments in debates over the legacy of divisive or contested medieval figures and histories

Scholars at all career stages, regardless of disciplinary background or affiliation status, are invited to submit a (max) 300-word abstract for their proposed paper, along with a short biography, by 1 July 2022. Scholars invited to present at the workshop will be contacted soon after. Papers should be 25-30 minutes long. Attendance will be free. This event is supported by Swansea University’s Research Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMO) and by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies In British Art.

KEY DETAILS
Format: Online, via Zoom
Dates: 5-6 October 2022; sessions will run c. 1pm–6pm GMT
Organisers: Euan McCartney Robson and Simon John
Contact email: monumentalmedievalism@gmail.com

The Oxford Transnational and Global History Seminar is inviting submissions for a postgraduate conference, Saturday 25 June, 2022. The conference will be held in person by the Oxford History Faculty.

We welcome submissions on the theme ‘Encounters and Exchanges in a Global Past.’ We will explore the ways in which encounters and exchanges were experienced in the near and distant past. Despite the recent proliferation of frameworks for understanding contact and the exchange of goods, ideas and biota that accompanied it, contact is rarely considered from a truly global perspective that spans millennia, continents and disciplines.

We welcome interdisciplinary submissions relating to exchanges across time and space. We are particularly interested in submissions on the infrastructure that underlay encounters and exchanges, such as technology and ideology; multi-scalar interaction; the role of translation in contact; the environmental history of encounters and exchanges.

Sessions will consist of 20-minute papers with time for questions and discussion. Interested postgraduates should send a 400-word abstract and brief biography to oxfordtghs@gmail.com. The deadline to submit is 1st May 2022.