Enfilade

From The Courtauld:

Bringing Art into Being in the Early Modern Period
The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 26 October 2013

Organised by Anya Matthews and Giulia Martina Weston

Complex narratives spanning months, years or even decades exist behind the single bracketed date attached to artworks to indicate their moment of execution or completion. This one-day symposium will explore the ‘ante-natal’ development of early modern art from its conception to its ‘quickening’ and eventual birth. The process fascinated contemporary theorists and continues to raise questions for modern art historians. For example, when was an artistic project considered finished or unfinished? What terms were used to indicate the various stages of bringing an artwork into being, and what implications did these terms have for authorship and authenticity? The creation of art is not the work of a moment or achieved at a single stroke; it involves a series of transpositions from idea to study or plan, from sketch to painting, from plan to building and so on. How did early modern art reflect on the process of its own making?

Ticket/entry details: £16 (£11 students, Courtauld staff/students and 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 ‘Fifth Early Modern Symposium’. For further information, email ResearchForumEvents@courtauld.ac.uk.

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P R O G R A M M E

9.00  Registration

9.30  Introduction – Anya Matthews and Giulia Martina Weston (The Courtauld Institute of Art)

9.40  Session 1: Inspiration and the Artistic Idea
• Nikola Piperkov (Université Paris I Panthéon, Sorbonne), V(isita) I(nteriora) T(errae) R(ectificando) I(nvenies) O(ccultum) L(apidem): Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s and Adriaen de Vries’ Mercury and Psyche, an Allegory of Artistic and Alchemical Creation
• Anne Bloemacher (University of Münster), Raphael on Invention: Work in Progress Before the Materialisation of the Object
• James Hall (Independent art historian and critic), Sex and Genius: Raphael and Titian as Competing Models of the Creative Artist
• Vasco Nuno Figueiredo de Medeiros (University of Lisbon), Between Heuresis and Mimesis: Artistic Science and the Iconopoiesis as Mediators of the Creative Process

11.30  Coffee and Tea Break

12.00  Session 2: Breaking Boundaries
•  Joris Van Gastel (University of Warwick), The Sculptor’s Drawing: An Embodied Approach
• Sefy Hendler (Tel Aviv University): A Paragone in Progress: Parmigianino Recto-Verso Study for Moses
• Claire Gapper (Independent architectural historian), Designing and Executing Decorative Plasterwork in the 16th and 17th Centuries

13.20  Break for lunch

14.20  Session 3: Out of Time
• Carolin Behrmann (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence -Max-Planck-Institut), In/action: The Non-Finito as Sculptural ‘Actio’
• David Gilks (Queen Mary, University of London), An Impossible Monument: Bringing the French Pantheon Into Being, 1791-94
• Foteini Vlachou (University of Lisbon), The ‘Trial’ and Tribulations of Sequeira’s Allegory of Junot Protecting
the City of Lisbon
• Letha Chien (University of California, Berkeley), The Frustrated Ongoing Saga of the Decorations at the Scuola Grande di San Marco

16.10  Coffee and tea break

16.40  Session 4: Artistic Experimentalism: Practices and Methods
• Kamini Vellodi (Independent art historian and practicing artist), Tintoretto’s Stage-Method: A Modern Constructivism
• Carrie Anderson (Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston), Translation and Translocation: Rethinking the Materiality of the ‘Old Indies’ Series
• Stefan Albl (University of Vienna), From Drawing to Painting: The Genesis of Pietro Testa’s Adorations of
the Shepherds and Some Considerations on His Working Methods

18.00  Reception