Call for Papers | Reshaping Sacred Space
Reshaping Sacred Space: Liturgy, Patronage and Design in Church Interiors
University of St. Andrews, 14 June 2014
Proposals due by 31 December 2013
The conference seeks to present original ideas relating to the design and construction of churches in Catholic Europe between 1500 and 1750. New religious demands, arising out of the Counter-Reformation, led to innovations in both the form and function of the interior space of churches. This conference will provide a forum for presentations on these changes, and for discussion among scholars engaged in similar research. We will consider proposals that may include but are not limited to:
· an art-historical or architectural analysis of the interior of a church built or renovated during this period, in both public and private contexts
· a study of church furnishings (e.g. altarpieces, pulpits, monuments, choir stalls), and their location and function within the church
· an investigation of patronage, both religious and secular; how the patron or donor may have influenced the construction of the church or parts of its interior.
Our plenary speaker will be Dr Martin Gaier, University of Basel, Switzerland. Representatives from the ‘Open-Access and Online Journal System’ of the University of St Andrews Library and the Scholarly Communications team at the University of Edinburgh will give brief presentations on the constantly changing state of online and open-access publishing. This will be followed by a workshop discussion of the implications of open-access for post-graduate scholarship. All students and staff are welcome.
The proceedings of this conference will be published in a special edition of North Street Review: Arts and Visual Culture, the postgraduate art history journal of the University of St Andrews. Submissions will follow the formatting and image copyright guidelines set by the North Street Review, as detailed here. We will also explore the possibility of forming a session, with presenters from our conference, to participate in the 2015 annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in Berlin. (Submissions for the 2015 RSA conference will not be open until spring 2014, so we cannot confirm this until then.)
Papers will be 20-minutes long, with 10 minutes for discussion afterwards. To submit a proposal, send an abstract of your paper (ca. 300 words) and a CV by 31 December 2013 to: rssconf@st-andrews.ac.uk
Meredith Crosbie and Emanuela Vai,
Conference Organisers and PhD Candidates at the University of St Andrews
Symposium | Allan Ramsay: A Reputation Re-Defined
From the symposium programme (a full list of related events is available here) . . .
Allan Ramsay: A Reputation Re-Defined
University of Glasgow, The Hunterian Art Gallery, 5–6 December 2013
This symposium accompanies the exhibition Allan Ramsay: Portraits of the Enlightenment, which marks 300 years since the birth of Allan Ramsay (1713–1784). It centres on a selection of portraits from across Ramsay’s 30 years as a painter and also features drawings, watercolours, books, pamphlets, and other materials which demonstrate Ramsay’s fascinating place in the intellectual and cultural life of Edinburgh, London, Paris and Rome in the mid 18th century.
Registration fee: £40 Concession: £20. Booking requested by the 1st of December. Fees cover exhibition admission, the evening reception on the 5th of December, tea/coffee, lunch, and performance with a glass of wine on the 6th of December. Payment to be made by cheque (to ‘University of Glasgow’) or by cash on the day. For booking and further information please contact Mila Athayde (mila_athayde@yahoo.com.br); alternatively please visit The Hunterian website or contact the main reception on 00 44 (0)141 330 5431.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
T H U R S D A Y , 5 D E C E M B E R
17.45 Duncan Macmillan, Allan Ramsay and Portraiture in Enlightenment Scotland
F R I D A Y , 6 D E C E M B E R
9.30 Registration / Tea and coffee
10.00 Murray Pittock, ‘Jacobite Artists’ Connections in Scotland and Italy
10.40 Morning Session
Chair: Nigel Leask / Panel with Rhonda Brown and Melanie Buntin
• Chris Whatley (University of Dundee), A Hotbed for Genius: Allan Ramsay’s Scotland
• Elizabeth Eger (King’s College London), ‘A Harmony of Minds’: Allan Ramsay, Elizabeth Montagu and the Scottish Enlightenment
• Cristina Martinez (University of Carleton), Allan Ramsay: ‘A Dilettante in Law and Politics’
12.40 Lunch
14.15 Afternoon Session
Chair: John Bonehill / Panel with Anne Dulau, Rica Jones
• Rica Jones (conservator and historian of paintings), The Significance of Ramsay’s Technique in Context and Perspective
• Guillaume Farroult (Musée du Louvre), Ramsay’s Response to Mid Eighteenth-Century French Portraiture and Aesthetic Values
15.30 Tea and coffee
16.00 Panel discussion
17.00 Performance | Kirsten McCue, ‘Allan Ramsay’s Scots Songs’: The First Musick Book
Call for Papers | American Association for Italian Studies, 2014
From the Italian Art Society:
2014 American Association for Italian Studies Conference
University of Zürich, 23–25 May 2014
Proposals due by 5 December 2013
For the first time, the American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS) will hold its annual conference outside of North America and Italy. Switzerland is an ideal location: it is the only country, outside of the peninsula, where Italian is the national language. The Italian Art Society is glad to sponsor three sessions: two sessions treating photography and one treating early modern architecture. We welcome your paper abstracts.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Maestri ticinesi, magistri grigioni: Swiss-Italian Architects and Craftsmen in Early Modern Europe
Organizer: Susan Klaiber (Winterthur, Switzerland)
The Italian-speaking regions of early modern Switzerland exported significant expertise in the building trades throughout Europe. These émigré architects, builders, and craftsmen such as stuccatori worked for courts, monasteries, and other patrons in present-day Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic and elsewhere. While often well-studied by scholars in both Switzerland and the respective regions of migration, international awareness of such careers generally remains low, with notable exceptions such as Francesco Borromini. Taken
collectively, though, Swiss-Italian architects and craftsmen played important roles as agents of cultural transfer with their itinerant careers in early modern Europe. These figures include Domenico Fontana, Carlo Maderno, and Carlo Fontana in Rome; Enrico Zuccalli and Giovanni Antonio Viscardi in Bavaria; and Giovanni Battista Quadro in Poland.
The scholarly literature on such men is as rich yet dispersed as the architectural culture they embody. Representative publications include, in Italian, the exhibition catalogue Il giovane Borromini (1999), and books by Tommaso Manfredi (2008) and Marcello Fagiolo (ed., 2008); works in German by Sabine Heym (1984), Max Pfister (1991), and Michael Kühlenthal (ed., 1997); or several publications in Polish and Italian by Mariusz Karpowicz. Many of these studies are only available regionally. This session aims to break down these geographic and linguistic barriers and move toward a comprehensive view of the work of the ‘maestri ticinesi’ and ‘magistri grigioni’ with a comparative transnational approach. The session welcomes papers on any aspect of Swiss-Italian involvement in the building trades anywhere in Europe, ca. 1400-1800. Preference will be given to papers highlighting ties of workers (dynasties, networks), designs, techniques, or materials to Switzerland. Please send a 300-word abstract and a short bio to Susan Klaiber, sklaiber@bluewin.ch, by December 5, 2013.
Exhibition | The Golden Age of the Fan
Thanks to Pierre-Henri Biger for noting this upcoming exhibition of seventy fans at the Cognacq-Jay:
Le siècle d’or de l’éventail: Du Roi-Soleil à Marie-Antoinette
Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris, 14 November 2013 — 2 March 2014
Curated by José de Los Llanos and Georgina Letourmy-Bordier
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Cette exposition rendra hommage à l’excellence du savoir-faire des éventaillistes français et montrera aussi l’extraordinaire inventivité dont témoignent ces objets fragiles et discrets que sont les éventails.
L’éventail est à la fois familier et méconnu. Accessoire de mode et objet d’art, il allie le savoir-faire d’artisans à la création artistique. Soumis à la fugacité des modes, il se renouvelle sans cesse. Importé d’Asie à la Renaissance, au milieu des cargaisons d’épices et de soies, l’éventail est adopté en France sous le règne de Louis XIV. Une corporation spécifique, celle des éventaillistes, créée en 1676, assure rapidement la domination des artisans français en Europe. Au cours du XVIIIe siècle, Paris devient ainsi la capitale de l’éventail. Le choix des décors suit alors la production des peintres à la mode et participe à la diffusion de l’art français en Europe, tout en montrant une singulière diversité. Tout peut être représenté sur un éventail : la mythologie, l’histoire antique comme l’histoire religieuse côtoient des scènes galantes. Ce sont aussi des décors empruntés à la vie quotidienne de la cour ou du peuple de Paris, ou encore des faits d’actualité, naissances et mariages royaux ou victoires militaires, célébrés par des fêtes publiques.
Avec soixante-dix oeuvres empruntées à des collections publiques et privées, en France et à l’Étranger, l’exposition du musée Cognacq-Jay, hommage à l’excellence du savoir-faire des éventaillistes français, essentiellement parisiens, montrera aussi l’extraordinaire inventivité dont témoignent ces objets fragiles et discrets.
Scottish NPG Acquires Portrait of the Fiddler Patie Birnie
From the museum press release (1 November 2013) . . .
William Aikman, Portrait of Patie Birnie, the Fiddler of Kinghorn, ca. 1718 (Scottish National Portrait Gallery)
A rare, early portrait of a Scottish folk musician, the celebrated eighteenth-century fiddler Patie (or Peter) Birnie, has recently been acquired by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh and is on public display for the first time.
This charming portrait by the Scot William Aikman (1682–1731), who portrayed many of the leading political and literary figures of his day, was probably painted in the period between 1715 and 1720. A memorable and welcome addition to the Gallery’s collection, it is a significant example of a portrait by a prominent Scottish artist in which the sitter, who is clearly identified, comes from the lower ranks of society, rather than the ruling élite. It complements other renowned portraits of musicians in the collection, such Sir Henry Raeburn’s portrayal of the fiddler Niel Gow, painted in 1787, and also provides a compelling contrast with the Gallery’s other portraits by Aikman, which are primarily of aristocratic subjects.
In the striking and unusual composition the famous musician is shown laughing, and is identified not only by the fiddle he holds, but also by a painted inscription which describes him as “The Facetious Peter Birnie / Fidler in Kinghorn.” Although the word facetious is generally used in a derogatory sense today, in the eighteenth century it meant “gay; chearful [sic]; lively; merry; witty” (Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary). Most of our information about Birnie comes from Allan Ramsay the Elder’s Elegy, published, presumably shortly after Birnie’s death, in 1721, which states that Birnie was present at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge in 1679. The Elegy was later used by the Rev. James Granger in his Biographical History (1769):
“Patie Birnie resided at Kinghorn, on the sea coast, about nine miles north of Edinburgh, where he supported himself by his consummate impudence. Not by honest labour, but by intruding upon every person who came to the public house… He then fell into the utmost familiarity… his… exploits [involved] showing a very particular comicalness in his looks and gestures; laughing and groaning at the same time. He played, sung, and broke in with some queer tale twice or thrice e’er he got through the tune; and his beard was no small addition to the diversion.”
In addition to performing in such a memorable manner, Birnie is reputed to be among the earliest composers of strathspeys (a type of dance in 4/4 time). His fame was such that a number of engravings after Aikman’s painting were made, an example of which is in the Gallery’s collection. The painting was formerly in the collection of the Earls of Rothes, at Leslie House, Fife (where it was recorded in 1839) and was acquired by the Gallery from the London dealer Philip Mould.
Speaking of the acquisition, Christopher Baker, Director of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, said: “This is an especially attractive and endearing addition to our eighteenth-century collection: Birnie was a man renowned for his music and vivacious performances and Aikman commemorated him in a wonderfully appropriate, informal and engaging manner.”
Call for Papers | The English Urban Renaissance Revisited
From the Call for Papers:
The English Urban Renaissance Revisited
A Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester, 18 July 2014
Proposals due by 1 February 2014
In 1989 OUP published Peter Borsay’s The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Town 1600–1770. 2014 will therefore mark the 25th anniversary of this seminal text in urban cultural history. It inspired a new generation of researchers and developed some of the key themes that have since dominated the historiography of the ‘long’ eighteenth century:
• importance of provincial towns in the long eighteenth century as hubs of economic, cultural and political activity
• the strength and vitality of urban culture beyond the metropolis
• the transformation of the provincial urban townscape
This symposium is an opportunity to celebrate the anniversary and to:
• reflect on how eighteenth-century urban and cultural history has developed since 1989
• consider ‘urban renaissances’ in other European countries
• discuss new directions and possible collaborations
Papers (of 20 minutes’ duration) are invited on topics relevant to these themes. Please email proposals (300 words max) plus a brief biographical statement (60 words max) to John Hinks jh241@le.ac.uk and Roey Sweet rhs4@le.ac.uk by 1 February 2014.
New Book | Magnificent Entertainments
From Yale UP:
Melanie Doderer-Winkler, Magnificent Entertainments: Temporary Architecture for Georgian Festivals (London: The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2013), 270 pages, ISBN: 978-0300186420, $75.
A thoroughly original study of ephemeral architecture and design, Magnificent Entertainments examines the spectacular displays created for large-scale public celebrations in the Georgian period. The book focuses on a number of specific events—including royal weddings, coronations, battle victories, and birthday fêtes—that employed elaborate decorative measures to outshine the typical festivities of the day. Some of these elements, ranging from floral displays and scenery to music and light shows, transformed existing venues into unfamiliar marvels; other times, completely new settings were devised for short-lived occasions.
Drawing on primary sources such as commemorative prints, newspaper accounts, and diary entries, the book investigates just how essential these fanciful designs were in creating events with lasting impact and popular appeal. The author also delves into the various materials used for construction and embellishment: applications of sugar, sand, marble dust, or chalk lent luster and color to surfaces, while stand-alone firework temples and temporary reception rooms were often crafted of little more than wood, canvas, paint, and paste.
Melanie Doderer-Winkler is an art historian and former furniture specialist at Christie’s, London. She writes and lectures about the splendour and pageantry of eighteenth-century entertaining.
Lecture | Jill Lepore on Benjamin Franklin’s Sister’s Books
This year’s Lewis Walpole Library Lecture takes place on Friday:
The Ladies Library: Or, Benjamin Franklin’s Sister’s Books
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 8 November 2013
The Twentieth Annual Lewis Walpole Library Lecture, 5:30pm
Professor Jill Lepore, National Book Award finalist and author of Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin, will discuss her work reconstituting the lost library of Benjamin Franklin’s sister Jane (1712–1794). Most of what Jane read, she borrowed, but she was an avid and discriminating reader, writing to her brother, “I Read as much as I Dare.”
Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her books include New York Burning, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; The Name of War, winner of the Bancroft Prize; The Mansion of Happiness, a finalist for the Carnegie Medal; The Whites of Their Eyes, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice; and The Story of America. Her 2008 novel, Blindspot, written jointly with historian Jane Kamensky, was also a Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. In October 2013, Book of Ages, Lepore’s landmark biography of Benjamin Franklin’s youngest sister, was
published and nominated for the National Book Award.
The lecture is free and open to the public.
Jon Seydl Apointed New Director of Curatorial Affairs at WAM
Press release (29 October 2013) from the Worcester Art Museum:
The Worcester Art Museum (WAM) today announced the appointment of Jon Seydl as its new Director of Curatorial Affairs. In this position, he will direct the Curatorial department, as well as the Conservation, Registration, and Collections and Exhibition Services departments; he will also be the Museum’s curator of European art. Recognized for his specialty in 17th- to 19th-century Italian art, Seydl currently serves as the Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos, Jr., Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture at the Cleveland Museum of Art. He will assume his new position in January 2014.
“We are excited for Jon to lead our talented, growing team of curators,” said WAM Director Matthias Waschek. “While his Old Master focus is in keeping with one of WAM’s traditional strengths, his proven track record of working innovatively outside his field of specialization will be crucial to us as we work to better engage audiences with our own collection. Cleveland’s impressive arms and armor collection will also inform his thinking and leadership role in our integration of the Higgins Collection into WAM’s encyclopedic holdings. Jon will provide an invaluable perspective as we continue toward our goal of accessibility for all audiences.”
Most recently coming from the Cleveland Museum of Art, Seydl’s previous positions include Program Specialist at the National Endowment for the Humanities Program, followed by Research Coordinator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He joined the J. Paul Getty Museum in 2002 as Assistant Curator of Paintings before becoming an Associate Curator of Paintings in 2006. He came to the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2007. Since then, he has reinstalled and thematically reinterpreted Cleveland’s entire collection of European Art as part of the Museum’s renovation and expansion project. Seydl’s acquisitions for the Cleveland Museum of Art include St Peter of Alcántara by Pedro de Mena and Julius Caesar by Mino da Fiesole, an Apollo Magazine 2009 Acquisition of the Year.
During his career, Seydl has curated and co-curated many major exhibitions, including Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile (2005), Tiepolo Oil Sketches (2005), From Caspar David Friedrich to Gerhard Richter: German Painting from Dresden (2006), Rembrandt in America (2011–12), and The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection (2012–13). Seydl wrote the catalogue for Tiepolo Oil Sketches (2005), which he curated at the Getty, and has co-edited two volumes of essays: Gerhard Richter: Early Work, 1951–1972 and Antiquity Recovered: The Legacy of Pompeii and Herculaneum. In 2013 the Association of Art Museum Curators awarded him the Outstanding Catalogue Essay prize for “The Last Days of Pompeii.”
Seydl completed his BA in art history at Yale University and received his MA and PhD in art history from the University of Pennsylvania. He specialized in 17th- and 18th-century Italian Art and wrote his dissertation on images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the 18th century.
“I am incredibly pleased to be joining the Worcester Art Museum,” Seydl said. “With the upcoming integration of the Higgins Armory and the recent reinstallation of the Museum’s European paintings in [remastered], this is an exciting time for the Museum. Matthias’ vision for the future is thoughtful and compelling, and I look forward to working with him and the rest of the WAM team on advancing the Museum’s goal of increased accessibility and engagement through the presentation and interpretation of a very great collection.”
Journées d’étude | La cuisine, une artification par les arts?
On at the Centre d’archives de BAnQ:
La Cuisine: Une artification par les arts ?
Montréal, Centre d’archives de BAnQ, 13–14 November 2013
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Journées d’études internationales organisées dans le cadre du programme L’Art de la cuisine : artification et patrimonialisation du culinaire dirigé par Julia Csergo (Université du Québec à Montréal / Université de Lyon 2) et Frédérique Desbuissons (Institut national d’histoire de l’art / HiCSA), avec le soutien du Laboratoire d’excellence Création, arts et patrimoine du Pôle de recherche et d’enseignement supérieur Hautes Études-Sorbonne-Arts et Métiers)
L’Art de la cuisine : artification et patrimonialisation du culinaire étudie le statut de la cuisine, entre savoir, science, tekhnè et art. Il aborde la dimension esthétique du culinaire à travers le statut du cuisinier et de sa création, l’art du service (art de découper, de présenter, de servir), par l’étude des objets de la table et des menus imprimés, de la médiatisation du spectacle culinaire, par l’iconographie et les représentations artistiques, par celle du jugement de goût – en particulier le rôle de la critique culinaire. D’un point de vue théorique, il s’interroge sur la manière dont la cuisine se situe par rapport aux autres arts, le statut et le rôle des sens, la spécificité des saveurs par rapport aux autres sens. D’un point de vue institutionnel et sociologique, il questionne le statut des cuisiniers, leur formation, leur starification contemporaine en tant qu’ “artiste”. Dans la perspective de l’anthropologie historique, il envisage la tekhnè du culinaire (lieux, gestes, recettes, outils, savoir-faire).
Poursuivant la réflexion engagée lors des journées d’études Le Cuisinier et l’art (Paris, Institut national d’histoire de l’art, 2 et 3 octobre 2012), qui interrogeaient le statut artistique de la cuisine, celle du cuisinier comme artiste et du plat comme création, ce second volet explore le rôle et la fonction des arts visuels et décoratifs, de la musique et des arts de la scène dans la construction des représentations de la cuisine comme art, et s’interroge sur les caractéristiques de cet éventuel « autre » art. Considérant que la cuisine a été jusqu’à présent peu étudiée dans ses relations avec les pratiques artistiques instituées, si ce n’est par métaphore, ces deux journées entendent continuer à élargir sa compréhension en l’inscrivant d’emblée au sein de l’histoire des arts et des pratiques
culturelles, et poursuivre ainsi cette ouverture d’un champ de recherche innovant fondé sur l’interdisciplinarité.
Ces deux journées sont présentées par l’Université du Québec à Montréal – ESG/DEUT, l’Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris et l’Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, en partenariat avec Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec et avec le soutien du Labex CAP, de la Chaire de recherche du Canada en patrimoine urbain de l’ESG-UQAM et de l’Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec.
Enfilade 
leave a comment