Exhibition | Piranesi’s Antiquity: Findings and Polemics
From the Wallraf-Richartz Museum:
Piranesis Antike: Befund und Polemik / Piranesi’s Antiquity: Findings and Polemics
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, 25 October 2013 — 26 January 2014
‘Rome or Athens?’ In the eighteenth century, this simple and yet so complex question was at the heart of a vehement dispute concerning the exemplary function of classical antiquity for contemporary art. One major advocate of Rome was the artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778). Over a period of about 30 years, he produced more than 130 large-format etchings with views of ancient and modern Rome, as well as of buildings from the immediate surroundings. These etchings were compiled into a self-contained series under the title Vedute di Roma. Piranesi uses dramatic perspectives, strong contrasts between light and dark, and gigantic enlargements of sections of ancient buildings in order to convince his contemporaries of the importance of classical Rome.
Some 20 of these fascinating works can now (25 October 2013 to 26 January 2014) be seen in Cologne at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum’s Department of Drawings and Prints under the title Piranesi’s Antiquity: Findings and Polemics.
One of the most versatile Italian artists of the eighteenth century, Piranesi still fascinates us today with his extensive œuvre. During his lifetime he produced more than 1,000 etchings and thus left us impressive witnesses of his age. In addition to his graphic work, Piranesi also wrote numerous theoretical treatises, defending Roman civilization against the claims of Greek culture. The exhibition in Cologne shows how, in the large-format Vedute or views of Rome, the multifarious and contradictory ways in which classical antiquity was appropriated by the eighteenth century are superimposed. Meticulous archaeological investigations stand alongside market-oriented production of prints, and a polemical debate on the true legacy of antiquity (Rome versus Athens). By selling his views of Rome to foreign visitors to the city, Piranesi made a fortune and became well known throughout Europe.
This exhibition is being held to mark the 625th anniversary of the foundation of Cologne University. Together with teachers and students of art history and classical archaeology, the works were selected and researched from among the holdings of the university archives. The archive has 46 views of Rome by Piranesi, an unusual wealth of material for a university collection. It is the result of a donation by the university’s first Professor of Greek Philology, Dr Joseph Kroll.
Information on the exhibition symposium is available here»
Symposium | Piranesi and Antiquarian Knowledge
From ArtHist:
Piranesi und die Vermittlung antiquarischen Wissens im 18. Jahrhundert
Universität zu Köln, 23–24 January 2014
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Temple of Coughing
(Entrance Hall of an Antique Villa), ca. 1763, etching
(Universität zu Köln, Universitätsarchiv, Inv. 700/14)
Wissen und Vorstellungen über die Antike sind in der Frühen Neuzeit in vielen Medien und Formaten vermittelt worden. Dazu zählen nicht nur die gelehrten antiquarischen Werke, sondern ebenso Gemälde und Opern mit antiken Themen, künstlich angelegte Ruinen und Landschaften oder systematisch angelegte Sammlungen von Kopien oder Originalen der bildenden Kunst.
Anlässlich der Ausstellung Piranesis Antike – Befund und Polemik im Wallraf-Richartz-Museum wird sich der Workshop mit der Frage beschäftigen, wie antiquarisches Wissen in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jhs. in den verschiedenen Gattungen und Medien über den Kreis der Gelehrten hinaus aufgenommen und vermittelt worden ist, z.B. durch die Aufnahme mythologischer oder historischer Themen. Dabei soll ein möglichst breites Spektrum an Gattungen vorgestellt werden. Zu untersuchen ist etwa, woher das Wissen über die Antike gewonnen wurde, für welches Publikum es gedacht war und wie es nach den Erfordernissen der jeweiligen Gattung umgeformt wurde.
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D O N N E R S T A G , 2 3 J A N U A R
Abendvortrag
18.00 Valentin Kockel (Augsburg), Ansicht – Plan – Modell. Die Visualisierung antiker Ruinen im 18. Jahrhundert
F R E I T A G , 2 4 J A N U A R
9.00 Dietrich Boschung (Köln) Begrüßung
9.15 Anne-Marie Leander Touati (Stockholm/Lund), Between vision and business. Choice pieces from the Piranesi collection in Stockholm
10.00 Dagmar Grassinger (Köln), Roms Größe wiederherstellen – Piranesis »Vasi antichi«
10.45 Kaffeepause
11.15 Alain Schnapp (Paris), Piranesi in der Zeit der lebenden Ruinen: Historische und künstlerische Ruinen
12.00 Mittagspause
13.30 Daniel Graepler (Göttingen), Zwischen antiquarischer Gelehrsamkeit und künstlerischer Praxis: Philipp Daniel Lipperts Daktyliothek
14.15 Jörn Lang (Leipzig), Wie Wissen Schönes schafft: Rezeption und Umformung antiquarischer Gelehrsamkeit in klassizistischem Wanddekor
15.00 Kaffeepause
15.30 Xenia Ressos (Innsbruck), Die Antike in Scherben – Antikenrezeption im Medium Porzellan
16.15 Abschlussdiskussion
Ort: Internationales Kolleg Morphomata, Universität zu Köln, Weyertal 59 (Rückgebäude: 3. Stock), 50937 Köln
Konzept: Dietrich Boschung
Kontakt: Semra Mägele, smaegele@uni-koeln.de
Conference | Aesthetic Enlightenments: Cultures of Natural Knowledge
From Birkbeck:
Aesthetic Enlightenments: Cultures of Natural Knowledge
Huntington Library, San Marino, 10–11 January 2014
Registration due by 10 January 2014
This two-day conference will examine the relationship between the aesthetic production and social circulation of knowledge about the natural world in the eighteenth century. It aims to connect literary, visual and discursive forms of analysis with approaches current within social history, in order to interrogate the relationship between social participation in science and the aesthetic and cultural forms of its making.
F R I D A Y , 1 0 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4
8:30 Registration and coffee
9:30 Welcome: Steve Hindle (The Huntington)
Remarks: Sarah Easterby-Smith (University of St. Andrews) and Emily Senior (Birkbeck, University of London)
10:00 Session 1: Knowledge Work and Circulation
Moderator: Margaret Jacob (University of California, Los Angeles)
• Londa Schiebinger (Stanford University), “The Atlantic World Medical Complex”
• Noah Heringman (University of Missouri), “Knowledge Work, or, Sciences from the Middle”
12:00 Lunch
1:00 Session 2: Hybrid Forms of Knowledge
Moderator: Lyle Massey (University of California, Irvine)
• Daniela Bleichmar (University of Southern California), “Chronicles without Words: The Study of Mexican Codices and Amerindian Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century”
• Jill H. Casid (University of Wisconsin, Madison), “Satyrosity”
3:00 Break
3:15 Session 3: Inscription, Translation, and Erasure
Moderator: Sarah Kareem (University of California, Los Angeles)
• Alan Bewell (University of Toronto), “Natures Lost in Translation”
• Matthew Daniel Eddy (Durham University), “How to Keep a Notebook: Inscription as a Visual Knowledge-Making Process for Early Modern Students”
S A T U R D A Y , 1 1 J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 4
9:00 Registration and coffee
9:30 Session 4: The Epistemology of Feeling
Moderator: Anne Mellor (University of California, Los Angeles)
• Jonathan Lamb (Vanderbilt University), “Blushing and Tattooing”
• Alan Richardson (Boston College), “Empathy for the Devil: From Mirror Neurons to Sympathy Theory to Shelley’s The Cenci”
11:30 Lunch
12:30 Session 5: Scholars and Communities
Moderator: Alexander Wragge-Morley (University of Oxford)
• Deirdre Coleman (University of Melbourne), “Henry Smeathman and the Cultures of Natural Knowledge”
• Dena Goodman (University of Michigan), “Collective Identity, Natural History, and Public Responsibility: Augustin-François Silvestre’s Eulogies for the French Society of Agriculture, 1801–1841”
2:30 Break
2:45 Session 6: Public Science, Education, and Professionalization
Moderator: Devin Griffiths (University of Southern California)
• Dahlia Porter (University of North Texas), “Anatomical Inventories, Medical Aesthetics: Body Parts and the Life of Things”
• Jan Golinski (University of New Hampshire), “Sublime Astronomy at the End of the Enlightenment: Adam Walker and the Eidouranion”
For registration, please email: researchconference@huntington.org
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