Exhibition | Chinoiserie Prints
Antoine Watteau, gravé par Michel Aubert, Idole de la Déesse Ki Mâo Sao
dans le royaume de Mang au pays des Laos, Paris, 1731.
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As noted by Hélène Bremer, from Les Arts Décoratifs:
La Chine des Ornemanistes: Gravures de Chinoiseries
Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 5 May — 31 July 2014
En écho aux expositions du musée, Les secrets de la laque française : le vernis Martin et De la Chine aux Arts Décoratifs : l’art chinois dans les collections du musée des Arts décoratifs, la Bibliothèque vous invite à découvrir la Chine fantaisiste et fantasmée, inventée et gravée par les ornemanistes français du XVIIIe siècle. D’Antoine Watteau à Jean Pillement, les artistes créèrent avec la chinoiserie une des formes les plus originales de l’art du siècle des Lumières.
Au début du XVIIIe siècle, en réaction aux lourdeurs du grand style du siècle précédent, les artistes s’affranchirent des modèles rigides aux significations codées, hérités des Métamorphoses d’Ovide et de l’Iconologie du chevalier Ripa, grâce à l’assimilation et la réappropriation des motifs chinois. La légèreté et la fantaisie de cette Asie recomposée étaient parfaitement adaptées à la société hédoniste qui s’établit en France à partir de la Régence et durant le règne de Louis XV. Cantonnée aux arts décoratifs, aux pièces intimes et aux pavillons ornementaux, la chinoiserie ne fut pas entravée par les règles de la convenance. Elle put rester le lieu du plaisir et du rêve.
The press release is available here»
Call for Papers | The Beauty of Letters: Text, Type, and Communication
From the conference website:
The Beauty of Letters: Text, Type, and Communication in the Eighteenth Century
Birmingham, 14–15 March 2015
Proposals due by 1 July 2014
The Baskerville Society, in conjunction with the University of Birmingham and Birmingham City University, is pleased to announce the theme for its second two-day conference, The Beauty of Letters: Text, Type, and Communication in the Eighteenth Century.
In his preface to Paradise Lost (1758), John Baskerville described himself as ‘an admirer of the beauty of letters’. This conference takes his phrase as a starting point to explore the production, distribution, consumption and reception, not only of letters, but also words, texts and images during the long eighteenth century (c. 1688–1820). This conference will consider how writing, printing, performance and portrayal contributed to the creation of cultural identity and taste, assisted the spread of knowledge and contributed to political,
economic, social and cultural change in Britain and the wider world.
Writing: teaching of writing and penmanship; styles of handwritten script; copybooks; shorthand; handwritten documents such as diaries, account books, letters, legal and parliamentary documents; the creation of texts by authors, poets and playwrights of the eighteenth century.*
Printing: printers and typefounders; technology and technology transfer; typefaces and typography; manufacture and distribution of texts; libraries, and education; publishing and bookselling; the production of different forms of print media: books, newspapers, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, conduct manuals, scientific and medical literature, histories, travel literature, religious, legal and political texts, ephemera and street literature.
Performance: the enactment and communication of text in theatre, music, politics and education through writing and performance of plays, ballad operas, songs and lyrics; the presentation of scripts and musical scores; censorship; theatre programmes; theatre merchandising; speeches; sermons; scientific lectures.
Portrayal: the visual representation of text in maps; scientific drawings; architectural drawings; astronomical sketches; political/satirical cartoons; posters, labels; signs and shop-fronts including both architectural and fascia lettering; advertising.
*please note the conference is not exploring literary criticism
The Conference organisers, Professor Caroline Archer and Dr Malcolm Dick are inviting contributions from academics, heritage professionals, research students and independent scholars. Please send a suggested title, synopsis (200 words) and biography (100 words) via a word attachment to both: caroline.archer@bcu.ac.uk and m.m.dick@bham.ac.uk; by: 1 July 2014.
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The Baskerville Society is an international society dedicated to the study of the eighteenth-century typographer, printer, industrialist and Enlightenment figure, John Baskerville (1707–75).
Call for Papers | The Intelligent Hand, 1500–1800
From The Courtauld:
Sixth Early Modern Symposium | The Intelligent Hand, 1500–1800
The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 8 November 2014
Proposals due by 30 June 2014
Organised by Austeja Mackelaite and Camilla Pietrabissa
The hand—the ‘instrument of instruments’—has fascinated artists, scientists and philosophers from Aristotle onwards. Its remarkable dexterity, anatomical complexity, and the ability to manipulate were seen as defining features distinguishing humanity from animality, as well as indicators of the superiority of the former. Taking as its starting point the sixteenth-century humanist Dominicus Lampsonius’ claim that ‘the Netherlander / Has intelligence in his hand’, this one-day Symposium will investigate the hand both as the means and the subject of representation in Early Modern art and visual culture.
Participants are invited to explore the hand as the locus where the relations between manual labour and ingenium, workshop and academy, the ‘low’ and the ‘high’ are defined and negotiated in the production of artistic value and new knowledge. Traditionally held to be subordinate to the creative drive of the mind, the artist’s hand may also be considered as an autonomous agent, manifesting itself on the surface of artworks through individual style, the manipulation of media or as an iconographic motif.
We welcome proposals for papers that explore the theme of the intelligent hand from the early modern period (c.1500–1800) including painting, sculpture, architecture, decorative arts, graphic arts, and the intersections between them. Papers can explore artistic exchanges across nations and cover non-European subjects. Contributions from other disciplines, such as anthropology and the history of science, are also welcome. Topics for discussion may include, but are not limited to:
· Formal and informal training of the artist’s hand
· The hand of the master and the ‘hands’ of his workshop
· The relationship between an artist’s hand and his individual style
· The sense of touch in relation to sight and other senses
· Gesturing as the language of the hand in visual representations
· The hand in anatomical and scientific treatises
· The hand as a mnemonic device
· Historiography of the hand
Please send proposals of no more than 300 words along with a 150 word biography by 30 June 2014 to austeja.mackelaite@courtauld.ac.uk and camilla.pietrabissa@courtauld.ac.uk. Organised by Austeja Mackelaite and Camilla Pietrabissa (The Courtauld Institute of Art).
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