Enfilade

A useful introduction to ACA-RES, including a summary of its wide array of online resources, is available from J18: Émilie Roffidal and Anne Perrin Khelissa, “French Academies in the Age of Enlightenment: An Interdisciplinary Research Network,” Journal18 (February 2019), available here.

From the Call for Papers:

Art Academies and Their Networks in the Age of Enlightenment
Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris, 26–28 March 2020

Organized by Anne Perrin Khelissa and Émilie Roffidal, with Markus Castor

Proposals due by 6 September 2019

Attributed to Guillaume-Joseph Roques, Portrait of Jacques Gamelin, ca. 1777–85, oil on canvas (Cathédrale Saint-Michel de Carcassonne).

This colloquium is the culmination of three years of research under the aegis of the ACA-RES research programme on art academies and their networks in pre-industrial France (Les académies d’art et leurs réseaux dans la France préindustrielle). It aims to provide new perspectives and build upon this research and collaborative initiatives. Since 2016 the ACA-RES research programme has worked towards shedding further light on art academies and drawing schools in the French provinces between 1740 and the early 19th century. It has built on previous studies by art historians and historians, by focusing on networks and networking across France and beyond. This approach was based on the belief that these fifty or so educational institutions were the expression of a town’s culture as well as a node where men, objects and knowledge functioned on different levels. The objective was to investigate the role of these institutions in Enlightenment society, not only locally, but also within the context of European and international movements.

Three study days, whose proceedings are now on the Hypothèses programme webpage, led to reflections around the following three themes: the human, social and legal circumstances, workings, and establishment of art academies and drawing schools; the importance of movement whether through travel, migration, correspondence, or the circulation of artistic and literary works; and, finally, the often multidisciplinary character of meetings and teaching, which viewed artistic production in the provinces through the lens of  utility, fine arts, craft, science, and literature (belles-lettres) being believed to stimulate each other. Collaboration with researchers in Sociology and in Digital Humanities structured and enhanced these reflections. The other issue for the research programme was to challenge the reality of our subject through new ways of doing research. Guided by the philosophy of open access, the purpose of ACA-RES is to offer the academic community all research data and results: digitised archives, digitised library, Zotero bibliography, potted institutional histories, new online articles, relational database, virtual exhibition, etc. All this material is available at the ACA-RES website and can be used by researchers to feed their proposals and future research.

This colloquium invites the rethinking of the role of provincial academies in the administration of the arts in the 18th century and in the formulation of ideas about them. Its ambition is to study this aspect of the history of the French regions in the context of a wider history of France and Europe and to do so by harnessing micro-historical and macro-historical methods. To what extent did artistic careers depend on academies for skills and/or reputation? What did art as an epistemological field gain in practice and thought in these places? What role did these institutions hold outside or in close association with academies in capital cities, given their institutional organisations, forms of sociability, and role as conduits for theoretical and practical knowledge? How did they interact with each other and with other geographical areas and other social circles (literary salons, Freemason gatherings, and agricultural societies)? At heart, the colloquium aims to question whether art academies and drawing schools were sensitive conduits for the diffusion and circulation of artistic and cultural knowledge in Europe, or whether their function was purely honorific. The great academies of Europe’s capitals—a subject for which there is a considerable bibliography—should only be broached in colloquium papers in terms of their relationships with provincial academies.

We welcome proposals for papers exploring the following four themes:

The first theme will focus on approaches that embrace several comparative examples, rather than on a single town, a single school of design or academy, thus permitting reinterpretation of known case studies. Papers might focus, for example, on the teaching of architecture, sculpture, etc., on the link between fine arts, crafts and manufacturing, on the link between art and literature (belles-lettres) or science, on women’s or members’ position in provincial academies, on exchanges between the ‘great’ European academies in capital cities and less important institutions in the provinces, etc., and on the circulation of models and teaching aids between different institutions.

The second theme will consider noteworthy case studies by examining pioneering institutions or personalities that stood out in provincial academies and among their adherents. These actors could comprise an artist who headed an institution, or a member affiliated to several academies, or an amateur whose actions had a significant impact on an academy and its history. The purpose is not simply to trace the biography of an individual but also to capture his or her actions and impact on his/her contemporaries, and to underline his/her links with his/her peers etc.

The third theme will allow for both a detailed and comparative view, highlighting cases and situations which our three-year project has not explored so fully, but which will be developed in our future work. It looks towards international exchanges, in particular with Spain, Portugal, the Italian and German states, transatlantic colonies, etc. Comparisons between the 17th and later centuries will be welcomed, and from the 19th century to the present day.

The fourth focus will be on methodology, in particular new developments in research in art history. The three themes outlined already offer the opportunity to propose a paper on current research tools and methods and on the use of data. We invite research programmes that have worked on the digital publication of primary sources, on building relational databases, on creating virtual exhibitions, or researchers who have a particular resource to highlight among ACA-RES resources (a corpus of texts and pictures, digital archives, etc.) to contribute.

Calendar
Submission of one-page proposal in French or English comprising title, abstract, and biographical note for speaker: 6 September 2019 to programme.acares@gmail.com. Response of the scientific committee: mid-October 2019. Date of the colloquium: 26–28 March 2020 in Paris, INHA.

Publication
The colloquium will be followed by the publication of a collective work, which will subject to scrutiny and selection by the scientific committee. Final submission texts for publication: end of August 2020.

Organising Committee
Anne Perrin Khelissa, Émilie Roffidal, Laboratoire Framespa UMR 5136 CNRS, Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, with the collaboration of Markus Castor, Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art, Paris.

Scientific Committee
Nicolas ADELL, maître de conférence en anthropologie, UMR 5193, LISST, UT2J; Sylvain AMIC, conservateur en chef, Musée des beaux-arts de Rouen; Martine AZAM, maître de conférence en sociologie, UMR 5193, LISST, UT2J; Basile BAUDEZ, maître de conférence en histoire de l’art moderne, Princeton University; Pascal BERTRAND, professeur d’histoire de l’art moderne, EA 538, Centre François-Georges Pariset, Bordeaux-Montaigne; Olivier BONFAIT, professeur d’histoire de l’art moderne, UMR 7366, Centre Georges Chevrier, Dijon; Charlotte GUICHARD, chargée de recherche CNRS, ENS; Michel GROSSETTI, directeur de recherche CNRS, UMR 5193, LISST, UT2J; Michèle-Caroline HECK, professeur d’histoire de l’art moderne, EA 4424, CRISES, Montpellier 3; Nathalie HEINICH, directeur de recherche CNRS, UMR 8566, CRAL; Pascal JULIEN, professeur d’histoire de l’art moderne, UMR 5136, FRAMESPA, UT2J; Thomas KIRCHNER, directeur du Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art, Paris; Gaëtane MAËS, maître de conférence HDR en histoire de l’art moderne, UMR 8529, IRHIS, Université de Lille; Véronique MEYER, professeur d’histoire de l’art moderne, Université de Poitiers; Christian MICHEL, professeur d’histoire de l’art moderne, UNIL, Lausanne; Lesley MILLER, Senior Curator of Textiles and Fashion, Victoria & Albert Museum, Professor of Dress and Textile History, University of Glasgow; Olivier RAVEUX, chargé de recherche CNRS, UMR 7303, TELEMME, Aix-Marseille 1; Martine REGOURD, professeur en sciences de l’information et de la communication, EA 785, IDETCOM, UT1 Capitole; Daniel ROCHE, professeur, Collège de France.