Enfilade

From the Call for Papers:

Frères d’art: Léopold et Aurèle Robert
Neuchâtel / La Chaux-de-Fonds, 9–10 November 2023

Proposals due by 31 May 2023 (extended from 14 May 2023)

Dans le cadre de l’exposition Léopold et Aurèle Robert présentée conjointement au Musée des beaux-arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds et au Musée d’art et d’histoire de Neuchâtel du 14 mai au 12 novembre 2023, l’Institut d’histoire de l’art et de muséologie de l’Université de Neuchâtel souhaite encourager la réflexion et l’échange d’idées à propos de ces deux figures artistiques à l’occasion d’un colloque international. Celui-ci se tiendra en présentiel le jeudi 9 novembre 2023 au Musée d’art et d’histoire de Neuchâtel, et le vendredi 10 novembre 2023 au Musée des beaux-arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds.

Graveur à ses débuts, encouragé à la peinture par son maître Jacques-Louis David, Leopold Robert développe, à partir des années 1820, une peinture de genre ennoblie à mi-chemin entre classicisme et romantisme. En y évoquant une vision idéalisée de l’Italie et de ses habitants, il séduit un important public européen nourri des écrits romantiques. Ses nombreuses commandes l’amènent rapidement à rationaliser sa production picturale selon des principes de déclinaison et de combinaison de motifs, et à solliciter l’aide de son cadet, Aurèle, dès 1822. Excellent dessinateur et peintre, Aurele Robert joue dès lors un rôle fondamental dans la promotion du travail de son frère. Du vivant de ce dernier comme après son décès tragique, Aurèle Robert assure, par la gravure, le dessin et la peinture, non seulement une large diffusion des œuvres de son aîné, mais en construit également la persona de créateur mélancolique et génial.

Afin d’enrichir les connaissances au sujet du travail de Léopold et Aurèle Robert, et d’encourager la recherche sur ces derniers, ce colloque international souhaite offrir un espace de débat en conviant aussi bien des jeunes chercheur.se.s que des chercheur.se.s avancé.e.s, et en invitant des spécialistes des questions évoquées. Les communications individuelles seront limitées à 30 minutes, celles en binôme à 40 minutes. Elles peuvent aborder les axes thématiques suivants mais sont également libres d’explorer d’autres pistes de réflexion :
• La fabrique picturale de Léopold et Aurèle Robert (pratiques d’atelier ; hiérarchie, statuts et rôles ; processus créateur, stratégies picturales, procédés compositionnels, rationalisation de la création)
• La peinture d’histoire et le regard ‘ethnographique’ de Léopold Robert (perception et normativité des corps ; idéalisation et genre ; fascination pour les costumes, objets, rites et musiques vernaculaires)
• L’intermédialité de l’œuvre et sa réception (diffusion multimédiale de l’œuvre peint; production d’œuvres falsifiées ou épigonales)
• Léopold et Aurèle Robert au prisme de leurs écrits (correspondance, carnets de voyage)
• Les réseaux et scènes artistiques et marchandes (amis, collègues, collectionneurs et mécènes, galeristes, etc.)
• Léopold et Aurèle Robert dans la presse et dans la littérature contemporaines
• La construction d’une figure artistique et le développement du culte de l’artiste (diffusion et promotion de l’œuvre ; mise en récit de la vie du peintre, etc.)
• Aspects mémoriels (tombeau vénitien de Léopold Robert et reliques de l’artiste, etc.)
• Aspects matériels des œuvres encore conservées, dans des perspectives de restauration ou d’attribution

Nous invitons toute personne désireuse de participer à ce colloque à soumettre une proposition de communication en français, allemand ou anglais. Les propositions doivent comprendre un titre, une esquisse de la communication (300 mots max.), et une brève biographie, et sont à envoyer sous forme de document PDF d’ici au 31 mai 2023 au courriel suivant: robert2023.iham@unine.ch. Les réponses seront communiquées début juin 2023.

Comité scientifique
Diane Antille (MAHN), Sarah Burkhalter (SIK-ISEA), Lisa Cornali (UNINE), Marie Gaitzsch (MBAC), Valérie Kobi (UNINE), David Lemaire (MBAC), Clara May (UNINE), Antonia Nessi (MAHN)

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Note (added 15 May 2023) — The due date has been extended from May 14 to May 31.

From ArtHist.net, which includes the German version:

Visualizing Antiquity: On the Episteme of Early Modern Drawings and Prints — Part I: The ‘Apelles-Problem’
Bildwerdung der Antike: Zur Episteme von Zeichnungen und Druckgrafiken der Frühen Neuzeit — I: Das ‚Apelles-Problem‘
Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 28–29 September 2023

Organized by Ulrich Pfisterer, Cristina Ruggero, and Timo Strauch

Proposals due by 30 April 2023

The academy project Antiquitatum Thesaurus: Antiquities in European Visual Sources from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, hosted at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (thesaurus.bbaw.de), and the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte Munich (zikg.eu) are organizing a series of colloquia in 2023–2024 on the topic Visualizing Antiquity: On the Episteme of Drawings and Prints in the Early Modern Period. These colloquia will examine the significance of drawings and prints for ideas, research, and the circulation of knowledge about ancient artifacts, architecture, and images in Europe and neighboring areas from the late Middle Ages to the advent of photography in the mid-19th century.

Detail of a hand-colored woodcut print from Giovanni Battista Casali, De profanis et sacris veteribus ritibus (Rome 1644), p. 67 (UB Heidelberg). More information is available here»

The first colloquium inquires into a form of the ‘Apelles problem’. According to Pliny, the Greek painter knew how to depict “what lies outside the realm of painting.” For the representation of ancient artifacts, therefore, the question is asked how in drawings and prints can ‘unrepresentable’ qualities of the depicted object—such as color, material properties, proportions, three-dimensionality, and the like—nevertheless be conveyed? In terms of colorfulness, for example, colored hand drawings have an advantage over prints, but they do not have the same range. Is an attached scale key sufficient to clarify dimensions? And what possibilities do new techniques of representation open up? Or can accompanying texts, commentaries, annotations, source citations, etc. do justice to the difficulties of depicting the above-mentioned characteristics, or help to classify and interpret the artifact depicted? These are some of the central questions posed; suggestions beyond these are welcome.

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers in English, French, German, or Italian. Presentations will ideally combine case study and larger perspective. Publication in extended form is planned. Proposals (max. 400 words) can be submitted until 30 April 2023, together with a short CV (max. 150 words) to thesaurus@bbaw.de. Travel and hotel expenses (economy-class flight or train; 2 nights’ accommodation) will be reimbursed according to the Federal Law on Travel Expenses (BRKG).

Subsequent colloquia in the series will address other aspects of the creation of images of antiquity:
• Find and Display, Fragment and Whole
• Fake News? Fantasy Antiquities
• Collectors, Artists, Scholars: Knowledge and Intention in Collection Catalogs

Conceived by Antiquitatum Thesaurus (Ulrich Pfisterer, Cristina Ruggero, Timo Strauch)

From the Call for Papers:

Journal18, Issue #17 (Spring 2024) — Color
Issue edited by Ewa Lajer-Burcharth and Thea Goldring

Proposals due by 1 April 2023; finished articles will be due by 1 September 2023

The question of color has been at the center of artistic debates at least since the seventeenth century, and it has remained a key issue in the historiography of art. What may be at stake in reconsidering color in its historical dimensions now? Recent research on the issue has gone in two directions. On the one hand, color has been studied as a material substance and a technology. Scholars have documented the relation between technological, industrial, and commercial developments and the quality, range, and availability of pigments and colorants available to artists, manufacturers, and consumers. Another approach has focused on the key role of color in the construction of social, racial, and gender hierarchies. Recent scholarship has revealed the intimate connection between aesthetic debates on chroma and the development of the modern discourse of race. Moreover, the eighteenth century’s feminization of color entangled with the notions of make-up and artifice has been reexamined. Clearly, it is no longer viable to think of color in purely aesthetic, ideologically innocent terms.

This issue of Journal18 aims to consider how the current interest in materiality and the matter of art could be harnessed to alter–enrich, complicate, or challenge–our understanding of the historical functions and social and cultural meanings of color in the long eighteenth century. In what ways may the materialist discussion of color as a substance inflect the account of its ideological and discursive functions? What were the new meanings and effects of color as the physical product and sign of growing global trade networks, colonial and slave economies, and expanding empires? How did colored materials­­—pigments, dyes, feathers, shells, mineral—serve as tools of hybridity and a means to delineate cultural difference? Can color’s inherent capacity for infinite nuance offer modern art historians alternative lenses onto to the past? We welcome papers that are attuned to color’s mobility, look beyond Western Europe, and decentralize Euro-centric narratives. We are especially interested in papers that consider the broader methodological questions raised by their subject and seek to develop tools to address the urgent issues posed by color.

Issue Editors
Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Harvard University
Thea Goldring, Harvard University

To submit a proposal, send an abstract (250 words) and brief biography by 1 April 2023 to the following three addresses: editor@journal18.org, burchart@fas.harvard.edu, and tgoldring@g.harvard.edu. Articles should not exceed 6000 words (including footnotes) and will be due by 1 September 2023. For further details on submission and Journal18 house style, see Information for Authors.

From the Paul Mellon Centre:

The Intellectual Histories of Art and the Archive
Paul Mellon Centre, London, 10 May 2023

Proposals due by 15 March 2023

Organized by Chloe Julius and Ambra D’Antone

For those interested in art’s intellectual histories, the archive offers a multitude of possibilities—especially those archives that hold the papers of art historians and critics. While the development of an idea can be traced through drafts, notes, and annotations, correspondence allows a wider intellectual context to be mapped. Yet these archives also pose certain problems, raising questions around authorship, authority, and authenticity. Given the selective and often partial nature of archive collections, what place should the discoveries they yield be afforded in a wider research project? Moreover, given the move from paper to a digital record, are the same kinds of research journeys still possible with email?

This event will bring together scholars working directly with the archives of art historians and critics to discuss the methodological questions and issues posed by archive-driven intellectual histories. While there is no geographical or historical restriction for the presentations, they should be rooted in a discussion of a particular archive. Presentations on early-stage research projects are encouraged.

This event has been organised in conjunction with the workshop Abiding Present: Challenges of Time in Art History, which will take place 11–12 May 2023 at The Warburg Institute. The workshop will explore anew art history’s complex dealings with time and the relationship between the present and the past in art history, initiating a dialogue that critically considers old and new methods in our field.

Please submit a one-hundred word abstract for a fifteen-minute presentation by 11.59pm (GMT) on Monday, 15 March 2023 listing “The Intellectual Histories of Art and the Archive” as the subject line to: events@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk. Incomplete or late submissions will not be considered.

This is a collaboration between the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the Warburg Institute, London. The co-convenors of this workshop are Chloe Julius, current holder of the PMC’s Archive & Library Fellowship, and Ambra D’Antone, Research Associate, Bilderfahrzeuge International Research Project, Max Weber Stiftung.

From ArtHist.net:

Making, Collecting, and Understanding Dutch and Flemish Drawings, 1500–1800
Amsterdam, 1–2 June 2023

Proposals due by 1 March 2023

This international symposium will celebrate Old Master drawings on the occasion of the exhibition The Art of Drawing: Master Drawings from the Age of Rembrandt in the Peck Collection at the Ackland Art Museum, on view at the Rembrandt House Museum (18 March – 11 June 2023).

Research in early modern Dutch and Flemish drawings touches on a wide variety of issues, including the study of materials and techniques; issues of attribution and oeuvre cataloging; and expanding our understanding of the provenance, collecting, and display of works on paper. This symposium aims to be wide ranging and inclusive of both art historians and conservation scientists. It offers scholars a chance to come together to present and discuss recent research in this specialized field, which now evolves to encompass new methodologies and concerns.

We invite scholars from all phases of their careers to submit proposals for papers. Subjects of interest include, but are not limited to: close studies of individual artists or drawings, connoisseurial concerns such as attributions of drawings to Rembrandt and his School, recent advances in technical research such as XRF imaging and watermark analysis, the study of early collections, and the sources and history of use of certain materials. We also welcome considerations that treat methodological concerns generally, or provide historiographic context for the field.

Lectures will be 20 minutes in length. To propose a topic, please send a short abstract (200 words) and a CV by 1 March 2023 to PeckDrawingsSymposium@rijksmuseum.nl. The organizers will respond by 15 March 2023.

Organizing Committee
• Dana Cowen, Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Robert Fucci, University of Amsterdam
• Ilona van Tuinen, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• David de Witt, The Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam

More information is available from the conference website:

HECAA at 30: Environments, Materials, and Futures in the Eighteenth Century
Boston, Cambridge, and Providence, 12–14 October 2023

Proposals due by 1 April 2023

The Historians of Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture are delighted to announce that the Call for Papers for HECAA@30: Environments, Materials, and Futures in the Eighteenth Century is now available. Please visit the conference website for a list of open sessions and details. Applications for participation are due to session chairs by 1 April 2023.

This in-person conference will take place in Boston, Cambridge, and Providence from 12–14 October 2023, with morning plenary sessions followed by gallery sessions, tours, and architectural site visits each afternoon.

On the land of the Massachusett and neighboring Wampanoag and Nipmuc peoples, Boston developed in the eighteenth century as a major colonized and colonizing site. Its status today as a cultural and intellectual hub is shaped by that context, making it a critical location to trace the cultural legacies of racism and social injustice between the eighteenth century and today. For whom is ‘eighteenth-century art and architecture’ a useful category? What eighteenth-century materials, spaces, and images offer tools or concepts for shaping our collective futures? In considering these questions, we aim to expand HECAA’s traditional focus on Western European art and architecture and specifically encourage proposals from scholars working on Asia, Africa and the African diaspora, Indigenous cultures, and the Islamic world.

We welcome proposals for contributions to panels, gallery sessions, roundtables, and workshops. Scholars at any career stage, and all geographic and material specializations, are encouraged to apply. We look forward to seeing you in Boston!

Image: Desk and Bookcase, mid 18th century. Puebla, Mexico (MFA Boston, Henry H. and Zoe Oliver Sherman Fund, 2015.3131).

From ArtHist.net:

De habitudine Ordinis ad artem: Arts, Religion, and Culture in the Capuchin Order between the 16th and 18th Centuries
University of Teramo, 12–14 April 2023

Proposals due by 19 February 2023

Officially founded in 1528 with the bull Religionis Zelus by Pope Clement VII, the Order of the Friars Minor Capuchin lived the twenty years preceding the Council of Trent imitating St Francis and his first companions through preaching and the teaching of young people. Despite the escape to Switzerland of the famous Vicar and preacher Bernardino Ochino in 1542, the Order survived, and the Council of Trent (1547–63) gave great impetus to the Order’s spread, thanks partly to the participation of the Vicar General Bernardino da Asti as consultant. In 1574 Pope Gregory XIII allowed the Capuchins to found convents outside the Italian peninsula. Friars went to France, Spain, and the German-speaking regions; and new settlements were founded in Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Bohemia, Bavaria, Westphalia, and Ireland. A century after their founding, the Capuchins had more than 40 provinces, 1200 friaries, and nearly 20,000 brothers. As missionaries, the Order was extremely active, evangelizing throughout the world; from Northern Europe to Brazil, from Congo to the Middle East, from North Africa to the West Indies, they were one of the main players, in close contact with sovereigns and the Holy See.

While many Capuchins had studied the visuals arts before entering the Order, especially in the years between 1618 and 1761, the Capuchin way of life was often antithetical to artistic practice. In fact, in the General Chapter of 1627, friars were forbidden to accept any painting or carving work requested by laymen. And yet, although the culture of the arts was not originally part of the Order’s activities and artistic practice was in many cases hindered, there were many who reached high levels in the cloister, especially in painting and wooden sculpture. During the 17th and 18th centuries, many Capuchins devoted themselves to painting, driven by different motivations: for pleasure and in response to commissions from nobles and benefactors. Sculpture was practised even more frequently, often for decorating the small churches that, according to the Constitutions, were not allowed to be sumptuous, but decorated only with poor and simple ornaments. The right combination of simplicity of material and preciousness of form was expressed in the works of the friar cabinet-makers (marangoni).

While numerous studies have addressed the relationship between the arts and the Capuchin Order, many questions remain under unexplored. This conference De habitudine Ordinis ad artem: Arts, Religion and Culture in the Capuchin Order between the 16th and 18th Centuries—organised by the University of Teramo with the patronage of the Seraphic Province of the Immaculate Conception of the Capuchin Friars Minor, the International Society of Franciscan Studies, and the Capuchin Historical Institute—will consider the difficult and elusive relationship between art, culture, religion, and the Capuchin Order on an international level, with particular attention paid to historical contexts and religious dimensions—a prerequisite for understanding Capuchin artists, the production of art objects, patronage, and Capuchin relations with the secular world globally. With the aim of fostering discussion and scientific debate, other topics relevant to the theme of the conference are also welcome. The most significant contributions will be considered for publication.

The conference will be divided into five sessions:
• the Capuchin Order in the context of the post-Tridentine Church
• artistic practice between norms, prohibitions, and customs
• cultural objects of the Capuchin world: use and circulation
• capuchin patronage
• images, knowledge, and preaching between devotion and catechesis

Each proposal must consist of two parts: the paper abstract (max 2000 characters including spaces) and a speaker profile (max 1500 characters including spaces) highlighting the curriculum vitae and professional position. The two parts must be combined in a single Word or PDF file. Interested parties must submit proposals by 19 February 2023, by uploading the documents here.

Scientific Committee
Massimo Carlo Giannini (University of Teramo) president
Raffaella Morselli (University of Teramo)
Alessandro Zuccari (Sapienza University of Rome)
Giorgio Fossaluzza (University of Verona)
Vincenzo Criscuolo (Capuchin Historical Institute)
Grado Giovanni Merlo (University of Milan)
Luigi Pellegrini (University of Chieti-Pescara)
Luca Siracusano (University of Teramo)
Cecilia Paolini (University of Teramo)

Organisation and scientific coordination
Pietro Costantini, pcostantini@unite.it