Enfilade

From the Call for Papers:

Croisements, Métissages, Trajectoires: Vivre la Révolution des Colonies, 1774–1804
Musée de la Révolution Française, Vizille, 27–29 September 2023

Proposals due by 30 September 2022

L’histoire récente des espaces coloniaux et de leur intégration à la dynamique révolutionnaire a reçu une attention méritée et soutenue ces dernières années. Il n’est désormais plus possible d’écrire l’histoire des Révolutions de la fin du XVIIIe siècle sans intégrer l’héritage colonial de l’Ancien régime et sans comprendre les événements propres à ces espaces qui influencent plus que les métropoles, les grands équilibres géopolitiques de la planète encore prise dans le duel franco- britannique pour l’hégémonie mondiale dans un jeu d’alliances des plus complexes.

Ces travaux roboratifs et nécessaires, refondant une histoire de la mondialité, ont induit des formes d’appréhension du réel, où les êtres se trouvaient pris dans des logiques de groupes qui les dépassaient ou les entrainaient. Bien souvent leurs positions pouvaient être définies par leur appartenance à un groupe social précis, à une fonction professionnelle acquise ou bien aussi par la couleur de leur peau, autant d’éléments déterminants du statut des individus au sein de conflits mêlant émancipation, lutte de classes, conquête politique.

Le colloque proposé tente une autre approche. Celle des individus, celles des personnes dans leur intégrité propre, dans leurs témoignages d’actrices et d’acteurs d’une période qui voient des bouleversements majeurs transformer leur vie. Il s’agit de retrouver les personnes dans leur complexité et dans leur individualité et tenter d’approcher au plus près leur expérience vécue des révolutions successives qui les surplombent mais dans lesquelles elles se trouvent pleinement intégrées. Comment les personnes accueillent, perçoivent, vivent les formes de catégorisation qui leur sont imposées ou qu’elles reçoivent, ou qu’elles conquièrent ? Que sont les statuts sociaux, les couleurs, les fonctions, les genres, les âges de la vie, les transferts. Comment marquent-ils les existences ?

Partir de la subjectivité des acteurs et des actrices, lorsque les sources le permettent ne revient nullement à refuser l’ensemble du travail effectué pour comprendre les catégories dans lesquelles ils et elles évoluent, mais permet de reposer les questions différemment, d’une histoire au ras du sol, au plus près des personnes.

Ce sont donc les notions de destins historiques, de parcours individuels, de trajectoires personnelles, dans ce monde largement métissé que l’on souhaite interroger, pour rendre toute leur importance au vécu historique et à sa complexité, que l’on peut nuancer au-delà des oppositions binaires et comprendre dans son inextricable difficulté de société violente aspirant à de nouvelles formes de gouvernance pour chacun.

Le cadre chronologique tend à déplacer quelque peu les approches jusque-là classiques, séparant un avant et un après 1789, en intégrant pleinement la France de l’Ancien Régime, à l’avènement de Louis XVI en 1774, qui précède de peu la guerre d’indépendance américaine devenant une Révolution du Nouveau monde, un événement tout simplement inimaginable, impensable au moment où monte sur le trône le petit fils de Louis XV. Le questionnement se poursuit sur une période de trente ans jusqu’en 1804, date de l’indépendance d’Haïti. Ce sont ainsi trois Révolutions qui sont interrogées, si différentes, avec leur chronologie et leur spécificité et en même temps reliées entre elle par le littoral du vaste espace atlantique. Elle ne sont nullement identique pourtant elles dialoguent, s’observent, par les formes politiques qu’elles peuvent prendre, leur volonté de se conclure par une constitution, leur destin adverse de devoir affronter des guerres extérieures et civiles, et l’influence qu’elles ont eu les unes sur les autres en un jeu de miroir complexe.

En ce temps, la France d’Ancien Régime étend ses possessions au-delà des mers aux Antilles (Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe, Martinique), en Guyane, aux Mascareignes (Réunion, Île Maurice). Les Révolutions qui secouent les rivages de l’Océan atlantique, provoquent un impact important en déclenchant des phénomènes politiques qui aboutissent à la fondation d’une république esclavagiste aux Etats-Unis mais aussi à la première abolition de l’esclavage le 4 février 1794, lors de la Première République française.

La particularité des sociétés coloniales est d’être formée de blancs ou réputés tels, de libres de couleur et des esclaves. Ces sociétés sont soumises à la servitude, au préjugé de couleur et à une dépendance étroite à l’égard de la métropole qui se manifeste par le système de l’Exclusif. Le vent de la liberté va bouleverser ce monde. Qu’en est-il de chacun et de chacune en particulier? Est-ce une ambition démesurée que d’essayer de retrouver ces vies pour les raconter dans leur transformation ? N’est-il pas temps, au contraire, d’aborder ces existences pour elles-mêmes et de les appréhender dans leur force, leur fragilité, leur humanité pleine et intègre ?

I — Sources et méthodologie

Dans un premier temps il s’agit de s’interroger sur les façons d’approcher ces destins si différents. Des communications pourront être proposées sur les sources utilisées pour écrire l’histoire des personnes dans les colonies en Révolution. Correspondance administrative, actes notariés, journaux personnels, correspondances privées, ouvrages imprimés sont les sources habituellement utilisées. Est-il possible d’en dresser une typologie ? De les repérer dans les fonds publics ou privés? Avec quelles précautions méthodologiques peut-on les employer ? D’en inventer d’autres ? À partir du repérage de ces sources et de leur dépouillement pour retrouver les destins individuels comment faire pour repenser la nature des phénomènes révolutionnaires dans les colonies ? Peut-on parler de révolutions coloniales, de révolutions dans les colonies, de colonies à l’ère des révolutions ? Comment l’étude des personnes et de leurs traces peut-elle aider à mieux concevoir une histoire globale ?

II — Trajectoires

Il s’agira de voir comment la Révolution a été reçue par des femmes et des hommes dans les colonies, mais aussi par les originaires des colonies qui vivaient sur le sol français. Certaines figures comme Julien Raimond et Vincent Ogé sont connues, mais le groupe des libres de couleur est particulièrement actif à Paris de 1789 à 1794 et nécessite encore de nouvelles études. Comment ces femmes et ces hommes mobilisent-ils le langage de la Révolution et notamment le langage des droits ?

Les communications pourront porter sur des trajectoires d’individus ou de groupes en Révolution ou en Contre-révolution. La question des récits de vie, sous la forme de biographie ou de portrait à des moments particuliers d’une existence ou de fragments de vie proposés permettraient de donner corps à l’enquête en croisant des trajectoires croisées, affrontées, adversaires mais aussi alliées, amies également. Un puzzle d’existences juxtaposées peut rendre compte d’une réalité complexe connectée, inter-sectionnelle. Il s’agirait clairement de remettre en valeur la notion de récit de vie dans une logique interprétative large des interactions entre colonies, dans les colonies et dans les métropoles.

III — Représentations

Du législateur célèbre à la plus inconnue des esclaves, l’ambition serait de dresser un ensemble de portraits qui donnerait à voir la chair et le sang de ces histoires incarnées par tant de personnes différentes. Quelle représentation la France a-t-elle de ses colonies ? Des tableaux célèbres comme le portrait de Belley (Girodet), député de Saint-Domingue à la Convention ou de Madeleine (Benoist) représentent des personnes issues des colonies. La Révolution engendre-t-elle une nouvelle représentation des individus ? Cette section peut se diviser en deux sous-parties. Le colloque entend s’ouvrir à des spécialistes de littérature et d’histoire de la littérature ainsi qu’à des historiens de l’art.

A. Littérature
Théâtre, romans… comment la fiction s’empare-t-elle des destinées entre les océans, sur les océans et quelle image façonne-t-elle des personnes dans des métropoles qui perçoivent largement ces espaces soit comme sauvages, soit comme exotiques, soit comme des espaces lucratifs, soit comme des espaces dangereux, autant d’images qu’un Victor Hugo écrivant Bug-Jargal peut véhiculer ou que madame de Duras peut décrire avec tant de finesse dans Ourika.

B. Histoire de l’art
Comment la peinture, le dessin, la sculpture se sont-ils emparés de la représentation des corps et des espaces antillais et tout particulièrement de ceux des métisses ou des noirs, par-delà le portait de Belley devenu plus que célèbre deux cents ans plus tard ! Quelles sont les possibilités de représenter les visages, l’histoire sur les corps ? Ou tout simplement les portraits des protagonistes connus ou moins connus qui ont retenu l’attention des artistes. En somme, ce colloque se propose de replacer l’individu au cours de cette histoire des révolutions des métropoles et des colonies entre 1774 et 1804 et tenter une nouvelle perception et écriture de cette histoire encore en chantier.

Comité d’organisation
Hélène Puig, Alain Chevalier, Frédéric Régent et Pierre Serna
helene.puig@isere.fr, Frederic.Regent@univ-paris1.fr, Pierreserna@wanadoo.fr

Comité Scientifique
Esther Bell, Hélène Cussac, Gusti Gaillard-Pourchet, Bernard Gainot, David Geggus, Olivier Meslay, Marie-Jeanne Rossignol, Jean-Pierre Sainton, Bertrand Van Ruymbeke .

From the Call for Papers:

Revolutionary Speeches, Speeches about Revolutions: A Comparative Study of Revolutionary Eloquence in France and in the United States
Paris Nanterre University, 16–17 March 2023

Organized by Hélène Parent and Augustin Habran

Proposals due by 31 October 2022

“The eulogy for this American hero should be delivered by the most eloquent mouths,” Fontanes affirmed in the funeral oration he gave for George Washington in the temple of Mars on February 9, 1800. The revolutionary American hero and first president of the United States, who died in December 1799, was frequently used as a reference by the orators of the French Revolution from all political camps as a tool for various rhetorical strategies. Indeed, as they looked for founding myths and heroes that would suit the new nation, that was not founded from scratch, French revolutionaries kept convoking models from other times and spaces. The example of Washington perfectly illustrates this outstanding circulation of references. He was first celebrated in the United States as a modern Cincinnatus; and this myth was then reclaimed by French orators who had themselves been educated to classical culture.

It is this dynamic circulation of references and rhetorical and political models between these two spaces (the United States and France) at the time of their respective revolutions that this symposium aims at studying. We will focus more particularly on the representations and the founding myths that allowed for the emergence and definition of concepts including the nation, the political figure (as an ideal orator) and the people in political speeches. Furthermore, the way these two revolutionary events also became myths, symbols or models shall be analyzed through the study of their representations in literature and art more generally (painting, theater, cinema, etc.) from the time they occurred until today. As far as the American Revolution is concerned, we shall focus on the period spanning from the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the ‘Revolution of 1800’, Thomas Jefferson’s election, that provided the ongoing debate over the very nature of federalism in the early republic with a temporary solution. Regarding the French Revolution, we shall consider the period spanning from the General Estates of 1789 to the suppression of the Tribunat, last deliberative assembly of the Empire, in 1807.

The study of these partly concurrent periods of democratic establishment will be carried out through the prism of the notion of eloquence, being defined here both as whatever has to do with the political speech per se (deliberative eloquence, parliamentary notably) and as the spaces where the latter circulates by means of imitation, repercussion or parody of the rhetorical forms and codes of the oratory genre: newspapers, essays, pamphlets, founding documents, etc.

The committee invites proposals that may address—but not limited to—the following questions:

1. The imaginary figures, symbols and models convoked in political speeches, laws, essays or newspapers of the French and American revolutions may be studied. Particular attention shall be paid to proposals allowing for a comparative perspective that will highlight the circulation of references between the two spaces (how the French Revolution reappropriates specific symbols of the American Revolution for instance) or potential similarities in the apprehension of symbols or models in both spaces. Besides the content, the question of style may also be addressed: What language(s), what style(s), what stylistic device(s) are used to express these imaginaries? What vision(s) of the ideal orator (and of the “political figure”) emerge(s) with the birth of these modern democracies? What is a representative of the people? How is this figure theorized and represented (and therefore, how is the “people” theorized and represented)? All these questions shall be addressed in the light of a striking paradox: How can one affirm inventing something new (a nation, a political regime) while using models and symbols from the past? How were those models adapted and transformed?

2. The question of the multiplicity of eloquence should also be tackled: in contrast with the parliamentary eloquence developed in dominant political spheres, where, how and through which figures does popular and minority eloquence emerge? (the eloquence of the people versus that of the elites; the eloquence of women, of African Americans, of Native Americans, etc.)

3. Ex post representations of public speaking in its plurality and of its diverse practitioners may also be studied: how are the great figures of both revolutionary periods (the Founding Fathers in the United States, the orators of the French Revolution, the figures of popular/minority eloquence, etc.) themselves turned into models or deterrents through their later (positive or negative) representations in literature and art until today? How do revolutions become new myths through the narratives developed around them? Here again, the comparative perspective will be favored.

Proposals in French or English (about 300 words) with a short bio should be sent before 31 October 2022 to Hélène Parent (hparent1404@gmail.com) and Augustin Habran (augustin.habran@gmail.com). Communications may be delivered in both French and English during the symposium.

Organizing Committee
Hélène Parent (Ph.D. in French Literature, CSLF, Paris Nanterre University) and Augustin Habran (Associate Professor of American History, REMELICE, University of Orléans)

Discours des révolutions, discours sur les révolutions: Une étude comparée de l’éloquence révolutionnaire aux États-Unis et en France

Held at Paris Nanterre University, on Thursday, 16 and Friday 17, March 2023, this symposium is part of the Dire / montrer l’éloquence, 1750–1850 project (University Paris Lumière – Paris Nanterre / Paris 8, 2021–2023).

[1] Louis de Fontanes, Éloge funèbre de Washington, prononcé dans le temple de Mars le 20 pluviôse an 8 [9 février 1800], Paris, Henri Agasse et Dupont, an VIII, p. 13.

[2] Voir par exemple Denis Lacorne, « Mémoire et amnésie : les fondateurs de la république américaine, Montesquieu et le modèle politique romain », in Revue française de science politique, N° 42-3, p. 363-374, ou encore Garry Wills, Cincinnatus : George Washington and the Enlightenment, New York, Doubleday, 1984.

[3] Voir Hélène Parent, Modernes Cicéron. La romanité des orateurs d’assemblée de la Révolution française et de l’Empire (1789-1807), thèse de doctorat soutenue à l’Université Paris Nanterre le 12 octobre 2020, 704 p.

[4] Par exemple, la Déclaration d’Indépendance, les constitutions, le Code civil, les journaux révolutionnaires, les Federalist Papers, etc.

Giovanni Paolo Panini, Préparation du feu d’artifice et de la décoration de la fête donnée sur la place Navone à l’occasion de la naissance du Dauphin, 30 Novembre 1729, 1729 oil on canvas, 42 × 98 inches (Paris: Musée du Louvre , 415)

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From ISECS:

International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ISECS / SIEDS)
16th International Congress for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Rome, 3–7 July 2023

Proposals due 15 September 2022 and 31 January 2023

The Congress of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ISECS / SIEDS) is the world’s largest meeting of specialists on all aspects of the eighteenth century, and takes place every four years. Recent ISECS congresses have been held in Montpellier (2007), Graz (2011), Rotterdam (2015), and Edinburgh (2019). The 16th ISECS Congress will be held in Rome, Italy, from Monday, 3 July to Friday, 7 July 2023. It is organized by the Italian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (Società Italiana di Studi sul Secolo Diciottesimo – SISSD) and hosted by Sapienza Università di Roma and Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata.

While proposals for papers, panels, and roundtables on any topic relevant to the long eighteenth century (1670–1830) are warmly welcomed, we particularly invite contributions that address the Congress theme: Antiquity and the Shaping of the Future in the Age of Enlightenment.

In the 18th century, a new interpretation of the past radically innovated the dominating view of and approach to tradition. The legacy of antiquity was always there as shared memory, but the critical and analytical attitude that characterised 18th-century culture also transformed its relationship with antiquity, which was renegotiated and modernised. Indeed, the 1700s witnessed a reconstruction of the foundations of knowledge, considering not only the different forms of knowledge itself, but also the individual and his/her existence in the present. This change created a major break with the past and laid the groundwork for the new patterns of thought and expression that have developed in the subsequent ages and continue to do so, up to the present day. They build for the future, but in creative dialogue with a vanished Antiquity. The challenge that the Congress is to face lies precisely in the capturing of the deep sense and meaning of this transformation, which involves all branches of knowledge and can be approached from different perspectives and with different methodologies.

The programme will include theme-related keynote lectures, panels, round tables, and paper presentations. The congress languages are English, French, and Italian. As a first step in the scientific organization of the Congress, the online Call for Panels and Round Tables is now open from 30 April 2022 until 15 September 2022.

Please submit a proposal through https://www.isecs-roma2023.net. Panel organizers are asked to supply (1) a title, (2) a brief description of the theme of the proposed panel, and (3) a list of the panelists along with a title and abstract of their contributions. Panels have a duration of one and a half hours, and should consist of 3 to 4 speakers (depending on the amount of discussion time the panel organizer wants to provide). It is also possible to submit a panel proposal without panelists or only partly filled with panelists. A list of the accepted panels will published on the congress website before October 15.

When the online Call for individual Papers is open (from 15 October 2022 until 31 January 2023), it will be possible to submit proposals either for an already accepted open panel (i.e. a panel with fewer than 4 panelists) or for new panels to be set up by the congress organizers on the basis of the paper proposals received and selected.

Roundtable organizers are asked to supply (1) a title, (2) a brief description of the theme of the proposed round table, and (3) a list of the contributors to the round table. Please note that Panel organizers will be allowed to submit a proposal for a paper to be read in another panel if they do not contribute a paper to the panel they are chair of. Roundtable organizers and contributors will be allowed to submit a proposal for a paper anyway.

From ArtHist.net, which includes the German version:

Variety, Variation, Multiplication: Imaging Techniques in Premodern Art and Their Products
Die Vielfalt des Vervielfältigten: Bildgebende Verfahren in der Kunst der Neuzeit und ihre Produkte
Institut für Kunstwissenschaft und Historische Urbanistik, Technische Universität Berlin, 13–15 April 2023

Organized by Magdalena Bushart, Livia Cárdenas, and Andreas Huth

Proposals due by 1 August 2022

Interdependencies VII – Seventh international conference of the research project Interdependencies: Arts and Artistic Techniques at the Department for Art History, Institut für Kunstwissenschaft und Historische Urbanistik, Technische Universität Berlin

Printed images and moulded artworks have one thing in common: they refer to an ‘original form’ to which they stand in a complex relationship. Produced in a mechanical process with the help of a (negative) form—a casting mould, a printing block, or a printing plate—they assert a reference of similarity both to their model and each other. Nevertheless, they are not reproductions that are largely identical to their ‘prototype’. After all, the transfer of the original is done in a different technique and usually also in a different material than that of the ‘prototype’. Thus, each is produced in its medium which influences the form with its technical requirements. From a technical, material, and formal point of view, they rather represent variants than precise reproductions of the initial work. And even the reproduced works do not look the same. Although they are based on a common casting or impression mould, they are subject to the conditions and contingencies of the production process, as well. In addition, these products were often further processed, i.e. ‘varied’. This is particularly the case in the 15th and 16th centuries, the period in which the techniques of printmaking and moulding were redefined through the innovative use of materials, the opening up of new markets, and the development of a specific aesthetic: Three-dimensional objects—such as sculptures made of terracotta or plaster—were reshaped in parts and individually polychromed, while two-dimensional works—mainly woodcuts and copper engravings—were coloured, trimmed, or silhouetted. This raises the question of the relationship of the artefacts to each other or their individuality: Were the works understood as individual pieces, as part of a series, as repetitions? Or did the attraction lay precisely in the knowledge of the singularity of the pieces despite their obvious similarities?

Variety, Variation, and Multiplication in the Art of the 14th to 18th Centuries shall be the subject of the seventh conference in the series Interdependencies: The arts and their techniques. Instead of focusing on the standardising effect of reproduced artworks and printed images (e.g. through the establishment of certain types of images and the standardisation of knowledge), we want to question the variants and their variances arising through printing and moulding processes or further processing. On the one hand, we are interested in the differences between the originals and the repetitions. On the other hand, we want to explore the margin opened up by the respective production process as well as by the possibilities of further handling: How do the products relate to their ‘prototype’ and each other? Do the variances result from intentional interventions or, the production process? What is the function of the medium of transfer? What is the effect of the change in materiality? What forms of further processing can be observed? How can common and singular characteristics of the reproduced works be described? What connects two- and three-dimensional reproductions and how do they differ? And last, but not least: How has the tension between similarity and deviation been received? Did it play a role in the perception of contemporaries or was it ignored?

All those interested in the conference are invited to submit an abstract of no more than 5,000 characters together with a short CV. Please send your proposal by 1 August 2022 to Prof. Dr. Magdalena Bushart (magdalena.bushart@tu-berlin.de) and Dr. Andreas Huth (andreas.huth@tu-berlin.de).

From UAAC/AAUC:

Universities Art Association of Canada / l’association d’art des universités du Canada
In person, University of Toronto, 27–29 October 2022, and online, 4 November 2022

Proposals due by 30 June 2022

Each fall, UAAC-AAUC hosts Canada’s professional conference for visual arts-based research by art historians, professors, artists, curators, and cultural workers. This year’s conference includes three days of in-person meetings at the University of Toronto and one day of online panels.

Submit proposals by using the Call for Papers Proposal Form. Proposals are sent directly to the chair(s) of the session. The deadline for submission is 30 June 2022.

A very limited selection of sessions potentially related to the eighteenth century, including the HECAA panel, is provided below. The full listing is available here.

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26  Made Up: An Art History of Cosmetics (in person)
Hana Nikcevic (University of Toronto) and Tara Allen-Flanagan (Independent scholar), hana.nikcevic@utoronto.ca and tara.allen-flanagan@mail.mcgill.ca

Art has been acknowledged for centuries as the business of deception and artifice—spanning trompe l’oeil to parafiction—but it shares this storied past with a less-celebrated, heavily-gendered counterpart: cosmetics. Fascination with feminine art/artifice underpins the corpus of toilette paintings, but in these portrayals as in later iterations—from Boucher’s Pompadour to Vogue Beauty Secrets—the face-painter’s agency has been, through analogy with the artist, variably recouped and contested. Cosmetics likewise represent the spoils and vectors of globalization and imperialism; if Queen Elizabeth I’s chalky visage, asserted through portraiture, already reflected and advanced England’s imperial efforts, Angela Rosenthal confirmed the eighteenth-century coalescence of racial theory and complexion. This session interrogates cosmetics’ aesthetics, asking after global and historical conflations of and disparities between art and make-up; cosmetics’ conflicting capacities to subjugate and subvert; the entwined histories of beauty, complexion, racialization, imperialism, and oppression; and, most broadly, the understudied visual and material cultures of cosmetics.

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27  Monuments and Their Futures in North America (in person)
Cody Barteet (Western University), cbarteet@uwo.ca

Recently, monuments have received significant attention. Whether connected to their removal, conservation, and construction, individuals and organizations have used monuments to promote varying ideological concepts. In Canada, most of this conversation has been limited to the removal and vandalism of monuments associated with the long colonial legacy and its impact on Indigenous peoples. However, this conversation changed radically in late January 2022 when the so-called Freedom Convoy descended upon Ottawa to protest existing COVID-19 policies. During the occupation, several of Ottawa’s monuments were vandalized including those to Terry Fox and to fallen Canadian soldiers. Unlike previous vandalisms in Canada, the backlash against their defacement was immediate and universal. Informed by this shifting context concerning monuments, this panels queries the future and purposes of monuments through diverse methodologies: nationalism, racism, environmentalism, etc. In so doing this panel analyzes the current “monument discourse” and queries the needs and purposes of monuments.

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28  ‘My Strength, My Comfort, My Intense Delight’: Women, Art, and Lifewriting in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (in person)
Charles Reeve (OCAD University), creeve@ocadu.ca

Like her contemporary Eugène Delacroix, British watercolourist Elizabeth Murray left the ‘West’ in the early 1800s for the ‘Orient’, recording her adventures in extensive writings and images. However, while Delacroix’s journals and notebooks became widely celebrated, Murray’s account slid into obscurity—even though Delacroix’s journey lasted only six months and generated two articles, while Murray’s time in the region prompted her two-volume autobiography Sixteen Years of an Artist’s Life in Morocco, Spain, and the Canary Islands. Moreover, accounts by other women from that century—Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Elizabeth Butler—similarly languished, creating the sense that this era’s female artists neither left home nor published autobiographies. This panel aims to explode this misapprehension by convening discussions of lifewriting by women artists of the 1800s and earlier. We welcome proposals regarding all lifewriting forms (e.g. diaries, letters), with particular interest in accounts originating outside normative ‘Western’ narratives, and/or regarding now-obscure autobiographies.

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54  HECAA Open Session (online)
Christina Smylitopoulos (University of Guelph), csmylito@uoguelph.ca

HECAA works to stimulate, foster, and disseminate knowledge of all aspects of eighteenth-century visual culture. This open session welcomes papers that examine any aspect of art and visual culture from the 1680s to the 1830s. Special consideration will be given to proposals that demonstrate innovation in theoretical and/or methodological approaches.

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63  Women and the Arts in the Early Modern Period (online)
Andrea Morgan (Independent scholar), 14acm5@queensu.ca

Women have long faced challenges in pursuit of their engagement with the visual arts. While upper-class and aristocratic early modern women were often encouraged to dabble in or have some familiarity with the arts to make them amiable and polite companions, they were rarely afforded the same opportunities as their male counterparts. Yet, women such as Artemisia Gentileschi and Angelica Kauffmann excelled in their professional practice; still others persisted but remain relegated to the realm of the ‘amateur’. This panel seeks papers that highlight the life and work of both professional female artists as well as those lesser known, including women who worked in media other than painting. This session also encourages explorations of alternative ways women engaged with the art world in the early modern period, whether that be through art collecting or curating, broadly defined, and women in the commercial world who worked as art dealers or suppliers.

From ArtHist.net:

Engraving Dance, Music, Science, and Geography: Crafts, Trades, and the Dissemination of Knowledge in the 18th Century
INHA, Paris, 21–22 November 2022

Organized by Pauline Chevalier and Johanna Daniel

Proposals due by 1 July 2022

The expression danse gravée has long designated the dance notation practices of the 18th century, since the diffusion of the Feuillet notation from 1700. The repertoire of engraved contredanses, published and distributed in the form of collections, small notebooks or booklets, notably from the 1760s and the Répertoire des bals by de La Cuisse, is relatively well known. However, the technique itself, the networks of collaboration between engravers and dance masters remain little studied: engravers in music, in mathematics, in geography, masters in writing, are also engravers in dance, when it is not the dance masters themselves who practice intaglio. The place of women engravers, editors, and booksellers (Mme Castagnery) will be widely discussed during these days. The aim here is to understand the way in which choreographic practices in the 18th century fit into a network of printmaking know-how, professional and amateur practices, by questioning the modalities of dance engraving in a wider field of technical engraving, in geography, in science, or in music. The commissions made by dance masters to certain engravers also indicate a desire to move from a technical image to an artistic one, shaping works with sometimes very different costs and uses. Particular attention will be paid to the French and British contexts and to the circulation of plates and models from one side of the Channel to the other.

These days intend to bring together scholars from different disciplines who share the same field of research around printmaking, beyond the choreographic field. As there are very few works on printmaking in dance, these two days will also be considered as moments of collective reflection to which researchers not working specifically on choreographic practices are warmly invited.

We would indeed like to cross the experiences related to the following fields (for the 18th century):
• Dance and Music: musical scores, engraved dances, music, and movement notation
• Geography: engraving and editing of maps
• Science, mathematics: illustration of scientific books
• Writing, calligraphy: engraved books of writing patterns
• and more broadly everything related to the transmission of technical knowledge through images
• Techniques of printmaking and typography

The contributions may thus relate to one or more of the following areas (non-exhaustive):

– The techniques of engraving in geography. Several engravers in dance in the second half of the 18th century were first engravers in maps and plans. The engraving in geography responds to precise stages of production (engraving of figures, before the letter) which seem to have been taken up again for a part of the engraved dances of the 18th century. In addition to a terminology that sometimes designates the figures drawn by the ‘plans of the dance’, it will be a question of analyzing the specific relationship maintained between printmaking in geography and printmaking in dance.

– The networks of engravers in science and especially in mathematics. The development of manuals and works of physical or mathematical ‘recreation’ required the use of engravers whose expertise sometimes extended beyond technical engraving. We will try to understand the processes of specialization of certain engravers who also contributed to dance engraving, bringing with them a way of drawing and arranging the scores.

– Engravers. Dance collections from the second half of the 18th century frequently mention engravers (sometimes the engraver of the figures is not mentioned, only the engraver in writing is indicated). Contributions on the status and techniques of engraving in script are highly desirable.

– Music engraving in France and in England, and its technical evolution. The use of tin and punches for engraving in music seems to have inspired technical evolutions in dance engraving. It may be useful to revisit this English innovation of the 1730s in order to understand how the techniques (and costs) of choreographic printmaking benefited from the expertise of musical printmaking.

– Preparatory drawings. Very few preparatory drawings for engraved scores have been preserved, for many reasons. However, the collaboration between dance masters and engravers may have necessitated the transmission of drawings for the ‘traits’ of the dance when a distinction is regularly made between the author of the dance, the author of the notation and the engraver. Working from other examples, outside of the choreographic field, we would like to examine the intermediate sources and materials for the creation of technical prints.

– The networks of collaborations between actors. The sheets of engraved dances are the fruit of collaborations of a quite important number of actors (master of dance and musicians, amateur and professional dancers, engravers specialized in writing or in music printmaking), publishers, printers, and merchants-bookshops. Some publishing companies are the subject of a company creation. Contributions highlighting the networks of collaborations mobilized for the production of scientific works, musical collections or geographical maps are particularly welcome.

– The amateur practices of engraving and the training of engravers. The analysis of dance scores from the 1770s and, for example, the collections of contredanses published by Bouin attest to the technical progress of Mlle Bouin, the publisher’s daughter, whose first creations proved to be very clumsy. Some dance masters, like Landrin or Rameau, ensure themselves the execution of the engravings of their works, without being professional engravers. The analysis of the biographical paths and of the modalities of learning engraving also allows us to shed light on the exponential development of a publishing enterprise that required the rapid publication (sometimes weekly) of scores.

– The place of women printmakers. If we know relatively well the important feminization of engraving practices in music, the more general share of women in the printmaking world, in France and in England, is the subject of very recent works questioning both the training networks and the mechanisms of emancipation according to family contexts. The case of female printmakers shows quite different biographical paths: daughters, wives or widows of printmakers and/or publishers, they can also have an independent activity, emancipated from the family framework. Particular attention will be paid to this particular place of women in fine and technical printmaking.

– The status of the print and the relationship to the printer-bookkeepers. The full use of copperplate printing for the publication of an edition of Raoul-Auger Feuillet’s Chorégraphie, taken up by Malpied, for example, seems to bypass the corporation of printer-booksellers by proposing works that do not use the letterpress. The cost and technical difficulties of such undertakings (numerous pages of text directly engraved on copperplate), question the motivations of the authors, the bypassing of publishing practices and auctoriality.

– The phenomena of series in the publishing and engraved cartography. In the second half of the 18th century, dance engraving developed through the publication of single scores, gathered in collections and volumes, with tables sold independently, bound series and is a phenomenon that is not specific to the choreographic field. The cheap publication of series and collections of prints outside of choreographic scores will be analyzed through specific examples (booksellers, publishers…)

– The use of renowned engravers and the production of fine images. The publication of Kellom Tomlinson’s The Art of Dancing in 1735, or Guillaume’s Almanach dansant in 1769, reveals practices that go beyond technical printmaking by using renowned engravers and sometimes by assuming the production of images whose aesthetic quality exceeds their didactic virtues. This practice thus makes it possible to shed light on the editorial (and even financial) stakes of such publications.

Proposals for papers, not exceeding one page, followed by a brief bio-bibliographic presentation, should be sent before 1 July 2022 to the following email addresses: pauline.chevalier@inha.fr and johanna.daniel@inha.fr. For accepted proposals, travel, and accommodation expenses will be covered by INHA.

Organization
Pauline Chevalier (INHA) Johanna Daniel (INHA)

Scientific Committee
• Ilaria Andreoli (INHA)
• Mathias Auclair (BnF)
• Laurent Barré (CND)
• Pascale Cugy (University of Rennes 2)
• Marie Glon (University of Lille)
• Joël Huthwohl (BnF)
• Sandrine Nugue (ENSBA Lyon)
• Juliette Robain (INHA)
• Laurent Sebillotte (CND)

This conference is part of a wider research program on dance drawings and notations — Chorégraphies: Écriture et dessin, signe et image dans les processus de création et de transmission chorégraphiques, XVe–XXIe siècles

Indicative Bibliography

BOUCHON, Marie-Françoise, “La Contredanse comme jeu social au XVIIIe siècle”, Analyse musicale, n°69, 4e trimestre 2012, p. 80–86.

CLAYTON Tim, COOK Karen Severud, and KRETSCHMER Ingrid, “Reproduction of Maps,” in Matthew H. Edney and Mary Sponberg Pedley (eds.), Cartography in the European Enlightenment , 4, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, coll. “The history of cartography,” 2020, vol. 2/2, p. 1238–1265.

DEVRIES-LESURE, Annik, Dictionnaire des éditeurs de musique français, vol.1 : Des origines à environ 1820, Geneva, Minkoff, 1979.

DEVRIES-LESURE, Annik, L’édition musicale dans la presse Parisienne au XVIIIe siècle, catalog des annonces, Paris, CNRS Editions, 2005.

FAU, Elisabeth, La gravure de musique à Paris, des origines à la Révolution (1660–1789), Paris, Ecole des Chartes, 1978.

GLON, Marie, “Inventing a Scriptural Technique in the Eighteenth Century: ‘Choreography or the Art of Describing Dance’,” Artefact [Online], 4 | 2016, online 7 July 2017.

GLON, Marie, Les Lumières chorégraphiques. Les maîtres de danse européens au cœur d’un phénomène éditorial (1700–1760), history thesis, ed. Georges Vigarello, EHESS, 2014.

GLON, Marie. “The materiality of theory. Print practices and the construction of meaning through Kellom Tomlinson’s The Art of Dancing Explain’d (1735). Re-thinking practice and theory, Jun 2007, Pantin, France. pp. 190–195.

GRANGER, Sylvie, Dancing in Enlightenment France, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2019.

GUILCHER, Jean-Michel, La Contredanse et les renouvellements de la danse française, Paris / La Haye, Mouton, 1969, republished under the title La Contredanse, Un Tournant dans l’histoire française de la danse, text corrected and completed by Naïk Raviart, preface by Yves Guilcher, Brussels, Complexe / CND, 2003.

LANCELOT, Francine (dir.), La Belle Dance, Catalogue raisonné des chorégraphies françaises en notation Feuillet fait en l’an 1995, Paris, Van Dieren, 1996.

MILLIOT, Sylvette, “Marie-Anne Castagneri. marchand de musique au XVIIIe siècle (1722–1787)”, Revue de Musicologie, vol. 52, no 2, 1966, p. 185–195. Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/927569

NORDERA, Marina, “La réduction de la danse en art (XVe–XVIIIe siècle)”, in Hélène Vérin and Pascal Dubourg Glatigny (dir.), Réduire en art : La technologie de la Renaissance aux Lumières, Paris, Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, coll. ” Hors collection “, 2018, p. 269–291. Online: http://books.openedition.org/editionsmsh/10161

Pedley Mary Sponberg, “The map trade in Paris, 1650–1825,” Imago Mundi, vol. 33, no 1, January 1981, p. 33–45. Online: https://doi.org/10.1080/03085698108592513

Pedley Mary Sponberg, The commerce of cartography: making and marketing maps in eighteenth-century France and England, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, series “The Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr. lectures in the history of cartography,” 2005, vol. 1/.

SMITH, Marc, “Les modèles d’apprentissage de l’écriture en France depuis la Renaissance”, Apprendre, 2020, p. 167–179.

STEIN Perrin (ed.), Artists and amateurs: etching in eighteenth-century France, New York, MET, 2013. Online: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/The_Art_of_Etching_in_Eighteenth_Century_France