Conference | The Art of Mourning, 1750–1850
From ArtHist.net:
The Art of Mourning: Emotion and Restraint in the Visual Arts, 1750–1850
Die Kunst des Trauerns. Gezügelte Gefühle in den Bildkünsten, 1750–1850
Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg, 5–6 December 2024
In a much-discussed essay of 1986, Yve-Alain Bois identified “The Task of Mourning” as a characteristic feature of painting in the advanced twentieth century. However, this emotionally charged purpose had already been ubiquitous in many forms of artistic expression in the decades around 1800, before being eclipsed by the more materialistic art movements from the middle of the nineteenth century. Prior to that, images of mourning occur with overriding frequency, to such an extent that they lend themselves for questioning the very polarity of neo-classicism and romanticism.
From ca. 1750, mournful motifs and sentiments are conspicuously present in virtually all genres within the visual arts. Art historical research has addressed this phenomenon mainly by asking for the impact of secularization and dissolving iconographic norms (e.g., Werner Busch, Das sentimentalische Bild, 1993). In fact, mourning as existential subject matter is isolated, sometimes devoid of moralistic or theological linkage, for the first time during the so-called ‘saddle period’. In tombs designed by Antonio Canova, old and new motifs of figural grief are constantly played through; John Flaxman fills one sheet after the other with sorrowful processions; within the paper architecture of Étienne-Louis Boullée, mourning and the sublime are connected through the void of cenotaphs; the school of David chooses, in a rather obsessive manner, scenes informed with teariness; large numbers of mourning figures populate the works of the Düsseldorf School. In painting as in sculpture, let alone the graphic arts, grief and sorrow are everywhere; military commanders, politicians, artists, popes are bemoaned, just as family members, suicides and persons sentenced to death. Lost honor or lost homeland, even the flow of time, are occasions of mourning.
These new ways of depicting grief feature a clear distinction from Baroque pathetic formula. The contrary stance compared to everything before is experienced in the most immediate manner—but how to grasp it conceptually? For sure, images of mourning are hallmarked by emotional control; thus we can understand them as an inversion of heightened expression and pathos. Why, then, is there a desire for pictures of painful yet patiently endured loss just in the age of enlightenment and its aftermath, i. e. in a period that is characterized by faith in progress like none before it? For what reason these pictures were considered particularly appropriate for transformations of Christian imagery? Is there a deeper connection between the new visual dimension of mourning and changed gender-specific attributions? Can we establish a causality between the withdrawal of mourners into themselves on one side, and neo-classicist reductionism on the other? What are the effects of the expanded canon of antiquities, operated by contemporary archaeology, on the iconography of mourning? How to define the share of human science—of new anthropological concepts, early forms of psychology, or research into human emotions in terms of physical and medical scholarship—in the visualization of mourning? How to relate, in a methodically sound fashion, the boom of mourning in the visual arts with social and political upheaval?
This conference seeks to explore, on a large scale, these and other questions around the historical theme of mourning. The Art of Mourning is the first edition of the Würzburg Wellhöfer-Colloquium. Every two years, it will investigate research topics from the history of art between 1750 and 1850 from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Organisation
Michael Thimann (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen/Deutsche Gesellschaft für die Erforschung des 19. Jahrhunderts) und Damian Dombrowski (Julius-Maximilians-Universität/Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg)
Kontakt
Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg, mvw-museum@uni-wuerzburg.de
d o n n e r s t a g , 5 d e z e m b e r
Michael Thimann, Damian Dombrowski — Begrüßung und Einführung / Welcome and Introduction
Impulsvortrag | Keynote Lecture
• Werner Busch, FU Berlin — Die Kunst des Trauerns: Gezügelte Emotionen in den Bildkünsten, 1750–1850
Sektion 1 | Sentimentalisierte Trauer / Sentimentalised Mourning
• Cordula Grewe, Indiana University Bloomington — Seelenmalerei, oder: Wie bewahrt man seine Fassung?
• Franca Buss, Universität Hamburg — Um die Wette weinen. Johann August Nahls Grabmal für Maria Magdalena Langhans und die Sentimentalisierung des Todes
• Lisa Hecht, Philipps-Universität Marburg — Trauer oder Langeweile? Die Eleganz des ‚Nichtstuns‘ in Damenbildnissen des englischen 18. Jahrhunderts
Sektion 2 | Trauer-Orte / Places of Mourning
• Daniela Roberts, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg — Die Tugend überdauert den Schmerz: Horace Walpoles Grabmal für seine Mutter in der Westminster Abbey
• Eric Sergent, Laboratoire de recherche historique Rhône-Alpes —Mourning and Grief in French Funerary Sculpture
• Martina Sitt, Kunsthochschule Kassel — Trauer-Plätze des Klassizismus: Vielschichtige Aspekte der Gestaltung von Licht und Raum
Sektion 3 | Entgöttlichte Trauer? / Grief without Deity?
• Noémi Duperron, Université de Genève — ‘Touch(ing) with Sentiment’: Gavin Hamilton’s Grievers and Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments
• Maria Schabel, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg — Erneuerung religiöser Bildsprache? Fallstudien biblischer Trauerikonographie um 1800 am Beispiel zweier Werke Johann Martin von Wagners
• Lorenzo Giammattei & Antonio Soldi, Sapienza Università di Roma — Comparing Perspectives of Eternity in the Elaboration of the Mourning Theme in Painting: From Death for a Religiously Connoted Afterlife to Death as an Opportunity to Create an Ethical and Virtuous Model for the Present Time
f r e i t a g , 6 d e z e m b e r
Sektion 4 | Trauern an der Epochenschwelle / Mourning in the Age of Transition
• Damian Dombrowski, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg — ‘l’ultimo soffio di felicità in Europa’? Tiepolo’s Sense of Loss
• Isabelle Le Pape, DRAC Normandie, Rouen — From Caspar David Friedrich to Courbet’s Enterrement à Ornans: The Image of Mourning in French and German Romantic Painting
• Susanne Adina Meyer, Università di Macerata — Morire con grazia: Bilder des Trauerns im Spiegel des römischen Kunstdiskurses
Sektion 5 | Antike als Trauer-Modell / Antiquity as a Model of Mourning
• Carolin Goll, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg — Trauern in der griechischen Tragödie: Martin von Wagners Zeichnungen nach Euripides
• Johannes Myssok, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf — Canova and the Art of Mourning
• Jochen Griesbach, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg — Niobe ist überall? Zur Antikenrezeption mütterlicher Trauer in Bildern des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts
Sektion 6 | Politisches Trauern / Political Mourning
• Tobias Kämpf, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen — Mourning at Missolonghi: Political Artworks as Compensations for Loss
• Cigdem Özel, Universität Wien — Trauern für die Monarchie am Beispiel von Miniaturporträts Eduard Ströhlings
• Philip Schinkel, Universität Hamburg — Grenzen überschreiten: Männertränen im belgischen Nationalmythos bei Louis Gallait
Conference | Gothic (Revival) Spaces, 1750–1900
From John Britton, Graphical and Literary Illustration of Fonthill Abbey Wiltshire, with Heraldical and Genealogical Notices of the Beckford Family (1823).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From ArtHist.net:
Gothic (Revival) Spaces: Concepts and Reinterpretation of British and Continental Domestic Architecture, 1750–1900
Würzburg, 14–16 November 2024
Organized by Daniela Roberts and Christina Clausen
Critical engagements with so-called Gothic spaces in fiction is arguably one of many intellectual explorations in the field of Gothic literature. These literary representations of space may emphasise the semiotic structure of fictional spaces in terms of plot, atmosphere and mood but they also reflect on characteristics and behavioural patterns of the narrative’s protagonists.
Until recently, however, less sustained scholarly attention has been paid to the relationship between Gothic architecture and Gothic literature and the architectural style of the Middle Ages as prototype of the Gothic Revival space. In the discipline of art history, on the other hand, a critical focus on Neo-Gothic architecture that highlights design, styles and architectural precursors inhabits a much more prominent role. And yet one could argue that scholarly enquiries into the complexity of spatial structures and effects including the re-contextualised Gothic forms and features as well as the social and performative functions of spaces, especially Gothic Revival interiors and furniture, are yet to emerge. With the conference Gothic (Revival) Spaces, we critically engage with the imaginary spaces in literature and the actually built or designed architectural spaces, since there’s little doubt that the evolution of the fictional and the tangible, material Gothic space is closely intertwined.
Organisation
• Daniela Roberts (daniela.roberts@uni-wuerzburg.de), Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
• Christina Clausen (clausen@kunst.tu-darmstadt.de), Fachgebiet Architektur- und Kunstgeschichte, Universität Darmstadt
t h u r s d a y , 1 4 n o v e m b e r
13.00 Arrival
13.30 Welcome and Introduction — Daniela Roberts (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg) and Christina Clausen (Technische Universität Darmstadt)
14.00 Opening Lecture
• Dale Townshend (Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies / Manchester Metropolitan University) — Towards a Poetics of Gothic Space
14.45 Break
15.15 Section 1 | Literary and Visual Fiction of Gothic Space
Chair: Daniela Roberts
• Antje Fehrmann (Freie Universität Berlin) — Fragmented Gaze versus Spatial Narrative: Horace Walpole and his Appropriation of Medieval Architecture
• Nicolas Marine (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) — A Broad Mass of Existence: The House of the Seven Gables and the view from the Gothic House
• Maria Duran Marques (Universidade de Lisboa) — Gothic Fictions – Walpole’s Influences on Ferdinand II of Portugal and his Gothic Revival Projects in the Domestic Sphere
• Christina Clausen (Technische Universität Darmstadt) — Interactions between Pictorial Spaces in Painting and Neo-Gothic Interior Designs
f r i d a y , 1 5 n o v e m b e r
9.30 Section 2 | Constitution and Perception of Gothic Space
Chair: Antje Fehrmann
• Ute Engel (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg) — The Chapel in the Woods and The Vyne: The Ambiguity of Gothic (Revival) Spaces
• Michal Lynn Shumate (Scuola IMT Alti Studi, Lucca) — Pointed Arches and Atmosphere: Cataloguing Roman Gothic
• Margarida Elias (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) — The Gothic Revival in Lisbon during the 19th Century
12.00 Lunch
14.00 Section 3 | Concepts of Historicisation and Authenticity as a Construction of Political Identity
Chair: Christina Clausen
• Meinrad von Engelberg (Technische Universität Darmstadt) — Von Laxenburg nach Stolzenfels: Die politische Bedeutung der deutschen Neugotik
• Mélina Collin (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3) — American Gothic: Andrew Jackson Downing and the Democratisation of the Gothic Revival Style in the United States
• Dominik Müller (ETH Zürich) — Pyramids, Hexagons, and Pinnacles: Batalha’s Influence
• Madalena Costa Lima (Universidade de Lisboa) — Concepts of Gothic: Judgements and Sensibilities towards a Not Yet Defined Style in the Long 18th Century
17.30 Break
18.00 Keynote Lecture
• Peter Lindfield (Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University) — Creating Multi-layered Gothic (Revival) Spaces in 18th- and 19th-Century Britain: The Fashionable and Eccentric
s a t u r d a y , 1 6 n o v e m b e r
9.30 Section 4 | Neo-Gothic Interior in the Context of Stylistic Pluralism
Chair: Michal Lynn Shumate
• Matthew Winterbottom (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) — Furnishing Gothic Revival Space
• Tommaso Zerbi (Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom) — Tracing Empire and Domestic Gothic in the Eternal City (online)
• Katrin Kaufmann (Vitrocentre Romont) — Light and Colour in the Gothic Revival: Stained Glass as a Constitutive Element of Neo-Gothic Interior Design
• Ole W. Fischer (Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Stuttgart) — Learning from Morris? From Red House to Bloemenwerf: Henry van de Velde and the Invention of L’Art Nouveau from the Spirit of Gothic
13.00 Closing Discussion
Conference | The Expert’s Eye
From the conference website and programme:
El ojo experto: Método, límites y la disciplina de la Historia del Arte
The Expert’s Eye: Method, Limitations, and the Practice of Art History
Online and in-person, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid, 24–25 October 2024
Organized by Pilar Diez del Corral Corredoira and David Ojeda Nogales
The work of the art historian revolves around the art object, and the need to tailor one’s methodology to that object gives the discipline its variety and richness. Yet paradoxically, to stress that art works are the centre of art history feels almost transgressive at a time when basic questions of identification and dating are increasingly deemphasized in training new generations of scholars and curators.
The new art history, by contrast, has shown itself perfectly capable of conducting research without having to study or even look at the art object. Without discrediting the results, which are sometimes more characteristic of departments of history or anthropology, the ease with which art-historical fact is blurred can be surprising. Over the last fifty years, the notable decrease in studies that examine the most fundamental problems of dating and authorship has raised questions about the usefulness of prevailing methodologies, leading to extreme cases in which a trained or expert eye is considered unnecessary, or at least insufficient, to deal with objects lacking documentary or other external proof of origin, creator, or date. By contrast, having an educated eye implies knowing the difference between a Roman bust from the first century AD and a modern copy, between discovering the hand of Leonardo and detecting an excellent falsification. In light of these trends, this conference aims to interrogate and challenge the abandonment of visual, material, and historical expertise among art historians.
Watch online here»
Technical coordination
• Marta I. Sánchez Vasco, misanchezvasco@gmail.com
Scientific coordination
• Pilar Diez del Corral Corredoira, diezdelcorral@geo.uned.es
• David Ojeda Nogales, dojeda@geo.uned.es
Scientific committee
• Amaya Alzaga Ruiz (UNED)
• Jeffrey Collins (Bard Graduate Center, Nueva York)
• Ana Diéguez Rodríguez (Instituto Moll)
• Pilar Diez del Corral Corredoira (UNED)
• David Ojeda Nogales (UNED)
• Markus Trunk (Universität Trier)
j u e v e s , 2 4 o c t u b r e
10.00 Presentación institucional a cargo de Isabel Izquierdo Peraile, directora del Museo Arqueológico Nacional
10.30 Conferencia plenaria
• Jeffrey Collins (BGC, NY) — Experts, Eyes, and Expert Eyes: A View from the Decorative Arts
11.30 Pausa café
11.50 Bloque 1
Modera P. Diez del Corral
• Hans R. Goette (DAI) — Remarks on Excavation Context and Epigraphy Serving Stylistic Analysis by Experts in Classical Archaeology: The ›Esquiline Sculptures‹ ‒ ca. 200 or 400 AD?
• Matteo Cadario (UNIUD) — I rischi dei giudizi ‘stilistici’ nello studio della scultura antica
• David Ojeda (UNED) — La desaparición del ‘ojo experto’: El problema del tiempo en el estudio de la escultura antigua
13.30 Pausa comida
15.00 Bloque 2
Modera Jeffrey Collins
• Benjamin Binstock (Independiente) — Less is More: Recognizing Young Rembrandt’s Painting-by-Painting Development
• Miguel Hermoso (UCM) — Truco o trato: Ojo crítico y pintura de la Edad Moderna
• Pilar Diez del Corral Corredoira (UNED) — Aprendices, copistas y falsarios: El dibujo de Carlo Maratta y sus seguidores
16.15 Pausa café
16.30 Bloque 3
Modera Ana Diéguez
• Beatriz Campderá Gutiérrez (MAN) — El ojo experto en las colecciones medievales
• Eduardo Lamas e Isabelle Lecocq (KIK-IRPA) — Inventory at the Service of the Expert Eye
• Sacha Zdanov (ULB) — Interrogating Erwin Panofsky’s Artistic Relativity: Methodological Reflections on the Aesthetic Diversity of Netherlandish Pictorial Production around 1500
• Rafael Villa (UNIGE) — Connoisseurship and French Stained Glass: On the Abandonment of a Method
v i e r n e s , 2 5 o c t u b r e
9.30 Conferencia plenaria
• Carmen Marcos Alonso (subdirectora del MAN) — Protección y enriquecimiento del Patrimonio Cultural: La labor de los museos en la expertización de bienes culturales
10.15 Bloque 4
Modera Amaya Alzaga
• José Luis Guijarro (Universidad Nebrija) — El ‘silencio de los expertos’: Consideraciones en torno a las responsabilidades legales del historiador del arte en el ejercicio de su labor
• Isabel Menéndez (UNED) — Historiadores y peritos en la valoración de la obra de arte
• Adolfo Gandarillas (UPO) — La Inteligencia Artificial y las tecnologías avanzadas aplicadas al patrimonio artístico: Herramientas y recursos del nuevo connoisseur
11.30 Pausa café
11.50 Mesa redonda
Online Symposium | Drawn to Blue
From the University of Amsterdam, as announced at ArtHist.net:
Drawn to Blue
Online, 12–13 November 2024
Organized by Edina Adam, Leila Sauvage, and Michelle Sullivan
This two-day online symposium, co-organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum and the University of Amsterdam, brings together art historians and paper and textile conservators to share their new research on the history of early modern blue paper.
Made from discarded blue rags, early modern blue paper was a humble material. However, producing it required expert knowledge, and its impact on European draftsmanship was transformative. The rich history of blue paper, from the fifteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries, illuminates themes of transcultural interchange, international trade, and global reach. Inspired by the recent Getty exhibition Drawing on Blue: European Drawings on Blue Paper, 1400s–1700s and coinciding with the current exhibition Drawn to Blue: Artists’ Use of Blue Paper at the Courtauld, this two-day online symposium brings together art historians and paper and textile conservators to share their new research on the history of early modern blue paper.
Registration is available here»
All times listed in Pacific Time and Central European Time.
t u e s d a y , 1 2 n o v e m b e r
9.00am / 6.00pm Opening remarks by Edina Adam, Leila Sauvage, and Michelle Sullivan
9.10am / 6.10pm Artistic and Non-artistic Use of Blue Paper
• Presence of the Blue Paper inside French Paintings of the 18th Century — Lorenzo Giammattei and Selene Secondo, La Sapienza Università di Roma
• Seeds of Blue: Archival Evidence of the Use of Blue Paper as Seed Packets — Maria Zytaruk, University of Calgary
10.15am / 7.15pm Raw Materials, Trade, Economics
• Blue Paper: Its Life, Origin, History and Artistic Exploration — Judith Noorman, University of Amsterdam
• Paper, Pastels, and Patriotism: Artistic Innovation and the American Revolution — Megan Baker, University of Delaware
11.20am / 8.20pm Works in Progress: Study, Examination, Collection Surveys on Blue Paper
• Surveying The Morgan’s Blue Paper Collection — Elizabeth Gralton, Reba Fishman Snyder, and Rebecca Pollak, The Morgan Library & Museum
• The Blue Paper Project at the Art Gallery of Ontario: Developing an Architecture for Close Looking of Drawing Supports — Maia Donnelly, Joan Weir, and Tessa Thomas, Art Gallery of Ontario
• The Blue Papers of Allan Ramsay at the National Galleries Scotland — Charlotte Park, Clara de la Pena McTigue, and Charlotte Topsfield, National Gallery of Scotland
w e d n e s d a y , 1 3 n o v e m b e r
9.00am / 6.00pm Technical Case Studies
• On Blue: The Portrait Drawings of Ottavio Leoni — Georg Dietz et al., Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
• Out of the Blue? Tracing Object Biographies, Early Conservation Treatments, and the Original Appearance of Italian Old Master Drawings on Blue Paper at the Kunstmuseum — Annegret Seger, Rebecca Honold, and Max Ehrengruber, Kunstmuseum Basel
• Blue Paper in Late-19th Century Paris: Mary Cassatt Pastel Supports — Tom Primeau, Philadelphia Museum of Art
10.30am / 7.30pm Printing on Blue Paper
• From Aldus to Zanetti, Parenzo to Proops, Venice to Volhynia: Three Centuries of Hebrew Printing on Blue Paper in Southern, Western, Central, and Eastern Europe — Brad Sabin Hill, George Washington University
• Blueprint(s) — Armin Kunz, C.B. Boerner Gallery
• Etched in Blue: A Unique Set of Prints by the Abbé de Saint-Non — Rachel Hapoienu, Courtauld Gallery of Art
11.55 am / 8.55pm Roundtable
Moderated by Ketty Gottardo, Courtauld Gallery of Art
Program participants reflect on new insights, questions raised, and future avenues of research.
Conference | Unfolding the Coromandel Screen
Coromandel Screen, Kangxi reign (1662–1722), Qing dynasty, carved lacquer, 258 × 52 × 3.5 cm
(Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001.0660)
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From the conference website and programme:
Unfolding the Coromandel Screen: Visual Mobility, Inscribed Objecthood, and Global Lives
Online and in-person, City University of Hong Kong, 22–23 November 2024
Organized by by Lianming Wang and Mei Mei Rado
During the second half of the seventeenth century, the production of Coromandel screens, also known as kuancai (‘carved polychrome’), flourished along China’s southeast coast. These screens became immensely popular both domestically and in European markets, establishing connections between regional artisans, merchants, and prominent European figures, including royalty and nobility. In the last two decades of this century, Coromandel screens emerged as one of China’s most frequently exported commodities, rivaling porcelain and challenging Japanese lacquerware exports. Their significance extends far beyond the common perception of them as merely mass-produced craftwork of inferior quality.
With the generous support of the Bei Shan Tang Foundation, the Department of Chinese and History at City University of Hong Kong will host a two-part academic event titled Unfolding the Coromandel Screen to celebrate the department’s tenth anniversary. The conference, organized by Lianming Wang (City University of Hong Kong) in collaboration with Mei Mei Rado (Bard Graduate Center, New York), will take place on-site at City University of Hong Kong and via Zoom from 22 to 23 November 2024. It will bring together an international group of art historians, museum curators, conservators, collectors, and global historians. Participants will explore various aspects of the Coromandel screen and its intricate histories, including its interrelations with paintings, prints, decorative arts, palatial and interior designs, global maritime trade, and the fashion industry. Following the conference, the speakers will join a two-day traveling seminar from 24 to 25 November, visiting lacquer and conservation workshops as well as museum collections in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
Registration for both onsite and online participation is available here»
Advisory Board
May Bo Ching (City University of Hong Kong), Burglind Jungmann (UCLA), Mei Mei Rado (Bard Graduate Center, New York), Anton Schweizer (Kyushu University), Ching-Fei Shih (National Taiwan University), Lianming Wang (City University of Hong Kong), Xiaodong Xu (†) (Art Museum of The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Supporting Institutions
Art Museum of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Indra and Harry Banga Gallery of City University of Hong Kong , Hong Kong Maritime Museum, Lee Shau Kee Library of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Guangdong Provincial Museum, Guangzhou Museum, Chen Clan Ancestral Hall – Guangdong Folk Arts Museum
f r i d a y , 2 2 n o v e m b e r
8.30 Registration
9.00 Welcome and Introduction
• May Bo Ching (City University of Hong Kong), Lianming Wang (City University of Hong Kong), and Mei Mei Rado (Bard Graduate Center, New York)
9.15 Keynote
• Transcultural Treasures: Kuancai (Coromandel) Screens in China and Abroad — Jan Stuart (National Museum of Asian Art, Washington DC)
10.00 Coffee break
10.15 Panel 1 | Coromandel Screens as Sites of Power Representation
Chair: Libby Chan (Indra and Harry Banga Gallery, City University of Hong Kong)
• Place, Scale, and Medium in Several Cartographic Coromandel Screens — Stephen Whiteman (The Courtauld Institute of Art, London)
• Picture of the Immense Sea: Temporal and Spatial Transformation on the Birthday Celebration Screen of
Nan’ao (in Chinese with English subtitles) — Weiqi Guo (Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts)
11.15 Panel 2 | Coromandel Screens and Intra-Asian Visual Entanglements
Chair: Wan Chui Ki Maggie (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
• Coromandel Screens and Japanese Seminary Painters in Macau — Yoshie Kojima (Waseda University, Tokyo)
• When the Barbarians Came by Sea: Hunting Screens in China and Japan — Lianming Wang (City University of Hong Kong)
• Transcultural Pictorial Dynamics: Coromandel Screens and Joseon Court Painting and Visual Culture — Yoonjung Seo (Myongji University, Seoul)
12.40 Lunch break
14.00 Panel 3 | Format, Motif, and Technique: Understanding Coromandel Screens
Chair: Daisy Wang (Hong Kong Palace Museum)
• A Screen So Grand: Coromandel Screens from the Perspective of Scale — Tingting Xu (University of Rochester, New York)
• Decoding Frames: Unveiling Names, Provenance, and Connections of the Framed Images on the ‘Dutch
Tribute Screen’ in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen — Xialing Liu (Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing / Utrecht University)
• Textiles, Taste, and Templates: Kuancai Screen Motifs and Techniques — Ricarda Brosch (Museum am Rothenbaum – World Culture and Arts, Hamburg)
• Copy Culture and Commodification in Coromandel Screens and Related Lacquerwares, 1680–1780 — Tamara Bentley (Colorado College)
15.40 Coffee Break
16.00 Panel 4 | Materials and Conservation: Perspectives from Labs and Workshops
Chair: Josh Yiu (Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
• On the Origins and Regional Differences of the Kuancai Screens (in Chinese with English subtitles) — Bei Chang (Southeast University, Nanjing) and Linlong Li (Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie orientale, Paris)
• A Conservator’s Perspective: Technical Examination and Treatment Strategies for Coromandel Lacquer from the Kangxi Period — Christina Hagelskamp (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
• Scientific Analysis of a Coromandel Cabinet from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London — Julie Chang (Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei) and Lucia Burgio (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)
18.00 Museum Visit — Might and Magnificence: Ceremonial Arms and Armour across Cultures,
Indra and Harry Banga Gallery, City University of Hong Kong
19.00 Dinner
s a t u r d a y , 2 3 n o v e m b e r
9.15 Keynote
• The Taste for Coromandel Lacquer in France in the 17th and 18th Centuries: Trade, Reception, and Customs — Stéphane Castelluccio (CNRS, Centre André Chastel, Paris)
10.00 Coffee Break
10.30 Panel 5 | Coromandel Screens as Global Artefacts
Chair: Phil Kwun-nam Chan (Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
• On the ‘Exoticness’ of the Coromandel Lacquerware — Ching-Ling Wang (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam)
• Coastal Landscape and Scenes of Europeans on Coromandel Folding Screens — Rui Oliveira Lopes (Museu das Convergências, Porto)
• Differences and Commonalities: Links between 17th- and 18th-Century Coromandel Export Lacquer Pieces and Luso-Asian Lacquers of the Previous Century — Ulrike Körber (IHA/FCSH//IN2PAST – Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
12.00 Lunch break
13.30 Panel 6 | Coromandel Screens and Their Global Lives, Part One
Chair: Nicole Chiang (Hong Kong Palace Museum)
• Beyond the Closet: The Taste for Coromandel Lacquerware Furniture in Holland and England, ca. 1675–1700 — Alexander Dencher (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam)
• ‘Sawed, Divided, Cut, Clift, and Split Asunder’? A Case Study of a European Chest of Drawers Decorated with Excerpts from a Coromandel Screen of Known Pictorial Model — Grace Chuang (Independent Scholar, Detroit)
• Reframing the West Lake in French Furniture and Interiors — Nicole Brugier (Ateliers Brugier, Paris)
14.30 Coffee Break
14.45 Panel 7 | Coromandel Screens and Their Global Lives, Part Two
Chair: Florian Knothe (University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong)
• The ‘Japanese Cabinet’ at the Hermitage in Bayreuth, Germany — Patricia Frick (Museum für Lackkunst, Münster)
• The Ludic Afterlife of Coromandel Screens: Integrating the Swinging Woman into 18th-Century French Interiors — Weixun Qu (Washington University in St. Louis)
16.00 Short Break
16.15 Panel 8 | The Afterlives of the Coromandel Screens
Chair: May Bo Ching (City University of Hong Kong)
• Art Dealer Florine Langweil and the European Market for Coromandel Screens in the Early 20th Century — Elizabeth Emery (Montclair State University, New Jersey)
• Inspiring Art Deco in Britain: The Architect, the Theatre, and the Coromandel Screen — Helen Glaister (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)
• Shifting Identities and Global Circulation of the Coromandel Screen in Early-20th-Century Buenos Aires — Mariana Zegianini (SOAS University of London)
• The Framework of Modernism: Lacquer Screen and Fashion Imagination in the 1920s — Mei Mei Rado (Bard Graduate Center, New York)
Exhibition | Colonial Crossings: The Spanish Americas
Unidentified workshop, Cuzco, Peru, Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquirá with Female Donor, late 17th–early 18th century, oil and gold on canvas (Collection of Carl & Marilynn Thoma, 2013.046; photo by Jamie Stukenberg).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Now on view at Cornell’s Johnson Museum of Art:
Colonial Crossings: Art, Identity, and Belief in the Spanish Americas
Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 20 July 2024 — 15 December 2024
Curated by Andrew Weislogel and Ananda Cohen-Aponte, with students in the course Colonial Connectivities: Curating the Arts of the Spanish Americas
The artworks featured in this exhibition span more than three hundred years of history, five thousand miles of territory, and two oceans, introducing the rich artistic traditions of Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines during the period of Spanish colonial rule (approximately 1492–1830).
This first exhibition of colonial Latin American art at Cornell considers the profound impact of colonization, evangelization, and the transatlantic slave trade in the visual culture of the Spanish empire, while also manifesting the creative agency and resilience of Indigenous, Black, and mixed-race artists during a tumultuous historical period bookended by conquest and revolution.
At first glance, these religious images, portraits, and luxury goods might seem to uphold colonial structures that suggest a one-way flow of power from Europe to the Americas. Yet closer consideration of these artists’ identities, materials, techniques, and subjects reveals compelling stories about the global crossings of people, commodities, and ideas in the creation of new visual languages in the Spanish Americas. These artworks testify to entangled cultural landscapes—from paintings of the Virgin Mary with ties to sacred sites of her apparition, to lacquer furniture bearing the visual stamp of trade with East Asia, they embody a plurality of cultural, material, and religious meanings.
Unidentified workshop, Peru, Our Lady of Cocharcas, 1751, oiil and gold on canvas (Collection of Carl & Marilynn Thoma, 2011.040; photo by Jamie Stukenberg).
Colonial Crossings was curated by Dr. Andrew C. Weislogel, Seymour R. Askin, Jr. ’47 Curator of Earlier European and American Art at the Museum, and Dr. Ananda Cohen-Aponte, Associate Professor of the History of Art & Visual Studies, and the students in Colonial Connectivities: Curating the Arts of the Spanish Americas (ARTH 4166/6166):
Osiel Aldaba ’26
Miguel Barrera ’24
Daniel Dixon ’24
Juliana Fagua Arias, PhD student
Miche Flores, PhD student
Isa Goico ’24
Sara Handerhan ’24
Emily Hernandez ’25
Ashley Koca ’25
Maximilian Leston ’26
Maria Mendoza Blanco ’26
Lena Sow, PhD student
Nicholas Vega ’26
We are grateful to lenders Carl and Marilynn Thoma, the Denver Museum of Art, the Hispanic Society of America, and the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library; and to David Ni ’24, the 2023 Nancy Horton Bartels ’48 Scholar for Collections, for organizational support.
Unidentified artist, Quito, Ecuador, Noah’s Ark, detail, late 18th century, oil on canvas (Collection of Carl & Marilynn Thoma, 2000.004).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
The Johnson Museum will also present this symposium:
Symposium | Reimagining the Américas: New Perspectives on Spanish Colonial Art
Online and in-person, Saturday, 9 November 2024
At this free symposium, presented in conjunction with the exhibition, established scholars whose work encompasses a variety of regions and approaches to colonial Latin American art history will offer new methodologies, seeking to expand the boundaries of this visual culture. Presentations will explore the exhibition’s thematic emphases on materiality and sacredness, hybridity and cross-cultural exchange, colonial constructions of race, and recovering art histories marked by silence and erasure.
• Time-Warping the Museum: Temporal Juxtapositions in Displays of Spanish Colonial Art — Lucia Abramovich, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Framing Miracles for a New World: The Oval — Jennifer Baez, University of Washington
• Trent as Compass: Directions, Circuits, and Crossings of the Visual and Canonical in Spanish America — Cristina Cruz González, Oklahoma State University
• Splendor and Iridescence: Pearls in the Art of the Spanish Americas — Mónica Dominguez Torres, University of Delaware
• ‘Your Plenteous Grandeur Resides in You’: Asian Luxury in Spanish American Domestic Interiors — Juliana Fagua Arias, Cornell University
• Supplicant Africans: From Baptizands to Emblems of Abolition —Elena FitzPatrick Sifford, Muhlenberg College
• Voices of Influence: Exploring Power Dynamics in the Conservation of Musical Heritage in Colonial Latin America — Patricia García Gil, Cornell University
• Invisible Soldiers and Constant Servants: The Pre-Hispanic Roots of the Andean Cult of Angels — Maya Stanfield-Mazzi, University of Florida
A schedule will be posted soon. Please email eas8@cornell.edu to register in advance for in-person attendance. Click here to join the webinar.
Conference | The Window as Protagonist
Eric Ravilious, Beachy Head Lighthouse (Belle Tout), 1939, pencil and watercolour on paper (Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From the Mellon Centre:
The Window as Protagonist in British Architecture and Visual Culture
Online and in-person, Paul Mellon Centre and The Warburg Institute, London, 21–22 November 2024
Organized by Rebecca Tropp
This two-day conference will explore the multifaceted, multi-purpose nature of the window as protagonist, with an emphasis on its place in British architecture and visual culture, broadly conceived. A range of interdisciplinary papers presented by international scholars will provide a platform for dynamic and engaging discourse that forefronts the cultural and social significance of the window in its many guises as object, as boundary, as frame, and as mediator.
More information is available here»
t h u r s d a y , 2 1 n o v e m b e r
Paul Mellon Centre
Panel 1 | Visions of Light
• Benet Ge (student, Williams College) — Looked Through: Edward Orme’s Transparent Prints and Masculinizing Georgian Windows, remote
• Francesca Strobino (independent) — The Window as a Test Object: W.H.F. Talbot’s Early Photographic Experiments with Latticed Patterns, remote
• Victoria Hepburn (postdoctoral associate, Yale Center for British Art) — A ‘Luminous Framework’ but not ‘Glass of a Modern Kind’: William Bell Scott’s Painted Windows for the Ceramic Gallery at the South Kensington Museum, remote
Panel 2 | Social Relations
• Shaona Barik (assistant professor of English literature at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, India) — Health, Hygiene, Sanitation in Colonial Bengal: Case Study of Windows, 1860–1920, remote
• Albie Fay (writer) — Through the Broken Glass: The Window as a Symbol of Social Unrest in Britain and Northern Ireland
• Ellie Brown (PhD candidate, University of Warwick) — The Window as a Frame and Boundary in the Shopping Centre
f r i d a y , 2 2 n o v e m b e r
The Warburg Institute
Panel 1 | The Art of Display: From Museums to Shop Windows
• Laura Harris (Senior Research Fellow, University of Southampton) — Art Gallery Windows
• Naomi Polonsky (assistant curator, House and Collection, Kettle’s Yard) — ‘The Vision of the Mind’: Windows In and Out of Art at Kettle’s Yard
• Alexandra Ault (Lead Curator of Manuscripts, 1601–1850, British Library) — Re-glazing the Print Shop Window: The Impact of Glass Technology on the Commercial Display of Fine Art Prints, ca. 1850–1900
• Birgitta Huse (social anthropologist, independent researcher) — More Than a Glimpse ‘In Passing’: Reflecting on Shop Windows as Provocateurs between Art, Commerce, and Cultural Traditions
Panel 2 | Architectural Manipulation
• Steven Lauritano (lecturer in architectural history, Leiden University) — Windows of Learning: Robert Adam, William Henry Playfair, and the Old College, University of Edinburgh
• Rebecca Tropp (archivist, Crosby Moran Hall and former Research and Events Convener at the Paul Mellon Centre) — Windows and the Picturesque
Panel 3 | Transparency and Materiality
• Alice Mercier (PhD researcher, University of Westminster) — Photographic Looking before Photographs: Watching through Windows in the Early-mid Nineteenth Century, remote
• Ruth Ezra (lecturer in art history, University of St Andrews) — Muscovy Glass, from Fenestration to Demonstration
• Deborah Schultz (senior lecturer in art history, Regent’s University London) — The Window as a Lens in the Work of Anna Barriball
Panel 4 | Cinematic and Literary Horrors
• Vajdon Sohaili (assistant professor of art history and contemporary culture, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University) — Glass, Darkly: Equivocal Windows and the Architectural Paratext in Don’t Look Now
• Francesca Saggini (professor in English literature at the Università della Tuscia) — The Horror at the Window
Conference | Sacred Silver in Southeast Europe, 15th–19th Centuries
From ArtHist.net and the conference website:
Southeast European Silversmithing: Artisans, Donors, and Piety in the Early Modern Period
Sofia, Bulgaria, 17–18 October 2024
The international conference Southeast European Silversmithing: Artisans, Donors, and the Concept of Piety during the Early Modern Period will gather specialists studying sacral silver objects from the early modern period who, through their research, contribute to the field of applied arts with religious use. The scientific forum will enable the presentation of sacral silver objects still unpublished and unknown to the academic community. It will stimulate the comparative analysis of silversmiths’ works in wide geographic regions, which will also help improve the methodological means of their interpretation. A more meticulous approach to this field will represent a valuable contribution to art historical scholarship and a more comprehensive understanding of the visual culture of the early modern period.
Twenty-six specialists from prestigious organisations, universities, and cultural institutions from Austria, Armenia, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, the USA, Serbia, and Hungary will discuss issues related to the production and circulation of liturgical objects, as well as their role in shaping the pious image of the faithful in Southeastern Europe between the 15th and 19th centuries. The conference is organised within the framework of the project Liturgical Objects in the Context of Silversmiths’ Art during the Ottoman Period (Based on Materials from the Diocese of Plovdiv), funded by the Bulgarian National Science Fund, Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Bulgaria (contract No. КП-06-М80/2/7.12.2023).
Academic Committee
• Darina Boykina, PhD, Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria
• Mateja Jerman, PhD, Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka, Croatia
• Vuk Dautović, PhD, University of Belgrade, Serbia
t h u r s d a y , 1 7 o c t o b e r
Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
9.30 Registration
10.00 Welcome
10.15 Constructing Piety
Chair: Vuk Dautović
• Dimitris Liakos — Constructing the Pious Image in Southeastern Europe at the Turn of an Era: Valuable Objects as Gifts to Athonite Monasteries from the 15th to the 16th Century
• Miljana Matić — Monks as Authors and Donors of Applied Art Objects (15th–17th Centuries) from the Serbian Orthodox Church Museum Collection
• Darina Boykina — Artisans’ Patronage: The Case of the Guild of Silversmiths in Tatar Pazardzhik during the Early Modern Period
11.30 Coffee Break
11.50 Personal and Collective Patronage
Chair: Teodor Lucian Lechintan
• Nikolaos Mertzimekis — The Silver Cover of the Gospel of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (1645–1676) in the Sacristy of the Iviron Monastery
• Paschalis Androudis — On a Pair of Candlesticks from the Metropolitan Church of Kastoria, 1708
• Nicoleta Bădilă — Donors’ Portraits from the Silver Liturgical Fans from Wallachia
• Nona Petkova — Examples of Faith and Community Belonging: Eucharistic Chalices from the National Church Museum of History and Archaeology in Sofia
13.30 Lunch
15.00 Influential Objects: Appearance and Morphology
Chair: Livia Stoenescu
• Mila Santova — Once Again about the Gospel Covers from the Teteven Monastery of Prophet Elijah (Teteven Gospel Covers from 1675)
• Georgi Parpulov — Two Romanian Ciboria at the Sinai Monastery
• Mariam Vardanyan — Innovative Tendencies in the Art of Armenian Book Binding: Myrophores Gospels Bindings
16.15 Coffee Break
16:30 Silver Objects as Emissary: Circulation, Diplomacy, and Gifts
Chair: Paschalis Androudis
• Mateja Jerman — Goldsmiths’ Works as Gifts to Our Lady of Trsat (Croatia)
• Milena Ulčar — Collective Patronage of St. Tryphon’s Head Reliquary in Venetian Kotor
• Arijana Koprčina — Gifts of Bishop Emerik Esterházy to Zagreb (Arch)diocese
• Francesca Stopper — La Serenissima and the Papal States: Liturgical Objects as Diplomatic Gifts in the 18th Century
f r i d a y , 1 8 o c t o b e r
Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
9.30 Patrons and Silversmith Creating Visual Culture
Chair: Darina Boykina
• Dragoş Năstăsoiu — Cross-confessional Artistic Negotiation: Transylvanian Saxon Silversmith Masters and Their Orthodox Patrons in 14th to 17th-Century Wallachia and Moldavia
• Teodor Lucian Lechintan — On Some Early Modern Silver Revetments of Romanian Icons: Donors, Techniques, Horizons
• Vuk Dautović — Silver Votive Offerings of 19th-Century Serbian Rulers: Shaping Church Visual Culture and their Role in Changing Cultural Models
10.45 Coffee Break
11.00 Silversmithing Centers and Production of the Liturgical Object
Chair: Mila Santova
• Stavroula Sdrolia, Paschalis Androudis — 17th-Century Goldsmiths’ Enamelled Production in Thessaly
• Barbara Kamler-Wild — Silversmithing in Vienna in the Golden Age of Empress Maria Theresia
• Livia Stoenescu — To Be Worth a Potosí: Mines, Wealth, and Global Crafting of Silver Liturgical Objects in Early Modernity
12.15 Coffee Break
12.30 Silver Embodying Sanctity
Chair: Milena Ulčar
• Konstantinos Dolmas — Like a Second Skin: The Head-Reliquary of St. Kliment of Ohrid
• Simeon Tonchev — The Reliquary from the Church ‘Mother of God the Fountain of Life’ in Svilengrad and Its Context
13.20 Lunch
15.00 Imagery and Iconography
Chair: Mateja Jerman
• Anna Mária Nyárádi — Images Between the Latin and Greek Worlds. Prints and Book Illustrations as Models for Gospel Covers
• Iglika Mishkova — Bread Stamps
• Carmen Tănăsoiu — Behold the Lamb of God: About a Certain Iconographic Type Found on Diskoi from the Collection of the National Museum of Art of Romania
• Ruth Bryant — Analyzing the Torah Shield: Understanding the Abundance of Animal Imagery through the Zohar
16.45 Closing Remarks
Conference | Marble as Device
From the conference programme and ArtHist.net:
Marble as Device: Material to Surface / Il Marmo Come Dispositivo: Dalla Materia alla Superficie
Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica –Palazzo Barberini / Galleria Borghese, Rome, 10–11 October 2024
Organized by Adriano Aymonino, Geraldine Leardi, and Ariane Varela Braga
DAY 1 | Marble offers the ideal medium to investigate human dexterity in combining materiality and immaterial meanings. Frequently studied from various perspectives—from quarry extraction, distribution networks, and processing techniques, to aesthetic values and socio-cultural or olitical uses—more recently marble has been analysed as a powerful expressive medium straddling iconicity and aniconism, structure and ornament. Following on from the inaugural NeReMa meeting held in Rome in 2021, this study day will bring together international scholars to reflect on the theme of marble as ‘device’, a notion that allows an interdisciplinary approach to the study of this transversal artistic and architectural medium in the Mediterranean-European world: from the more concrete aspects of setting up the material components, to the intrinsic and expressive qualities of marble surfaces.
DAY 2 | ‘Device’ is a complex word, rich in possibilities, which allows broad interpretative approaches. The first part of this second study day will therefore be devoted to two less conventional subjects in the field of marble studies: ‘marbles and stones on paper’, focusing on an analysis of the famous manuscript Study of Many Stones by Pier Leone Ghezzi (1726), along with a discussion of works by contemporary artists who employ marble, or its conceptual bearings, as a ‘device’ for their creativity. The afternoon session will start with a roundtable addressing the launch of the volume La Galleria Borghese nei suoi marmi: Materia Colore Superficie (Allemandi), followed by a presentation of an ongoing digital project on ancient marbles and stones led by the Galleria Borghese. The day closes with a tribute to Raniero Gnoli, the founding father of modern studies on ancient marble, and a tour of the Galleria Borghese.
Registration is available through Eventbrite.
t h u r s d a y , 1 0 o c t o b e r
Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica –Palazzo Barberini
9.00 Registration
9.30 Francesca Cappelletti and Geraldine Leardi — Welcome and Introduction
10.00 Struttura e Forma / Structure and Form
Modera: Alessandro Poggio
• Rafael Rosenberg — Book-Matching: Why Are Stone Slabs Laid Symmetrically, and since When?
• Ruggero Longo — Materia e forma: Superfici marmoree nel Mediterraneo medievale
• Silvia Pedone — ‘Le parole e i marmi’: Estetica e colore a Bisanzio
11.30 Pausa Caffè
12.00 Teoria e Percezione / Theory and Perception
Modera: Daniela del Pesco
• Joris van Gastel — Le piume del pavone: Verso un’estetica della ricezione del commesso marmoreo napoletano
• Marthe Kretzschmar — „Je feiner das Korn ist, desto vollkommener ist der Marmor“: Winckelmann’s Description of Marble between Aesthetics and Mineralogy
13.30 Pranzo
15.00 Materia e Superficie / Materiality and Surface
Modera: Sara Bova
• Vitale Zanchettin — Michelangelo, le verità della pietra: Architetture oltre la superficie
• Grégoire Extermann — Importazione o continuità? Il dispositivo ‘romano’ della Casa de Pilatos a Siviglia
16.00 Pausa Caffè
16.30 Trasformazione e Display / Transformation and Display
Modera: Anna Frasca-Rath
• Christine Casey — From Mountainside to Fireside: Supplying and Working Marble for the British Interior, 1700–1770
• Ariane Varela Braga — Il marmo in mostra tra fine Ottocento e inizio Novecento
f r i d a y , 1 1 o c t o b e r
Galleria Borghese
10.00 Registration
10.20 Francesca Cappelletti and Geraldine Leardi — Welcome and Introduction
10.30 Nicola Samorì — Mal di pietra: Il corpo minerale tra geodi e fratture
11:00 Jo Stockham — Fluid Rock, Marble Stilled
11.30 Pausa Caffè
12.00 Adriano Aymonino — Rappresentare le pietre di Roma: Marmi su carta nel Settecento
12.30 Paolo Bertoncini Sabatini — Materia e significato: Il marmo in termini estetici e progettuali nell’allestimento di mostre temporanee
13.30 Pranzo
15.00 Tavola Rotonda | Presentazione del volume La Galleria Borghese nei suoi marmi. Materia Colore Superficie, a cura di Geraldine Leardi
Intervengono: Fabio Barry, Dario Gamboni, Lorenzo Lazzarini, Sophie Mouquin
17.00 Pausa Caffè
17.30 Geraldine Leardi e Adriano Aymonino — Presentazione del progetto di un database su litoteche storiche e marmi antichi
18.00 Proiezione del documentario | Le Pietre e le Parole: Ritratto di Raniero Gnoli, di Adriano Aymonino e Silvia Davoli + Q&A
18.30 Tour per conoscere i marmi della Galleria Borghese con Geraldine Leardi e Lorenzo Lazzarini
Conference | The Roman Drawings of Charles Percier
From ArtHist.net:
The Rome Drawings of Charles Percier and their Afterlife
Online and in-person, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, München, 18–19 October 2024
Organized by Georg Schelbert and Sabine Frommel
Charles Percier, Unidentified Villa (Paris: Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, MS 1008 fol. 2r num. 3).
Charles Percier (1764–1838) was one of the most influential architects and architectural theorists in France in the decades before and after 1800. In addition to his formative role as Napoleon’s architect, together with Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, his influence lies above all in his teaching activities, from which pupils such as J. Hittorf, P. Letarouilly, and A. de Montferrand emerged.
As in the case of many other European architects of the multifaceted 19th century, his personal experience of art and architecture in Italy was fundamental to his work. Honoured with the grand prix of the Académie royale d’Architecture, Percier stayed in Rome from 1786 to 1791, studying important architectural monuments there and in the surrounding area. He used his return journey on foot to Paris to familiarise himself with the architecture of central and northern Italy. During this time, he created a total of around 2000 drawings, a wide-ranging documentation that reflects the influence of new compositional methods and served both for his own training and as model material, and as such fulfilled a didactic function.
This largely unpublished material clearly reveals Percier’s comprehensive view, which encompasses architecture, sculpture, ornament, and gardens and spans a broad chronological horizon from antiquity to contemporary art at his time. These experiences flowed into an architectural theory that he anchored primarily in Roman palace construction. Conference contributions will shed light on various aspects of his oeuvre, primarily on the basis of drawings from his Roman period. Talks will also call attention to Percier’s European significance, which is also reflected in projects in the Polish lands and, not least, in the fact that the visual appearance of the young kingdom in Bavaria was placed in the hands of Napoleon’s architect.
The conference is part of a larger programme of work on the publication of Percier’s drawings made in Italy, most of which are in the Institut de France. The volumes Emilia e Romagna (2016) and Toscana, Umbria e Marche (2021) have already been published in the series I disegni di Charles Percier. Organized by Georg Schelbert (Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte) and Sabine Frommel (EPHE-PSL, Paris), the conference will be held in English, Italian, French, and German. Please send questions to percier@zikg.eu.
The event will be broadcast in parallel via Zoom. Recording of the event or parts of the event as well as screenshots are not permitted. By participating, you accept these terms of use.
f r i d a y , 1 8 o c t o b e r
12.30 Registration
13.00 Introduction
• Sabine Frommel (EPHE-PSL, Paris) and Jean-Philippe Garric (Panthéon Sorbonne, Université Paris 1)
13.30 Section 1 | Percier in Rome — Villas and Gardens: Nature, Ornament, and Architecture
Chair: Christine Tauber (Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich)
• Sabine Frommel (EPHE-PSL, Paris) — Lo sguardo del Rinascimento nei disegni di Charles Percier
• Alberta Campitelli (Vice President Associazione Parchi e Giardini d’Italia, Rome) — Ville e giardini del Grand Tour: un itinerario d’obbligo
• Alessandro Cremona (Sovrintendenza Capitolina, Rome) — Non solo ‘célèbres maisons de plaisance’: le ville e i giardini ‘minori’ nei taccuini di viaggio di Charles Percier
15.00 Coffee break
• Steffi Roettgen (Ludwig Maximilians-Universität Munich) — Zeichnungen zur Villa Albani und deren Antiken
• Susanna Pasquali (Università La Sapienza, Rome) — Roman Villas and Gardens in the Drawings by Hubert Robert, Pierre Adrien Pâris, and Charles Percier (1750–90)
• Iris Lauterbach (Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich) — Les jardins de Rome vues par l’Europe: Les dessins de Percier dans leur contexte
18.15 Keynote Lecture
• Jean-Philippe Garric (Panthéon Sorbonne, Université Paris 1) — Learning by Drawing: The Albums of Charles Percier at the Institut de France
s a t u r d a y , 1 9 o c t o b e r
9.00 Section 2 | Percier and Europe
Chair: Sabine Frommel (EPHE-PSL, Paris)
• Mario Bevilacqua (Università La Sapienza, Rome) — Percier Reads and Corrects Piranesi: The Drawings of the Priorato
• Georg Kabierske (Philipps-Universität Marburg) — Drawing, Copying, and Collecting Architectural Ornaments in Rome: The Generation of Percier and Before
• Georg Schelbert (Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte Munich) — Charles Percier and Prussia: Ludwig Theodor Liman
11.00 Coffee break
• Sabina de Cavi / Hélder Carita (Universidade Nova, Lisbon) — The Quinta da Praia: New Drawings by Charles Percier for a Villa in Belèm (1815)
• Pawel Migasiewicz (Instytut Sztuki, Polska Akademia Nauk, Warsaw) — Architectural Drawings by Charles Percier, Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, and Alexandre Dufour for Polish Patrons
• Hans Ottomeyer (Munich) — Das Königreich Bayern: Percier und die Folgen
13.30 End
Enfilade 
leave a comment