Call for Papers
Renaissance Society of America Conference
8-10 April 2010
Fondazione Giorgio Cini
Isola San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice
Panel Title:
Portrayals of Love, Friendship, and Desire in Italian Art around 1500
One of the most important yet enigmatic topics of Italian Renaissance
art is the iconography of love. Numerous fundamental studies of the past
decades have broadened our knowledge and perspective. However, many
works of art still ‘resist’ convincing interpretation – especially in
(ideal) portraiture or non narrative images in close-up. There is a
clear need for further analysis on the symbols, metaphors, and
metonymies of the literary love discourse – and its plurality of
concepts – as reflected in visual images of love and friendship. What
certainly deserves more detailed attention is how and why structures of
devotional images intermingle with profane imagery (and vice versa).
Another desideratum of central relevance are close-readings regarding
the character of the emotions and gestures depicted in images, of the
material structures, and of the rendering of surface qualities, which
often initiate and reflect a relationship of desire between image and
beholder. In addition, very little is known about the occasions related
to the commissions of images of love and friendship, about their
functions, their handling as well as hanging/positioning – aspects,
which may change interpretations considerably.
This panel encourages papers offering new insights into the iconography
of love, friendship and desire in Italian art from 1450-1530. We welcome
contributions discussing (ideal) portraits and non narrative images in
different visual media (painting, sculpture, relief, medals, graphic
arts etc.) with reference to:
- open questions of iconography, including analysis not only of common
symbols but also of metaphors and metonymies in Renaissance love poetry
and literature (Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, Petrarchan)
- the visual structures of images of love and friendship and related
ambivalences between the devotional and the profane
- investigations of emotions depicted or omitted in images, considering
their significance for the emotional and aesthetic impact on the beholder
- the use of colour and/or the rendering of material surface according
to the depicted subject, provoking a relationship of desire between
beholder and image (their particular ‘aesthetics and ethics of effect’)
- functions, occasions, and circumstances of commissions, including the
question of images as gifts among friends and lovers, considering the
heterosexual, homosexual and homosocial relations possibly involved
Scholars interested in a closer reflection and discussion of these
topics are invited to send an abstract (150 words maximum) for a
20-minute paper, a short cv and contact information (current
institutional affiliation, e-mail address) to the organizers before May
7, 2009.
Organizers:
Jeanette Kohl, History of Art Department, University of California,
Riverside, [log in to unmask]
Marianne Koos, Department of Art History, University of Fribourg,
[log in to unmask]
Speakers must be members of the Renaissance Society of America at the
time of the conference.
Please consult the RSA website for further informations:
http//www.rsa.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Call for Papers
Spaces and Practices of Leisure in Early Modern Europe
European Architectural History Network, 1st International Meeting
Guimaraes, Portugal
June 17-20, 2010
Leisure was a concept fundamental to the practices and spaces of early
modern European society. Authors identified books to be studied at
leisure, while architects designed increasingly codified urban and rural
social spaces. Since at least the fourteenth century, leisure suggested
time unoccupied by often public duties and responsibilities – time in
which individuals could pursue entertainment, intellectual and spiritual
enrichment, and physical relaxation. With the renewed fifteenth-century
interest in Antiquity and the simultaneous shift from a landed feudal to
a professional elite, the concept of leisure became both more formalized
and more complex. It became associated particularly with wealthy
elites, assumed learned connections to Antiquity, and encompassed more
identifiable activities in particular spaces. Authors published books
and poems describing the leisured elite life, while exclusive social
circles moved in specific spaces from rural villas to urban pleasure
grounds to late seventeenth-century royal palaces.
Intersections of shifting practices and spaces of leisure, however, have
been studied primarily for the industrialized world and have remained
split among leisure studies, cultural and social history, and analyses
of building types. This session offers a more synthetic and
interdisciplinary approach to early modern leisure; it invites papers
concerning built spaces of leisure, landscape architecture, and visual
and written depictions of villa life or other leisure activities. We
particularly seek proposals that suggest new methodological approaches
or that aim to re-evaluate long-standing approaches and arguments – for
instance, through a new variety of sources or a study of social
alongside architectural context. Themes of especial inter est include:
city-country connections, the relationship of interior to exterior
leisure spaces, the villa’s seemingly paradoxical role as working farm
and site of elite leisure, practices of hospitality and their
connections to architectural design, changing social and architectural
relationships of public to private, the role of the renewed interest in
Classical Antiquity (eg, villa culture, notions of negotium/otium, and
philosophical claims about contemplative v. active life), the
commercialization of leisure, the role of gender, varying ideas of
leisure with social class, court culture, and the relationship of
regional to international in circulating ideas of leisure.
Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words (including applicant's
name and affiliation), a short CV, and full contact information (email
and postal addresses, telephone and fax numbers) by October 30, 2009 to:
Dr. Freek Schmidt, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV,
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, [log in to unmask] tel: 0031 205986372,
fax: 0031 205986500, and Dr. Kimberley Skelton, Brandeis University, 415
South Street, Waltham, MA, 02453, USA, tel: 001-443-253-5529, fax:
001-781-736-2672, [log in to unmask]
Further information on abstract submission and on the EAHN conference is
available at: www.eahn.org.
-------------------------------------------------
Visit Pipex Business: The homepage for UK Small Businesses
Go to http://www.pipex.co.uk/business-services
|
