61st Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America (RSA)
Berlin, 26-28 Mar 2015
Renaissance Technologies and the Built Environment
Session(s) sponsored by the European Architectural History Network
The Renaissance is commonly characterized as a period of technological
advances that entailed the application of knowledge from diverse and
evolving disciplines to solve problems and achieve particular ends.
Renaissance technologies include but are not limited to manual,
mechanical, architectural, spatial, and other inventions that addressed
logistical, structural, representational, cultural, social, military,
and other challenges.
We invite papers that critically examine how Renaissance technologies
affected architectural and urban culture. How did new technology and
science inform building practice, planning, or the use of materials?
Did technological innovation instigate new dialogues between hitherto
separate discourse and practices? As a result, were the role of
building and architecture in society redefined?
Moreover, today, we are experiencing a technology boom, with digital
tools inspiring new ways of studying, explaining, and understanding
Renaissance histories. Do these tools provide new access or
perspectives on the interaction between technology, architecture and
urban culture in the Renaissance?
Please submit a paper title; abstract (150 words maximum); keywords;
and a brief C.V. (300 words maximum) by June 8 to Saundra Weddle
([log in to unmask]) and Maarten Delbeke ([log in to unmask]).
Membership in the EAHN is encouraged.
The Mobile Household in Early Modern Europe
The domestic interior has been widely studied in terms of social
construction, furnishing, artistic representation and diffusion of
luxury items. Household inventories provide an insight into different
social levels — a single inventory is like a snapshot. During the Early
Modern period most people could count but a single residence, but this
does not apply to the élite and, more generally to the upper social
level. And even though it is tempting to view things as being stable,
objects, like people, were moving all the time. Evidence shows that
items such as tableware, carpets, clothing, and jewels, to give some
examples, were mobile, as was portable art. What circumstances
determined the relocation of certain objects? How frequently did this
happen? Was it only display objects that were moved from one grand
house to the next, or were more quotidian things in motion as well?
What about fragile things? Did inventories keep a record of objects in
motion? Was the distance or the purpose of the relocation relevant? Did
the same patterns of apply also to specific circumstances such a
long-distance journeys, pilgrimages or military campaigns? We are
interested in exploring the iconography, social history and literary
dimension of the mobile household. Paper topics might include evidence
from inventories, as well as case studies of iconographic sources and
literary accounts.
Please send to both Marta Caroscio ([log in to unmask]) and
Deborah Krohn ([log in to unmask])
The following materials by June 9, 2014:
- Paper title
- Abstract (150-word maximum)
- 3-5 Keywords
- 1 page CV (300-word maximum)
Please, follow RSA instructions
http://www.rsa.org/default.asp?page=2015Berlin
Fireworks in European Renaissance Capitals and Courts
Fireworks are the most lavish expressions of ephemeral festival culture
and thus artworks with the shortest duration. Generally combined with
music and artillery, parades on land or floats on the water, they offer
playful ways to symbolize military and political power. The long
tradition of fireworks started in Greece with the ignis graecus and
reached its first zenith in the early modern period. The medieval
invention of black powder opened radically new pyrotechnic
possibilities and led – paradoxically enough – to a hilarious
sublimation of the martial origin of this ephemeral art form. Its
quality and originality depended, of course, on the pyrotechnic
capabilities of the responsible architects and military engineers: the
more innovative they were, the more impressive the design of the
fireworks could be.
Fireworks had great potential for political self-representation in
public places, for secular and ecclesiastic rulers. Thus, in almost all
capitals and courts of 16th- and 17th-century Europe, the gunfire and
canon roar of fireworks marked the most solemn moments of festive
events, such as coronations and weddings, accessions to power, and the
conclusion of peace treaties. Often, fireworks were performed near
rivers and natural or artificial lakes, in order to intensify them with
the mirror effect of the water. A particularly brilliant pyrotechnic
display was staged on the occasion of the Easter procession in 1589 in
Piazza Navona in Rome. As documented by Antonio Tempesta, fireworks and
artificial light illuminated the flooded Piazza with a carrack in the
middle flanked by two galleys, a playful imitation of ancient naval
battles.
A rich literature on pyrotechnics (Bacon, Descartes, Newton) reflects
this particular ephemeral art form. Artificial fires – in French aptly
called feux d’artifice – could be so awe-inspiring that they were
characterized as a “third nature” or ascribed divine status. Theodor W.
Adorno defined the firework as the most perfect medium of art („die
perfekteste Form der Kunst, da sich das Bild im Moment seiner höchsten
Vollendung dem Betrachter wieder entzieht“).
Our session will investigate early modern fireworks in European
Renaissance capitals and courts. Papers should focus on the various
elements which makes the firework a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk: the
merging of diverse forms of arts: (ephemeral) architecture, light and
color, music and artillery, water parades and ‘floats.’ Suggested
topics might also deal with two-dimensional media (paintings, drawings,
and graphics) as well as automata and music.
Please send a 150-word proposal with paper title, keywords, and
one-page CV (300-word maximum) by June 6 to
[log in to unmask] ; submissions may be in English or
German.
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Session at UAAC/AAUC Universities Art Association of Canada Conference
Toronto, October 23 - 26, 2014
At the Intersection of Art History and the Art Market: Navigating The
Business of Art
Fraught with tension, the co-mingling and relationship between art
history and the art market has remained among the most under-explored
and elusive topics of examination in the discipline. Even so, the
mechanisms of value and valuation, the networks of patrons and dealers
at the local and global level, and the more recent explosion in the
democratization of, and accessibility to, on-line art auctions has a
reciprocal effect on how and why art historians research and write
about art. This panel seeks to examine the broader and critical
dimensions of this issue across any historical period and calls for
presentations that explore, whether through specific case study or
theory-based examination, the contours of the art history/art market
intersection. The panel invites a wide scope of creative and engaged
participation from art historians, artists, art critics, curators, art
appraisers, and those involved in any aspect of private or public art
collection.
Session Chairs:?
Dorothy Barenscott, Ph.D. (Art Historian)
Kwantlen Polytechnic University
[log in to unmask]
Lara Tomaszewska, Ph.D. (Art Historian & Art Appraiser)
Openwork Art Advisory
[log in to unmask]
If interested in proposing a paper, please email an abstract of 150
words and a brief bio to [log in to unmask] by JUNE 18th. We
encourage broad participation by art historians, artists, art critics,
curators, art appraisers, and those involved in any aspect of private
or public art collection.
Proposals for papers may be submitted by current members OR non-members
of UAAC. However non-members MUST become members of UAAC in order to
present a paper at the conference, and all members must renew their
memberships in UAAC/AAUC by 1 September 2014 .
For general information about the conference please visit:
http://www.uaac-aauc.com/en/conference
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