IAS at RSA
Each year, the IAS is able to sponsor up to five sessions at the Annual Meeting of the RSA. Sessions are typically comprised of three 20-minute papers. Members interested in putting together a panel or linked panels on any topic of Italian Art ca. 1300-1650 should send a brief abstract (150 words max) and session title(s) to the Program Committee chair. Session proposals should also include name of organizer(s)/chair(s) with email addresses, one page CV, and affiliation. Organizers may choose speakers or submit a call for papers, which will be posted here. Annual deadline for proposals is 15 April.
60th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, 2014, 27-29 March, New York
CFP: IAS at RSA 2014. The Italian Art Society announces 5 sessions for RSA 2014. See below for session descriptions and submission instructions. Once panels are formed by the session chairs, they will be submitted for inclusion in the 2014 RSA program.
1. Painted Objects: Furniture Ornament and the Arts in Renaissance Italy
This panel explores the arts of domestic furniture decoration in Italy, c. 1300-1600, with attention to the effects this class of objects should have on the theorization of painting and representation. We welcome papers focusing on painted objects of use such as chests, beds, and musical instruments, as well as more broadly defined ornaments including painted spalliere, friezes, and portrait covers. What are the characteristic subjects and styles of such paintings, how were they manufactured and used, and how should their interactive value inflect art historical interpretation? What distinguishes these paintings from framed pictures, both in artistic discourses of the time and in later scholarship? What roles did painted furniture play in social rituals and larger decorative programs? Papers addressing hierarchies of the arts, critical attitudes, the potential for innovation and experimentation in decorative genres, and the historiography, collection, and display of this class of objects are especially encouraged, as are proposals from curators and conservators. Please send a brief abstract (no more than 150 words) and a one-page CV to one of the organizers, Chriscinda Henry and Susannah Rutherglen by 24 May 2013.
2. On “Naturalism” in Early Modern Italian Art
Although “naturalism” is often evoked by art historians describing the character and development of the art of early modern Italy, the meaning of this “naturalism”, or indeed the very legitimacy of the application of the term itself, has not always been evaluated in a rigorous fashion. This panel seeks papers that examine and/or problematize conventional ideas about naturalism in period images of all mediums, looking especially for assessments grounded in formal analysis, interdisciplinary research, period writings about art, historiography, and contemporary critical theory. Also welcome are papers that consider naturalism through such prisms as visuality, linear perspective, natural philosophy, foreign artistic influence, theology, and poetry. Please submit a 150-word abstract and one-page CV to Christian Kleinbub by 25 May 2013.
3. Stillness in Early Modern Italian Art
Keeping pace with our digital, mobile, and globally conscious reality, in recent years art historians have recast the discipline through ideas of performance, time, geography, and exchange. Movement, it would seem, is the paradigm of our age. Movement was, of course, also of interest to early modern Italian art theorists, who sought the adept depiction of the affetti and praised paintings in which the figures seem to move and breathe. Yet, the focus on movement belies an inherent limitation of the painted image: its stillness. Stillness is more than an objective fact in the history of Italian painting; it is also an important theoretical and critical construct. Stillness is a defining quality in the continuum between icon and narrative and in the formulation of devotional art such as the sacra conversazione, it is a precondition of single point perspective, and it is an element of decorum, as seen in later sixteenth-century condemnation of the figura serpentinata. Art, according to Wincklemann, “can express her own peculiar nature only in stillness.” In our current age of mobility, is it possible to reflect on the significance of stillness? This panel seeks papers that examine any aspect of stillness in early modern Italian art: as a problem in the depiction of narrative (as in Caravaggio’s stories ‘without action’), an issue of categorization (ie. ‘classical’ vs. ‘baroque’), a defining quality of devotional art and spiritual experience, a stylistic trait (eg. Guido Reni), the setting for aesthetic response, a condition of perspectival constructions of space and fictional architecture, a corollary of silence and part of the debate of painting versus poetry, or as a trope of sleep or death. The goal is to theorize stillness as the necessary counterpart to movement, and as a critical component of the aesthetic and devotional function of early modern Italian art. Please send a paper title; abstract (150-word maximum); keywords; and a brief curriculum vitae (300-word maximum, not a prose biography) to Karen Lloyd by 27 May 2013.
4. Blood: Representation, Materiality and Agency in Italian Renaissance Art
In Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Germany and Beyond Carolyn Walker Bynum asks “Why blood?” This period witnessed a proliferation of blood cults, relics and shrines, sanguineous images of Christ and martyrs and meditations focused on Christ’s bleeding body. What made blood so central to late medieval and Renaissance theology and devotion? What did blood and its effusion signify for the period viewer? How did blood imagery convey divine presence and impact debates over holy matter? What role did blood imagery play in Renaissance anti-Semitism (“miracle of the host”) and the development of affective piety? What types of responses did blood evoke? How did the materials used to contain and represent blood enhance its agency? What more can a consideration of blood relics, shrines and images contribute to the current scholarly interest in material agency? This session seeks papers that explore these themes in Italian art. Please send a brief abstract (no more than 150 words) and a one-page CV (no more than 300 words) to Theresa Flanigan by 26 May 2013.
5. Italian Sculpture, a Social History: the Practice of the Craft from Nicola Pisano to Michelangelo
This session proposes to examine the realities of sculptors’ lives (1250-1500) and the factors that determined the appearance of the sculpture they produced. Papers are welcomed that address the following issues: the social status and reputation of the sculptor; their training and organization in workshop and guild; how they made a living as employees or entrepreneurs, the roles of patrons and employers, and of contracts, drawings and models in the manufacturing process. As regards the sculpture, speakers might consider the following: the advantages, disadvantages, popularity and prestige of different media (e.g. bronze, marble, wood) or examine how the appearance of an artist’s work changed depending on the medium employed; the factors that affected its appearance (e.g. the sculptor’s training, his travels, his need to adapt to local taste or to the audience for whom the work was made); tradition and innovation in the choice of subjects across the period; the display of sculpture at various sites (e.g. city portals, the town square, the home); the materiality and connotations of sculpture in various media and the language used by contemporaries (e.g. laymen, priests and poets) to describe, eulogize or condemn it; and the purposes that sculpture served and how people responded and behaved towards it (e.g. crying, laughing or kissing it, decorating or mutilating it). The above are only suggestions, they are not meant to be prescriptive. Consideration will be given to any proposal that addresses the general theme. Please submit a 150-word abstract and one-page CV to Brendan Cassidy by 25 May 2013.
In addition to these IAS-sponsored sessions, members may be interested to submit their own papers or panels through the RSA submission site . Please visit the 2014 New York page for submission instructions and to submit proposals. The RSA offers travel stipends from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation to help support travel to the RSA conference from outside North America who are proposing papers on topics in art history. Only individuals who are authors of accepted papers are eligible. To submit an application, please sign in to RSA and use the main submission link. The application requires: paper title; abstract (no longer than 150 words); curriculum vitae (no longer than 300 words); statement of need (no longer than 100 words). Session organizers may not apply on behalf of applicants; the paper author must apply for a Kress grant him/herself. This is a separate application from the rest of the submission process. Deadline 11 June 2013. Speakers may also apply for IAS Travel grants.
61st Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, 2015, 26-28 March, Berlin
The Italian Art Society will sponsor up to five sessions at RSA 2015. Sessions are typically comprised of three 20-minute papers. Members interested in putting together a panel or linked panels on any topic of Italian Art ca. 1300-1650 should send a brief abstract (150 words max) and session title(s) to the Program Committee chair. Session proposals should also include name of organizer(s)/chair(s) with email addresses, one page CV, and affiliation. Organizers may choose speakers or submit a call for papers, which will be posted on this page. Deadline 15 April 2014.
FUTURE MEETINGS
2015, 26-28 March, Berlin
2016, 31 March – 3 April, Boston
2017, 30 March – 1 April, Chicago
ARCHIVE OF PAST IAS at RSA SESSIONS
59th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, 2013, San Diego
58th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, 2012, Washington
57th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, 2011 Montreal
56th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, 2010 Venice
