61st Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Berlin, March 26-28, 2015
Members are encouraged to submit abstracts to one of the following Calls for Papers for RSA 2015.
CFP: Italians Look at Germans
Session Sponsored by the Italian Art Society
Organizers and Chairs: Kathleen Giles Arthur, James Madison University and Martha Dunkelman, Canisius College
The impact of Italian art on Germany during the Renaissance is a familiar topic. Writers note Venetian color in Durer, ancient sculpture in Jan Gossaert, and Roman Mannerism in Jan van Scorel. If German artists visited Italy, special attention is given to what they took to the north when they left. Less consideration has been given to exploring ideas introduced into Italy by German artists. The few exceptions to this center on prints, such as the story of Michelangelo copying Schongauer’s St. Anthony, or the interest of Raphael in Durer. There were certainly other ways, however, that German images, ideas, and techniques evoked responses in the Italian artistic community. This session welcomes papers that present new research on how German art, artists, and patrons who were present in Italy were influential on Italian artists during the Renaissance. Essays may consider specific borrowings, theoretical concepts, material practices, or any other aspect of the influence of Germans on Italians. Please send a brief abstract (no more than 150 words); keywords; and a brief curriculum vitae (300-word maximum) to Kathleen Giles Arthur and Martha Dunkelman. Deadline 30 May 2014.
CFP: Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo: A Broader Vision
Session Sponsored by the Italian Art Society
Chair: Bernadine Barnes,Wake Forrest University; Organizer: Tiffany Lynn Hunt, Temple University
Research about Vittoria Colonna’s interest in the visual arts is centered onher relationship with Michelangelo, especially around the 1540s, when the two exchanged ideas about reformed spirituality. But Colonna’s influence on Michelangelo lasted longer—even beyond her death in 1547—and may be seen in works other than the presentation drawings he did explicitly for her. Colonna was part of a large network of aristocrats, religious leaders, relatives and friends whoalso hadan interest in art and who sometimes requested copies of theworks that Michelangelo madeforher.For this session we seek papers that consider how images were commissioned, copied, used and sharedwithin this network. Did the works of art made for this circle of friends play a role in spreading ideas about reform? We welcome contributions dealing with works Vittoria Colonna did for Michelangelo, works she requested from other artists, as well as examples of her influence in Michelangelo’s late oeuvre. We are also interested in the distribution and reuse of these works, and shared themes in pieces commissioned by her friends and correspondents, such as Cardinals Reginald Pole and Ercole Gonzaga. Please send a brief abstract (no more than 150 words); keywords; and a brief curriculum vitae (300-word maximum) to Bernadine Barnes and Tiffany Hunt. Deadline 30 May 2014.
CFP: The Absent Image in Italian Renaissance Art
Session Sponsored by the Italian Art Society
Organizers and Chairs: Lauren Dodds, University of Southern California; Emily R. Anderson, University of Southern California
Lacunae mark the study of Italian Renaissance art. Canonical works like Giotto’s Navicella, Michelangelo’s monumental bronze sculpture of Pope Julius II, and Raphael’s missing “Portrait of a Young Man” disappeared in the face of renovation and war. Less dramatically, vast swaths of art and material culture failed to survive to the present due to changing perceptions of their value and purpose; in most cases, objects like wax death masks, innumerable portrait covers and cases, ephemeral pageantry banners and triumphal arches are no longer extant. Beyond expanding our objects of inquiry, studying the lost elements of Renaissance art and visual culture illuminates the ways in which the concept of the Renaissance shapes and is shaped by surviving works of art. This panel invites papers considering absence in Renaissance art: how have lost objects stimulated creative energy in the past or present? Have interdisciplinary approaches aided the re-envisioning of lost works of art? How might the fundamentally visual discipline of art history grapple with the absent image? Please send a brief abstract (no more than 150 words); keywords; and a brief curriculum vitae (300-word maximum) to Lauren Dodds and Emily R. Anderson. Deadline 30 May 2014.