Early Modern Intermediality
Stanford University, 2-3 March 2018
This conference will broach the... more Early Modern Intermediality Stanford University, 2-3 March 2018
This conference will broach the theme of “intermediality” in early modern art (c. 1400-1650). This neologism is absent from the early modern lexicon (as is “medium”). However, we are concerned with how communication across media became a newly self-conscious condition of art making, a means of expression and exchange.
From the fifteenth century on, the diversification of media and growing dialectic between modalities of art making catalyzed theorization of media. Successive themes included disegno vs. colore, the paragone, the bel composto, and others. Central to these theorizations was the role of disegno (“drawing”/”design”). By the mid-sixteenth century, Italian theorists upheld disegno as the parent of all the arts, and both the concept and practice subsumed all artistic creation into a single faculty.
It is our aim to consider the medial consequences of this mindset. Key is the influence that the expanded role of preparatory drawings (in varying materials) across the arts. Yet, drawing was not the only medium. Clay and wax sketches were used by painters, sculptors, and architects in the design process, and prints were pervasive brokers of intermedial thinking. Revisions in thought provoked by one medium also might promote new resolutions in another. As each iteration of an idea brought with it the implications of the substance in which that idea had been formerly assayed, one outcome might be a “transferred materiality” in which the properties of one material or medium were transferred to another (e.g. to carve marble as though it were wax); or a “discursive mediality” in which artists put one medium in dialogue with another. The graduation of the idea through material metamorphosis might also imply a supramaterial medium (e.g. an “architecture of light,” or changeling substance) or even a fusion into new chimerical categories.
We seek papers across early modern art production in Europe and the Americas, whether in painting, sculpture, architecture, drawing, print, or textile. We are also interested to hear discussions of figures whose own production was intermedial or anti-intermedial; investigations of those moments in art theoretical literature where the intermedial is addressed; and especially those artworks in which artists visibly confronted the issue. Finally, we are eager to hear the voices of people who challenge this position, whether the argument or its periodization.
The conference proceedings will be published. All travel expenses, accommodation, and meals will be provided.
Please send abstracts of 250 words and a CV, by July 15, 2017, jointly to the below email addresses:
While coming closer to specificity in contextualization, the scholarship on Heemskerck's Roman sk... more While coming closer to specificity in contextualization, the scholarship on Heemskerck's Roman sketchbooks has employed thick lines in mapping Heemskerck’s timeline, sacrificing a rigorous comparative analysis that would add a deeper understanding of the drawings. How do these sketchbooks figure into the antiquarian drawing tradition in Rome? What do they share and where do they differ? As the scholarship has already heavily focused on archeological factual identification as well as art historical interpretation and meaning, this paper will in turn be entirely devoted to the representational qualities of the sketches themselves, in what will be a comparative and formal analysis. This paper will take on this pursuit in two parts. Firstly, I will outline the culture of drawing that Heemskerck enters into. With a brief consideration of his antiquarian predecessors, I will largely illustrate how Heemskerck’s sketches of ruin are entirely unique to this particular fragmented moment of 1530’s Rome. After the theme of contextual fragmentation has been put forth, the second part of the paper will examine how Heemskerck’s sketchbooks embody this theme of fragment through three experiments in representation: scale, body, and gaze. It is my hope that a magnified study of the sketches considered in the specific context of Rome in 1532-1536 will illuminate one more layer of artistic invention and importance.
As Turner’s career progressed, his interest in the purely beautiful descriptions of English lands... more As Turner’s career progressed, his interest in the purely beautiful descriptions of English landscape quickly dwindled, as he was captivated by Sublime expressions of interior landscape, or what the romantic poet Wordsworth called, “the picture of the mind.” In this way, Turner’s oeuvre provides the unique opportunity to trace the trajectory of the Picturesque under the lens of one consistent artistic media (painting).
This paper will address this transitory phase of Turner’s career in two parts. First, I will look at Turner’s 1804 painting, The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides as the first trace of Turner’s use of landscape not as a record of external reality but rather as a vehicle for conveying the mind’s expression of the Sublime. In the second part of this paper, I will look at Turner’s representations of his Grand Tour of Italy, (specifically his representations of Rome) where Turner is faced again with the reconciliation between aesthetic traditions of the Classical and artistic motives of the Sublime.
Already detached from the popular romances of Tintern Abbey, but not quite submersed in the monstrous horrors of Hannibal Crossing the Alps and Slaveship, my research will look at this transitory phase from 1806-1820, in which Turner experiments with the bricolage of the Picturesque-Sublime.
This research examines the intersection of politics, aesthetics and new media technologies in 196... more This research examines the intersection of politics, aesthetics and new media technologies in 1960s-70’s Iran. I argue that the Shiraz Arts Festival needs to be analyzed in the context of contemporary communication theory to fully understand its importance as a historical and political event. By doing this, I build upon the dominating scholarship that big media (TV/radio) was used by the Shah, and small media (casettes and copies) were used by Islamic Revolution. This argument contends that there were no other sites of communication or political outlet during the reign of the Shah. I argue that the Shiraz Arts Festival was exactly that- a media of communication on its own that ignited dialogue, exchange, and political commentary. This looks at the festival and the medium of performance as a site of reconciliation and active mediation. When we see the festival in this way, it becomes a new interpretation of the past that might serve as a roadmap for the future. Where art and performance are powerful tools of political activism.
I explore the presence of zahir and batin as guiding design principles of the Aljaferia-- an elev... more I explore the presence of zahir and batin as guiding design principles of the Aljaferia-- an eleventh-century fortified palace of the Taifa Kings of Saragossa. By way of introduction, the paper also examines Taifa architecture in the historical lineage of Andalusian Umayyad architecture. It explores the presence of early speculative thought and philosophy in al-Andalus and examines the Treatise on Contemplation by Ibn Masarra alongside the visual details of the Aljaferia.
Early Modern Intermediality
Stanford University, 2-3 March 2018
This conference will broach the... more Early Modern Intermediality Stanford University, 2-3 March 2018
This conference will broach the theme of “intermediality” in early modern art (c. 1400-1650). This neologism is absent from the early modern lexicon (as is “medium”). However, we are concerned with how communication across media became a newly self-conscious condition of art making, a means of expression and exchange.
From the fifteenth century on, the diversification of media and growing dialectic between modalities of art making catalyzed theorization of media. Successive themes included disegno vs. colore, the paragone, the bel composto, and others. Central to these theorizations was the role of disegno (“drawing”/”design”). By the mid-sixteenth century, Italian theorists upheld disegno as the parent of all the arts, and both the concept and practice subsumed all artistic creation into a single faculty.
It is our aim to consider the medial consequences of this mindset. Key is the influence that the expanded role of preparatory drawings (in varying materials) across the arts. Yet, drawing was not the only medium. Clay and wax sketches were used by painters, sculptors, and architects in the design process, and prints were pervasive brokers of intermedial thinking. Revisions in thought provoked by one medium also might promote new resolutions in another. As each iteration of an idea brought with it the implications of the substance in which that idea had been formerly assayed, one outcome might be a “transferred materiality” in which the properties of one material or medium were transferred to another (e.g. to carve marble as though it were wax); or a “discursive mediality” in which artists put one medium in dialogue with another. The graduation of the idea through material metamorphosis might also imply a supramaterial medium (e.g. an “architecture of light,” or changeling substance) or even a fusion into new chimerical categories.
We seek papers across early modern art production in Europe and the Americas, whether in painting, sculpture, architecture, drawing, print, or textile. We are also interested to hear discussions of figures whose own production was intermedial or anti-intermedial; investigations of those moments in art theoretical literature where the intermedial is addressed; and especially those artworks in which artists visibly confronted the issue. Finally, we are eager to hear the voices of people who challenge this position, whether the argument or its periodization.
The conference proceedings will be published. All travel expenses, accommodation, and meals will be provided.
Please send abstracts of 250 words and a CV, by July 15, 2017, jointly to the below email addresses:
While coming closer to specificity in contextualization, the scholarship on Heemskerck's Roman sk... more While coming closer to specificity in contextualization, the scholarship on Heemskerck's Roman sketchbooks has employed thick lines in mapping Heemskerck’s timeline, sacrificing a rigorous comparative analysis that would add a deeper understanding of the drawings. How do these sketchbooks figure into the antiquarian drawing tradition in Rome? What do they share and where do they differ? As the scholarship has already heavily focused on archeological factual identification as well as art historical interpretation and meaning, this paper will in turn be entirely devoted to the representational qualities of the sketches themselves, in what will be a comparative and formal analysis. This paper will take on this pursuit in two parts. Firstly, I will outline the culture of drawing that Heemskerck enters into. With a brief consideration of his antiquarian predecessors, I will largely illustrate how Heemskerck’s sketches of ruin are entirely unique to this particular fragmented moment of 1530’s Rome. After the theme of contextual fragmentation has been put forth, the second part of the paper will examine how Heemskerck’s sketchbooks embody this theme of fragment through three experiments in representation: scale, body, and gaze. It is my hope that a magnified study of the sketches considered in the specific context of Rome in 1532-1536 will illuminate one more layer of artistic invention and importance.
As Turner’s career progressed, his interest in the purely beautiful descriptions of English lands... more As Turner’s career progressed, his interest in the purely beautiful descriptions of English landscape quickly dwindled, as he was captivated by Sublime expressions of interior landscape, or what the romantic poet Wordsworth called, “the picture of the mind.” In this way, Turner’s oeuvre provides the unique opportunity to trace the trajectory of the Picturesque under the lens of one consistent artistic media (painting).
This paper will address this transitory phase of Turner’s career in two parts. First, I will look at Turner’s 1804 painting, The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides as the first trace of Turner’s use of landscape not as a record of external reality but rather as a vehicle for conveying the mind’s expression of the Sublime. In the second part of this paper, I will look at Turner’s representations of his Grand Tour of Italy, (specifically his representations of Rome) where Turner is faced again with the reconciliation between aesthetic traditions of the Classical and artistic motives of the Sublime.
Already detached from the popular romances of Tintern Abbey, but not quite submersed in the monstrous horrors of Hannibal Crossing the Alps and Slaveship, my research will look at this transitory phase from 1806-1820, in which Turner experiments with the bricolage of the Picturesque-Sublime.
This research examines the intersection of politics, aesthetics and new media technologies in 196... more This research examines the intersection of politics, aesthetics and new media technologies in 1960s-70’s Iran. I argue that the Shiraz Arts Festival needs to be analyzed in the context of contemporary communication theory to fully understand its importance as a historical and political event. By doing this, I build upon the dominating scholarship that big media (TV/radio) was used by the Shah, and small media (casettes and copies) were used by Islamic Revolution. This argument contends that there were no other sites of communication or political outlet during the reign of the Shah. I argue that the Shiraz Arts Festival was exactly that- a media of communication on its own that ignited dialogue, exchange, and political commentary. This looks at the festival and the medium of performance as a site of reconciliation and active mediation. When we see the festival in this way, it becomes a new interpretation of the past that might serve as a roadmap for the future. Where art and performance are powerful tools of political activism.
I explore the presence of zahir and batin as guiding design principles of the Aljaferia-- an elev... more I explore the presence of zahir and batin as guiding design principles of the Aljaferia-- an eleventh-century fortified palace of the Taifa Kings of Saragossa. By way of introduction, the paper also examines Taifa architecture in the historical lineage of Andalusian Umayyad architecture. It explores the presence of early speculative thought and philosophy in al-Andalus and examines the Treatise on Contemplation by Ibn Masarra alongside the visual details of the Aljaferia.
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Stanford University, 2-3 March 2018
This conference will broach the theme of “intermediality” in early modern art (c. 1400-1650). This neologism is absent from the early modern lexicon (as is “medium”). However, we are concerned with how communication across media became a newly self-conscious condition of art making, a means of expression and exchange.
From the fifteenth century on, the diversification of media and growing dialectic between modalities of art making catalyzed theorization of media. Successive themes included disegno vs. colore, the paragone, the bel composto, and others. Central to these theorizations was the role of disegno (“drawing”/”design”). By the mid-sixteenth century, Italian theorists upheld disegno as the parent of all the arts, and both the concept and practice subsumed all artistic creation into a single faculty.
It is our aim to consider the medial consequences of this mindset. Key is the influence that the expanded role of preparatory drawings (in varying materials) across the arts. Yet, drawing was not the only medium. Clay and wax sketches were used by painters, sculptors, and architects in the design process, and prints were pervasive brokers of intermedial thinking. Revisions in thought provoked by one medium also might promote new resolutions in another. As each iteration of an idea brought with it the implications of the substance in which that idea had been formerly assayed, one outcome might be a “transferred materiality” in which the properties of one material or medium were transferred to another (e.g. to carve marble as though it were wax); or a “discursive mediality” in which artists put one medium in dialogue with another. The graduation of the idea through material metamorphosis might also imply a supramaterial medium (e.g. an “architecture of light,” or changeling substance) or even a fusion into new chimerical categories.
We seek papers across early modern art production in Europe and the Americas, whether in painting, sculpture, architecture, drawing, print, or textile. We are also interested to hear discussions of figures whose own production was intermedial or anti-intermedial; investigations of those moments in art theoretical literature where the intermedial is addressed; and especially those artworks in which artists visibly confronted the issue. Finally, we are eager to hear the voices of people who challenge this position, whether the argument or its periodization.
The conference proceedings will be published. All travel expenses, accommodation, and meals will be provided.
Please send abstracts of 250 words and a CV, by July 15, 2017, jointly to the below email addresses:
Fabio Barry, Stanford University fmb1@stanford.edu
Evonne Levy, University of Toronto Evonne.levy@utoronto.ca
This paper will address this transitory phase of Turner’s career in two parts. First, I will look at Turner’s 1804 painting, The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides as the first trace of Turner’s use of landscape not as a record of external reality but rather as a vehicle for conveying the mind’s expression of the Sublime. In the second part of this paper, I will look at Turner’s representations of his Grand Tour of Italy, (specifically his representations of Rome) where Turner is faced again with the reconciliation between aesthetic traditions of the Classical and artistic motives of the Sublime.
Already detached from the popular romances of Tintern Abbey, but not quite submersed in the monstrous horrors of Hannibal Crossing the Alps and Slaveship, my research will look at this transitory phase from 1806-1820, in which Turner experiments
with the bricolage of the Picturesque-Sublime.
Stanford University, 2-3 March 2018
This conference will broach the theme of “intermediality” in early modern art (c. 1400-1650). This neologism is absent from the early modern lexicon (as is “medium”). However, we are concerned with how communication across media became a newly self-conscious condition of art making, a means of expression and exchange.
From the fifteenth century on, the diversification of media and growing dialectic between modalities of art making catalyzed theorization of media. Successive themes included disegno vs. colore, the paragone, the bel composto, and others. Central to these theorizations was the role of disegno (“drawing”/”design”). By the mid-sixteenth century, Italian theorists upheld disegno as the parent of all the arts, and both the concept and practice subsumed all artistic creation into a single faculty.
It is our aim to consider the medial consequences of this mindset. Key is the influence that the expanded role of preparatory drawings (in varying materials) across the arts. Yet, drawing was not the only medium. Clay and wax sketches were used by painters, sculptors, and architects in the design process, and prints were pervasive brokers of intermedial thinking. Revisions in thought provoked by one medium also might promote new resolutions in another. As each iteration of an idea brought with it the implications of the substance in which that idea had been formerly assayed, one outcome might be a “transferred materiality” in which the properties of one material or medium were transferred to another (e.g. to carve marble as though it were wax); or a “discursive mediality” in which artists put one medium in dialogue with another. The graduation of the idea through material metamorphosis might also imply a supramaterial medium (e.g. an “architecture of light,” or changeling substance) or even a fusion into new chimerical categories.
We seek papers across early modern art production in Europe and the Americas, whether in painting, sculpture, architecture, drawing, print, or textile. We are also interested to hear discussions of figures whose own production was intermedial or anti-intermedial; investigations of those moments in art theoretical literature where the intermedial is addressed; and especially those artworks in which artists visibly confronted the issue. Finally, we are eager to hear the voices of people who challenge this position, whether the argument or its periodization.
The conference proceedings will be published. All travel expenses, accommodation, and meals will be provided.
Please send abstracts of 250 words and a CV, by July 15, 2017, jointly to the below email addresses:
Fabio Barry, Stanford University fmb1@stanford.edu
Evonne Levy, University of Toronto Evonne.levy@utoronto.ca
This paper will address this transitory phase of Turner’s career in two parts. First, I will look at Turner’s 1804 painting, The Goddess of Discord Choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of the Hesperides as the first trace of Turner’s use of landscape not as a record of external reality but rather as a vehicle for conveying the mind’s expression of the Sublime. In the second part of this paper, I will look at Turner’s representations of his Grand Tour of Italy, (specifically his representations of Rome) where Turner is faced again with the reconciliation between aesthetic traditions of the Classical and artistic motives of the Sublime.
Already detached from the popular romances of Tintern Abbey, but not quite submersed in the monstrous horrors of Hannibal Crossing the Alps and Slaveship, my research will look at this transitory phase from 1806-1820, in which Turner experiments
with the bricolage of the Picturesque-Sublime.