The 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Call for Papers for the session:
The Usage of Models in Medieval Book Illumination (Ninth to Fifteenth Century)

It is well-known and nevertheless fascinating that the production of Art in Medieval Times was based on the use of models, even in cases where origin and copy were executed in very distant times. The range of relations between original and copy varies between being the result of a very close or even a direct copy to a more selected use of the original model similar to citations. Due to conditions of Art production this phenomenon refers in particular to mobile objects like illuminated manuscripts.
A lot of manuscripts have been studied extensively and have been systematically arranged in groups according to analog characteristics of composition, stile and iconography, for example the Commentaries on the Apocalypse of Beatus of Liébana, the Codices picturati of the “Sachsenspiegel” or the Psalters of the so called “Thüringisch-sächsische Malerschule”. Nevertheless, the reasons for copying illuminated manuscripts composed sometimes centuries before in an almost unaltered way are not always clear. Even the criteria for choosing one model over another more modern one are scarcely studied.
The session focuses on theoretical approaches dealing with medieval concepts of imitation and copying as well as on aspects of Art-production referring to the criteria of selection of certain exempla for iconography, style or the internal structure in miniatures. The above issue could be raised not only in terms of artistic handicrafts, politics and culture dealing with the organization of workshops and the existence of cultural networks, or with the authority and the status of donators and Scriptoria. In addition, the focus will be on whether the decision for certain models depended on diachronic factors like hagiography and the need for composition structures to create new picture cycles. Did artists use models of book illumination in other Art genres like wall painting, too, for the only reason that they were easier available? It could be questioned if models were used with the intention of being recognizable by the commissioner and/or the viewer. All these aspects are circling around the issue whether the function of miniatures and the underlying text remained the same during the course of time. The aim of this session is to contribute to the discussion which factors and pictorial strategies were involved in the constitution and alteration of Canons of Art in Medieval Times.
Please send your abstract of no more than 300 words to Monika Müller, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel: <mueller.hab.de>. The deadline for abstract submission is September 15, 2011. For further information about the conference including travel grants, please visit the following website: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/