CONF 06.09.2014

Jesuit Image-Theory in Europe & the Overseas Missions (Münster, 8-10 Oct 14)

Münster, 08.–10.10.2014
Anmeldeschluss: 01.10.2014

Christian Peters

Jesuit Image-Theory (1540-1740)
Conference at the WWU Münster
Cluster of Excellence
Religion und Politics in Pre-modern and Modern Cultures
Project B2-5 Die neulateinische Emblematik
(Head of project: Prof. Dr. Karl Enenkel)
8-11 Oktober 2014

Conveners: Karl Enenkel/Walter Melion

The Jesuit investment in images, whether verbal or visual, virtual or actual, pictorial or poetic, rhetorical or exegetical, was strong and sustained, and may perhaps even be identified as one of the order’s defining characteristics. Jesuit Christology often invokes the imago and its species – figura, pictura, repraesentatio, similitudo, simulacrum, speculum – as visual instruments best suited to expounding, within the limits of human capacity, the supreme mystery of the Incarnation. Construed as an act of divine image-making itself, the Incarnation licenses the production of further sacred images ad imitationem Christi. Jesuit Mariology is equally image-centred: In Petrus Canisius’s Mariale (1577) Mary ist portrayed as the supreme imitatrix, who mobilizes various kinds and degrees of sacred image to mould body and soul into fully realized imagines Christi. Jesuit rhetorics likewise embrace the resources of visual artifice, comparing the orator to a painter and inviting him to exploit the full range of rhetorical figures and ornaments in virtually pictorial feats of demonstrative oratory, as is displayed in school texts like Cyprien Soarez’s De arte rhetorica (1560) and Melchior de la Cerda’s Usus et exercitatio demonstrationis (1598). Heavily rhetoricized, Jesuit emblematics often focuses on the forms and functions of the pictorial imago; according to literary theorist Jacob Masen the syllogistic relation between the emblem’s two main parts, res picta and res significata, becomes figurative and thence truly emblematic, when the poetic image of one thing ist compared to the poetic image of another thing, these two images being differentiated and yet associated after the manner of the rhetorical sources of invention – analogy, opposition, estrangement, and illusion.
Although the Jesuit interest in images has been richly documented, the question of Jesuit image theory has yet to be approached from a multi-disciplinary perspective that examines how the image was defined, conceived, produced, and interpreted within the various fields of learning by the Society.

Programme

Wednesday, 8.10.2014

14:00-14:15
Welcome and Introduction

14:15-15:00
Wietse de Boer (Miami University), The Early Jesuits and the Catholic Debate about Sacred Images, 1530s-1560s

15:00-15:45
Anna Knaap (Emmanuel College, Boston), Rhetoric, Enargeia and the Softening of Stone: Architectural Decoration and Hendrik van Balen’s marble paintings for the Antwerp Jesuit Church

15:45-16:15
Coffee break

16:15-17:00
Judi Loach (Cardiff University), The Image Theories of Early Modern Jesuits as Disciples of Thomas

17:00-17:45
Jeffrey Muller (Brown University, Providence), The Jesuit Theory of Accomodation


Thursday, 9.10.2014
9:00-9:45
Pierre-Antoine Fabre (L’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris), Le pacte précaire de l’image et de l’écrit dans le livre illustré d’époque moderne: le cas de la ‘Peinture spirituelle’ (1611) de Louis Richeome

9:45-10:30
Jacques Riche/Bernard Deprez (Catholic University of Leuven, KU), Science and politics in some Jesuits' frontispieces

10:30-10:50
Coffee break

10:50-11:35
Andreas Thielemann (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome), Ascension in the Cylinder: Theory and Practice of an Image
Machine of Athanasius Kircher S.J.

11:35-12:20
Colette Nativel (Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) The ‘De statura, plastice et statuaria’ of Jules César Boulanger, S. J.(1558-1628): Formation of the Jesuit Orator or of the ‘Curieux’?

12:20-14:15
Lunch break

14:15-15:00
Ralph Dekoninck (Université catholique de Louvain l.n.), Sandaeus and the imago figurata. The Jesuit Image Theory at the Crossroads of Speculative, Mystical and Symbolic Theologies

15:00-15:45
Agnes Guiderdoni (Université catholique de Louvain l.n.), Mystical Figures and Emblematic Practice in Maximilian van der Sandt’s Work

15:45-16:15
Coffee break

16:15-17:00
Joost Vander Auwera (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels), Abraham Janssen van Nuyssen (Liège? 1571/75 – Antwerp 1632): Jesuits in the Family and the Main Altarpiece of the Jesuit Church in Mons

17:00-17:45
Jan Graffius (Stonyhurst College), Phoenix, Hen and Falcon: Robert Southwell and Henry Hawkins’ influence on Helena Wintour’s sacred embroidery for the Society of Jesus, 1650-1660


Friday, 10.10.2014

9:00-9:45
Steffen Zierholz (Universität Bern), ‘to make yourself present’: Space and Self in the Society of Jesus

9:45-10:30
Christine Goettler (Universität Bern), Self-cultivation and Interior Retreat in Jesuit and Courtly Culture: The Hermitages of Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria

10:30-10:50
Coffee break

10:50-11:35
Walter Melion (Emory University, Atlanta), ‘Libellus piarum precum’ (1575): Iterations of the Five Holy Wounds in an Early Jesuit Prayerbook

11:35-12:20
Hilmar Pabel (Simon Fraser University, Burnaby), Spiritual Perception in Peter Canisius’ Meditations on Advent

12:20-14:15
Lunch break

14:15-15:00
David Graham (Concordia University, Montreal), Claude-François Ménestrier: The Founder of ‘Early Modern Grounded Theory’

15:00-15:45
Aline Smeesters (Université catholique de Louvain l.n.), ‘Simulacra avorum’: Two Jesuit Imitations of Vergil, Aeneid, VI, 756-887

15:45-16:15
Coffee break

16:15-17:00
James Clifton (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston), A Variety of Spiritual Pleasures: Anthonis Sallaert’s ‘Glorification of the Name of Jesus’

17:00-17:45
Andrea Torre (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa), Writing on the Body and Looking through the Wounds: the mnemonic metaphor of Stigmata

17:45-18:00
Final Discussion / Concluding Remarks

Quellennachweis:
CONF: Jesuit Image-Theory in Europe & the Overseas Missions (Münster, 8-10 Oct 14). In: ArtHist.net, 06.09.2014. Letzter Zugriff 28.03.2024. <https://arthist.net/archive/8309>.

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