Illusionism and Interference in Early Modern Sculpture

Sixteenth Century Society Conference (SCSC), Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada, October 22 - 25, 2015

Call for Papers

Struts left intact between the fingers of a marble figure, rough tool-work visible on the surface of a bronze statue or misalignments of perspectival space on a carved relief, all disrupt the illusionistic effects early modern sculptors adopted to transcend the limits of their media and equal the deceptiveness of painting. Rather than look beyond such interruptions as accident or practical necessity, this panel seeks papers that explore the friction between illusionism and interference in early modern sculpture as a deliberate strategy and an integral component of the experience and meaning of the work. Papers might address—but are not limited to—the following questions: In what ways did sculptors muddle illusionism? How might surface quality, insistent materiality or tactility, incompletion or the assertion of mass and flatness over form and depth, challenge the viewer into more engaged looking? In what ways did viewing distance and modes of framing or display obstruct rather than mediate? If illusionism in sculpture presupposes painterly or pictorial paradigms of viewing, how might interference work to assert a sculptural paradigm? Paper topics may focus on the fifteenth, sixteenth, or seventeenth centuries, and on any part of Europe or the New World.

Please submit a 250 word abstract and CV to Carolina Mangone (cm3289columbia.edu) and Lorenzo Buonanno (lgb2108columbia.edu) by March 31, 2015.