CFP - Renaissance Society of America, Washington, DC, March 22-24,2012

RENAISSANCE PORTRAITURE: IDENTITY IN WRITTEN WORDS

The Renaissance portrait, one of the most important of the period’s
revivals of antique types of art, truly embodied the human-centered
ethical system of the time. Portraits were conceived of as an expression
of self-consciousness and self-assertion, as a way to legitimize the
centrality of the individual both within contemporary society and in the
broader context of history. The purpose of this session is to examine to
what extent the “written word,” in the form of poetry, prose, mottoes, and
inscriptions, assisted the visual forms in the definition of the self,
within and beyond the customary terms of the paragone. Although the
function of portraiture was to immortalize somebody’s likeness and to
guarantee him/her eternal fame and recognition, too often the biographical
identity of the sitter remains anonymous, erased from collective memory
over time. In such cases, the “written word” offers a valuable tool of
investigation, supporting and complementing the materials provided by
visual evidence. It also proves the complexity of the issue of identity, a
concept that cannot be fully explained in terms of an unequivocal
association between likeness and name, but involves social, political, and
cultural mechanisms sometimes better explained in words

Jointly organized by Eveline Baseggio and Sarah Blake McHam
Send 150 word abstracts and a c.v. to Eveline Baseggio
E-mail: eveline_baseggiohotmail.com by May 8.