[1] New Directions in Representation of the Italian Landscape

From: Melissa Yuen <melissa.yuenstanford.edu>
Date: May 9, 2017
Subject: CFP: New Directions in Representation of the Italian Landscape

Session Sponsored by the Italian Art Society

Images of the Italian landscape, both real and imagined, have been the subject of many fruitful investigations, from research on broad trends and refined definitions to focused monographs on individual artists. Recent studies have shed new light on the display of landscape paintings in palaces and villas, artistic practice, professional networks, and the intersections between antiquity and natural history. In particular, research into the growing interest in empirical study and the interpretation of nature in early modern Italy has led to a greater understanding of representations of the natural world. This panel seeks papers that build on these themes and present new ways to reconsider the portrayal of the landscape and landscape artists working in Italy.

We welcome proposals that consider the following issues:
• Landscapes and natural history/antiquity
• Connections between northern Europe and Italy
• The display and function of landscape imagery
• The relationship between drawing and painting the landscape
• Economics and the market for landscapes
• The poetics of landscape and connection to literature
• The spiritual dimension of the landscape

Please send a brief abstract (no more than 150 words); a selection of keywords for your talk; and a brief curriculum vitae (300-word maximum in outline form) to Sarah Cantor (sarahbcantorgmail.com) and Melissa Yuen (melissa.yuenstanford.edu) by Friday, May 26, 2017.

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[2] Bloodlines: Re-Framing Artists’ Families in the Early Modern Period

From: Francesco Freddolini <francesco.freddoliniuregina.ca>
Date: May 9, 2017
Subject: CFP: Session at RSA 2018

Deadline: Jun 2, 2017

Family ties in early modern art history were ubiquitous, and crucial to establish career patterns. Although many artists received their training and conducted their activity within the context of a family, art historians have often examined individual families as isolated case studies. Especially in the field of Western art, families of artists such as the Della Robbia, Vecellio, Brueghel, Teniers, and many others, have been investigated in depth, but ultimately regarded as enclosed entities. Few scholars, in recent years (e.g. Koenraad Brosens, Leen Kelchetmans, and Katlijne Van der Stighelen on the Low Countries), have tackled the topic of the artists’ families as a field of inquiry in its own right, exploring its socio-economic values and the networks it established.
This panel aims to switch the focus from the micro-histories of individual families, to broader questions related to the intersection between family as a social institution and art practice in the early modern period. When we investigate families of artists as families—nodes of networks where the career of an individual was often part of broader group objectives—relevant questions arise: what strategies did inform career trajectories, and decisions? How did family politics contribute to the commercial success of artists? Which economic aspects regulated the operational routine of a family of artists? Did family members work independently, or did they contribute to common household objectives, especially in terms of financial achievements and social affirmation?
Furthermore, we propose to investigate the differences, similarities, and overlaps between family and workshop, and examine how training differed in a family, compared to a standard workshop, how family relations and networks influenced the organization of the work, and to what extent the roles within the household group tallied with the distribution of specific competences and responsibilities within the workshop.
We also aim to broaden the view and investigate the expansion of families, in relation to the workshop, for example through the adoption of pupils. Further topics could include: how family networks defined material and visual legacies (models, drawings), to be transferred to the offspring; how such networks influenced style, practice, transmission of knowledge and competences; how parents promoted the careers of their descendants; whether families of artists were different from families specialized in other businesses.
We invite papers from across disciplines that explore families of artists by focusing especially, but not exclusively, on the socio-economic aspects of their history, the mechanics of workshop organization, production system, and career development. We encourage, in particular, papers that cast light on lesser-known names, as well as on non-European contexts. Case studies as well as more theoretically driven papers are welcome.

Further topics might include, but are not limited to:
• Families of artists, compared to families in other trades/professions
• Families of artists in non-European contexts
• Family alliances
• Adoptive sons vs. bloodline
• Gender relationships
• Professional relations and kinship relations: advantage or problem?

Please submit your paper proposals to Francesco Freddolini, Luther College, University of Regina (francesco.freddoliniuregina.ca) and Giorgio Tagliaferro, University of Warwick (g.tagliaferrowarwick.ac.uk) by June 2, 2017.

Proposal should include:
• Name, affiliation, email address
• Paper title (max. 15 words)
• Abstract (max. 150 words)
• Keywords
• C.V. (max. 300 words; prose bios will not be accepted)

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[3] The Problem of Style in Fifteenth-Century Italian Art, RSA 2018

From: Robert Glass <rgglassbsu.edu>
Date: May 9, 2017
Subject: CFP: The Problem of Style in Fifteenth-Century Italian Art, RSA 2018

Deadline: May 26, 2017
This session examines artists and artworks that challenge conventional norms or narratives of style in fifteenth-century Italian art. Since the period itself, the quattrocento has been understood as a moment of stylistic revolution, in which new formal ideals replaced old. With the benefit of hindsight, art historians from Vasari onward have emphasized the innovations they saw as laying the foundations of academic art. Revolutions, however, are messy, and stylistic development in the fifteenth century was not as straightforward or unidimensional as such teleological narratives suggest.
We invite proposals for papers that explore the complexities of formal practices in quattrocento Italy and help define alternative narratives of style. Issues to be addressed might include:
• rethinking the Renaissance vs. Gothic binary
• rethinking the significance of textbook innovations, such as empirical naturalism, scientific perspective, or antiquity as formal model
• rethinking the relationship between humanist conceptions of literary style and the visual arts
• patronage and style; style and self-fashioning
• style in regional traditions or in centers vs. peripheries
• style in relation to medium and technique, subject matter, or site
Please email proposals to both Robert Glass (rgglassbsu.edu) and David Drogin (david_droginfitnyc.edu) by Friday, May 26.

As per RSA guidelines, proposals should include the following: paper title (15-word maximum), abstract (150-word maximum), keywords, and a very brief curriculum vitae (300-word maximum)