The purpose of this workshop is to reconsider the traditional conception of pictorial space in Western art from the Late Middle Ages to the Early Renaissance, in the fourteenth, fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. How might we bring a more material and social significance to such an abstract consideration as perspective?

Pictorial space was a pivotal area of art historical research from the early to mid-twentieth century. After Panofsky’s „Die Perspektive als ‘symbolische Form'" was published in 1927 by the Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg, a number of art historians, from Otto Pächt to John White, made pictorial space the main focus of their study. They sought to determine the means by which artists on both sides of the Alps represented the third dimension on a two-dimensional surface. As such, pictorial space became an alternate avenue of art historical interpretation at a time of iconographic and connoisseurial dominance. Today pictorial space, as practised by these eminent twentieth-century scholars, can appear somewhat outmoded, divorced from more material and social questions. We hope to examine the rich legacy of this school of thought and re-integrate it with twenty-first-century scholarly concerns.

This one-day workshop provides participants with opportunities to explore their own ‘perspectives’ on pictorial space in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance art through presentation and discussion. The event is free and open to all.

Programme

9:15-9:30
Opening remarks by Niko Munz (University of York)
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Session 1: Theory
Chaired by Jeroen Stumpel (Utrecht University)
9:30- 9:50
Joost Joustra (The National Gallery, London): De pictura and the Patristic Renaissance
9:50-10:10
Valentina Cacopardo (The Warburg Institute): Experiencing Imaginative Pictorial Space: Memory and Oblivion in the Illuminations of the Anonymous Manuscript Di l’Artifitial Memoria (ca 1450-70)
10:10-10:30
Livia Lupi (University of Warwick): Perspectiva and Prospectiva. Space and the Representation of Architecture in Early Renaissance Italy
10:30-10:50
Discussion
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10:50-11:10
Tea and coffee
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Session 2: Content
Chaired by Machtelt Brüggen Israëls (University of Amsterdam)
11:10-11:30
Péter Bokody (University of Plymouth): Embedded Images in Perspective
11:30-11:50
Isabella Augart (University of Hamburg): Paths. Along the way in Quattrocento Landscape Painting
11:50-12:10
Ang Li (University of Oxford): The Allure of the Landscape in Renaissance Painting
12:10-12:30
Hugo van der Velden (University of Amsterdam): Masters of the Land: Landscape and Lordship in the Très Riches Heures and the Turin-Milan Hours
12:30-13:00
Discussion
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13:00-14:20
Sandwich lunch
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Session 3: Media
Chaired by Victor M. Schmidt (Utrecht University)
14:20-14:40
Nicholas Herman (University of Pennsylvania): The Painterly Page: Pictorial Space Illuminated, 1440–1520
14:40-15:00
Hubert Baija (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam): Early Framed Pictorial Spaces from the Netherlands
15:00-15:20
Ashley Elston (Berea College): Space and the Early Modern Italian Multimedia Altarpiece
15:20-15:40
Christopher Lakey (Johns Hopkins University): The Space of Gold
15:40-16:10
Discussion
–
16:10-16:30
Tea and coffee
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Keynote Lecture
Introduced by Sumihiro Oki (University of Amsterdam)
16:30-17:30
Christopher Heuer (University of Rochester): Dürer and the Interval
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17:30-17:45
Closing remarks by Charley Ladee (Utrecht University/University of Amsterdam)
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17:45-
Reception

Organisers:
Sumihiro Oki (University of Amsterdam)
Niko Munz (University of York)
Charley Ladee (Utrecht University / University of Amsterdam)

PictorialSpaceWorkshop @ gmail.com

Venue:
Universiteitsbibliotheek C1.13 (Belle van Zuylenzaal), Singel 421-427, 1012 WP Amsterdam

Generously funded by the Amsterdam School of Historical Studies, University of Amsterdam