2012 Lovis Corinth Colloquium

Thursday, February 16: Reception Hall, Michael C. Carlos Museum
Friday, February 17: Candler School of Theology 252
Saturday, February 18: Reception Hall, Michael C. Carlos Museum

'Ab historia proprie figurativa: Visual Images as Exegetical
Instruments, 1400-1700'

Organizers: Walter Melion and Michel Weemans

Exegesis is the systematic interpretation of Scripture, the word of
God, with reference to the authoritative sources– the Latin
translation of the Bible known as the Vulgate of Saint Jerome, the
sermons and exegetical treatises of the Greek and Latin Fathers,
commentaries such as the Glossa ordinaria, theological summae by
churchmen such as the scholastic exegete Thomas Aquinas, and readings
promulgated by conciliar and papal decree. In the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, scholars trained in humanist philology
scrutinized the scriptural source texts, placing pressure upon, if not
quite questioning, the singular authority of the Latine Vulgate; the
new vernacular translations of the Bible that began to proliferate,
expanding access to the Word, often implicitly questioned the standard
readings of the Old and New Testaments, as well as positing
alternative conceptions of the hermeneutic relation between the
Pentateuch, the prophets, the Gospels, and the Epistles. In this
complicated process of reappraisal and dissemination, pictorial images
came increasingly to be utilized as instruments of scriptural
interpretation. Our volume asks how and why such images were seen to
function as legitimate means of biblical understanding within systems
of visual exegesis that operated in tandem with scriptural texts or
alternatively, invoked or substituted for the absent text, mediating
one's access to scriptural truths.

The colloquium includes scholars from a wide spectrum of disciplines,
including art history, history, literature, religion, and theology, as
well as book history and emblematics. Among the issues we aim to
examine are the following: the proliferation of previously
unillustrated subjects from the Old and New Testaments; the
development of new systems of analogy and typology, complementary or
alternative to the canons codified in the Biblia pauperum, Speculum
humanae salvationis, and Historia scholastica; the paratextual and
commentatorial status of printed images in vernacular Bibles and newly
edited versions of the Vulgate; the heuristic form and function of
biblical exempla in independent prints and paintings, such as the many
images that urge the beholder to consider the nature and meaning of
prophetic and Christian parables; and the development of scriptural
emblematics as a meditative hermeneutic.

Co-edited by Walter Melion and Michel Weemans, the edited proceedings
of the colloquium will appear in 2013 as a volume in the series
Intersections (Leiden: Brill).

Speakers

Nathalie de Brézé
"From Putti to Angels: The Celestial Creatures in Otto Vaenius'
Paintings and Emblems"

Giovanni Careri
"Typology at its Limits: Visual Exegesis and Eschatology in the Sistine
Chapel"

Joseph Chorpenning
"Lectio divina and Francis de Sales' Picturing of the Interconnection
of Human and Divine Hearts"

James Clifton
"Modes of Scriptural Illustration: The Beatitudes in the Late
Sixteenth Century"

Maria Deiters
"Illumination of Images and Illumination through the Image: Functions
and Concepts of Gospel Illustrations in the Bible of the Nuremberg
Patrician Martin Pfinzing"

Dagmar Eichberger
"Early Modern Rulers in the Light of the Old Testament: The Case of
François-Hercule de Valois (1555-1584) and the Nethelands"¬

Reindert Falkenburg
"The Geography of the Mind: Cave Art and Hieronymus Bosch—a
Connection?"

Ingrid Falque
"'See, the Bridegroom Cometh; Go Out to Meet Him.' On Spiritual
Progress and Mystical Union in Early Netherlandish Painting"

Wim François
"Typology — Back with a vengeance! Text, Images, and Marginal Glosses
in Vorsterman's 1534 Dutch Bible"

Agnès Guiderdoni
"Exegetical Immersion: Building Sanctified Space on the Occasion of
François de Sales' Canonization (1665-1667)"

Barbara Haeger
"Rubens' Christ Triumphant over Sin and Death: Unveiling the Glory of
God"

Ulrich Heinen
"Explicatio — Explaining the Bible in Paintings. Rubens' Title-Page
for Balthasar Cordier's Catena sexaginta quinque Graecarum Patrum in
S. Lucam"

Alexander Linke
"Vasari and the 'Transfiguration of Christ': Converging the Testaments
and Connecting with Predecessors"

Walter Melion
"From Jesuit Mariology to Inter-Confessional Christology: Visual
Exegesis and the Mystery of the Incarnation in Cornelis Cort's
Annunciation of 1571 and Jacob Matham's Nativity of 1588"

Jürgen Müller
"The Paradox as a Form of Image— Reflections on the Iconography of
Pieter Bruegel the Elder"

Birgit Münch
"Christ amidst Grotesque Emblematics: The Salus generis humani of
Aegidius Sadeler II after
Joris Hoefnagel and Hans von Aachen (1590)"

Colette Nativel
"Painting and Devotion to the Wounds of Christ in Early Modern
Netherlandish Art"

Shelley Perlove
"'The glory of this last house shall become greater than the first …
(Haggai 2:9)': Rembrandt, Christ, and the Jerusalem Temple"

Todd Richardson
"Hemessen's Hands"

Bret Rothstein
"Empathy as a Type of Early Netherlandish Visual Wit"

Tatiana Senkevitch
"Seeing Dreaming: Philippe de Champaigne's Images of Revelation"

Larry Silver
"Prince of War: Bruegel's Old (and New) Testament Despots"

Jamie L. Smith
"Jan van Eyck's Typology of Spiritual Knighthood in The Madonna with
Canon Van der Paele"

Michel Weemans
"Expanded Typology and the Book of Nature: Herri met de Bles'
Landscape and Visual Exegesis"

Elliott Wise
"Rogier van der Weyden and Jan van Ruusbroec: Reading, Rending, and
Re-Fashioning the 'Twice-Dyed' Veil of Blood in the Escorial
Crucifixion"

The definite schedule will be posted to the Emory Art History website:
http://arthistory.emory.edu/home/news/events.html

Contacts for the Lovis Corinth Colloquium:
Dr. Walter S. Melion (wsmelioemory.edu)
Elliott Wise (edwiseemory.edu).