CALL FOR PAPERS

Making, selling, seeing:
The production and experience of relief in the Renaissance
Henry Moore Institute, Friday 4 March 2005

To coincide with the exhibition Depth of Field: The Place of Relief in the
Time of Donatello (27 September 2004-28 March 2005), a collaboration
between the Henry Moore Institute and the Victoria & Albert Museum, this
conference looks at the relief between the 14th and 16th centuries. The
conference seeks to explore the place of the relief in daily life during
the Renaissance - how it was made, experienced and encountered - in order
to get a sense of how, and why, this particular form of artistic
production flourished in such varied and innovative ways at this time.
Relief was used extensively to ornament the surfaces of a diverse range of
objects, including domestic goods, religious and ceremonial objects,
books, seals and medals. Its remarkable proliferation was reflected in the
breadth of production practiced by individual artists and workshops; in
the exhibition, this diversity is represented by showing Donatello's
unique Ascension relief alongside a mass-produced 'Street' Madonna,
thought to be designed by Donatello for replication. These different types
of objects can tell us about inherent intersections between 'high' and
'low', between 'fine' art and decoration, both as understood then and now,
as well as informing broader contexts, such as cultural influences, local
and export markets, social structures, artistic practice, and aesthetic
preferences.

We welcome submissions that deal with these and related issues from
different perspectives and hope to bring together a range of disciplines
that, in addition to the history of sculpture and decorative arts, could
touch upon cultural, economic and social history.

Please email proposals of around 400 words to lizhenry-moore.ac.uk.
Deadline 14 June 2004