Criminal Intent: Lawlessness and Artistic Genius

In an 1859 Gazette des Beaux Arts article celebrating the sincerity and
piety of the anonymous French medieval sculptor, Viollet-le-Duc noted that
modern artists deliberately pursued a criminal record to gain notoriety.
An appearance in the police blotters, he lamented, led to fame.
Viollet-le-Duc singled out Benvenuto Cellini as the culprit who
popularized this method, but his criticism could apply equally well to
Caravaggio or Salvator Rosa, artists-historiographically speaking-famous
for glamorizing criminal behavior. How conscious was the "cultivation" of
a criminal persona for these Early Modern pioneers? What models did they
have? How did later artists model themselves on their example? How has
lawlessness, both in deed and as an idea, become an accepted-even
expected-characteristic of the Modern artist? When did the symmetry
between breaking rules in art and the commission of criminal acts become a
topos in art and art historiography? This discussion can be expanded to
include other episodes of lawbreaking in an artistic context: libel,
theft, forgery, graffiti, destruction or defacement of property, etc. The
session will include papers from any period that address these important
questions.

Deadline for proposal submissions, May 14, 2004. Please send cv and 1-2
page proposal to:

Prof. David M. Stone
Dept. of Art History
318 Old College
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716
USA
Email: dmstone2000comcast.net

As well as to:

Prof. Victoria C. Gardner Coates
Dept. of the History of Art
Jaffe Bldg.
3405 Woodland Walk
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelpha, PA 19104-6208
USA
Email: vcoatesattglobal.net

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