Call for Papers

NEW APPROACHES TO MEDIEVAL MONUMENTAL SCULPTURE

42nd Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo (Michigan), May 10-13, 2007

Session sponsored by the
International Center of Medieval Art

Organizers:
Jacqueline E. Jung, University of California, Berkeley
Gerhard Lutz, Dom-Museum Hildesheim

The last thirty years have witnessed fundamental changes in research on
medieval sculpture. Until the 1960s, the field was dominated by approaches
that focused on either style (as represented by Erwin Panofsky’s 1924 tome
on Die deutsche Plastik des 11. bis 13. Jahrhunderts and Meyer Schapiro’s
analyses of Romanesque sculpture) or iconography (under the influence of
Émile Mâle’s interpretations of French Gothic portals). New aspects arose
in the wake of larger disciplinary changes in the 1970s and ‘80s;
although concentrating on sculptural works not attached to architecture,
Michael Baxandall’s 1980 study The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance
Germany exemplifies in many respects the interests and methods that have
come to shape contemporary studies. Technical questions have moved
increasingly into the foreground, prompting discussion not only of the
factors of economy and patronage that contributed to the creation of
sculpted images but also of the artist’s workshop conditions. Removing
sculptures from the isolation of purely stylistic analysis, scholars have
given increasing attention to the political and intellectual factors
behind an image’s design as well as to the devotional beliefs and
practices that animated the image for historical viewers.
Yet even as we have sought to enrich our understanding of the artifact’s
meaning through such contextualization, the unique formal properties of
sculpture as a three-dimensional medium, so crucial to scholars from
Panofsky to Baxandall, have slipped increasingly from view.
If methodological questions were hotly debated in the art history of the
1970s and 80s, scholars of medieval monumental sculpture now find
themselves in a sea of (relative) tranquillity. In North America, this
takes the form, paradoxically, of an almost total neglect of sculpture –
its placement, functions, tactile properties and the modes of perception
it requires – in favour of manuscript painting and the text-image
problems, narrative structures, and devotional functions peculiar to that
medium. By contrast, sculpture remains central to European medievalism;
along with the numerous case studies still being produced there, which
sometimes display novel methodological perspectives, scholarship abroad
has also pursued important new research avenues barely touched upon in
the English-speaking world – for example, the German “Bildwissenschaft”
championed by Hans Belting and Horst
Bredekamp, which treats the work of art as an embodied, communicative “
medium” whose material presence is inextricable from its socially and
psychically constructive function. The time is ripe to build bridges
between these two sides – to pull together the methodological
developments of the preceding decades on both sides of the Atlantic, to
look closely at the current state of research on medieval sculpture, and
to open up new avenues for future research. We invite both seasoned
scholars and younger art historians from all countries and with various
methodological backgrounds to contribute their perspectives, whether in
the form of case studies that take seriously their own methodological
relevance or broader overviews of the issues involved in studying figural
arts in three dimensions.

Deadline for the submission of paper proposals: September 15, 2006
The ICMA requires that participants in sponsored sessions be a member at
the time that they deliver the paper. Submissions require a 300 word
abstract, and an abstract cover sheet available at
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/42cfp/forms.html.

Contact: Jacqueline Jung, Dept. of History of Art, 416 Doe Library,
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6020; Tel.:
510-642-0335; FAX: 510-643-2185;
E-Mail: jejungberkeley.edu
Gerhard Lutz, Dom-Museum Hildesheim, Domhof 4, D-31134 Hildesheim, Fax:
+49 5121 1791644, E-Mail: gflutzaol.com

All proposals should be sent to:
Stephen Perkinson
Bowdoin College
Art Dept.
9300 College Station
Brunswick, ME 04011
Phone: (wk) 207-798-7080
Fax: 207-725-3996
E-mail: sperkinsbowdoin.edu