Call for Papers

After conferences at the Museum Schnütgen, Köln (2003), the Wallace
Collection, London (2004), the Musée du château de Modave (2005) and the
city museums of Mechelen (2006), we invite you to an

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE AT MONS
7-9 March 2008
(immediately after the opening of the TEFAF Fair at Maastricht)

RENAISSANCE SCULPTURE OF THE LOW COUNTRIES
FROM THE CENTURY OF JACQUES DU BROEUCQ (C. 1505-84)

In the Low Countries, the 16th century was a period of great change, at
society level with the Reformation, iconoclasm and the
Counter-Reformation and at artistic level with the renaissance of
antique motifs and themes and a raised social status for artists.
The history of Low Countries sculpture of the 16th century has
principally been written in the form of important artists' monographs.
In court circles and by the middle of the 16th century, these artists
would have taken over from the large sculpture workshops, especially
those producing polychromed and gilded wooden altarpieces. This history
was mostly written in-between the two World Wars, in the margin of the
history of early netherlandish painting and Italian Renaissance
sculpture. These writings created a system of paradigms, rooted in
stylistic analysis that today we have great difficulty in understanding,
let alone accepting. We could call this system the " discourse of
influence ".

The present conference wishes to discuss the pertinence of this state of
knowledge and create links that might lead to a less fragmented overall
view than the one we have today. Our current view is admittedly the
fruit of a lack of archival material, destroyed by the iconoclasts, the
revolutionaries or wars, but also and especially of the traditional
methods of art history, that still condition much of our perception of
the 16th century, particularly as to its sculpture.

The number and quality of the research, applying all the current
methodologies of art history, carried out in several European and
American museums and universities (e.g. think of the work on Jacques Du
Broeucq), is such that it can form a good starting point for an
integrative reflection on sculpture and architectural sculpture in the
Low Countries in the 16th century, their imports and exports.
The length of time offered for the research and writing of the papers
should allow the speakers to engage in novel researches and to let their
thoughts ripen.

Some of the following questions and issues may form starting points,
though they are of course not limitative :
- Gothic into Renaissance : changes in attitudes to sculpture, its
materials, its colours, its textures
- Wooden altarpieces and the Renaissance : changes in taste, in
production processes and patronage
- The introduction of the Italian Renaissance in the Low Countries : its
protagonists (Lambert Lombard, Conrat Meit, Du Broeucq, Pieter Coecke
van Aelst, etc.) and its routes (France, Spain,...)
- Sculptural production : continuity and innovation, drawings, models
and workshop practice
- New and renewed materials : the example of bronze, its protagonists
both at home and abroad (Van Tetrode, Giambologna, Gerhard, De Vries,
etc.)
- Architectural sculpture : the importance of architects and
architectural treatises; the versatility of court artists
- Iconoclasm, war and conservation : how they affect our current
definitions and redefinitions of 16th-century sculpture in the Low
Countries
- The principal artists concerned are (non-limitative list!) : Jan
Borreman, Guyot de Beaugrant, Adriaen de Vries, Jacques Du Broeucq,
Cornelis Floris, Hubert Gerhard, Giambologna, Jacob Jonghelinck, Daniel
Mauch, Conrat Meit, Jan Mone, Willem Paludanus, Claus Sluter, Willem van
Tetrode.
- Initiators and followers : the concept applied to the context studied
here and its limitations
- European comparisons on methodological level (France, Spain,
Germany,...)

PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME
(Thursday 6 March 2008, noon-11 pm, official opening of the TEFAF Fair
at Maastricht)
(Friday 7 March 2008, 11 am-7 pm, first public day of the TEFAF)
Friday 7 March 2008, 7 pm, Keynote Lecture by Professor Ethan Matt
Kavaler, University of Toronto
Saturday 8 March 2008, 10 am-6.30 pm, papers and discussions; 8 pm
concert
Sunday 9 March 2008, 10 am-2.30 pm, papers and discussions; 3 pm-6 pm
optional excursion

PUBLICATION OF THE PROCEEDINGS
Organised by LCS (in collaboration with a professionnal publisher)

CALL FOR PAPERS
For 30 min-papers in the form of a 300-word abstract and a brief CV (of
a few lignes), to be submitted to the Organising Committee via the
Secretariat of the Society (addresses below, preferably by email) by 28
February 2007. The Organising Committee will convene at the beginning
of March to establish the programme.

ORGANISING COMMITTEE
Prof Dr Dominique Allart, Université de Liège
Dr Charles Avery, London
Marcel Capouillez, Château de Boussu
Prof Dr ir arch Krista De Jonge, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Michel De Reymaeker, Musées de la Ville de Mons
Dr Jean-Pierre De Rycke, Athens
Prof Dr Ria Fabri, Universiteit Antwerpen
Professor Ethan Matt Kavaler, University of Toronto
Léon Lock, University College London/The Low Countries Sculpture Society
Prof Dr Ludovic Nys, Université de Valenciennes
Dr Nicholas Penny, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Myriam Serck, Institut royal du Patrimoine artistique, Brussels
Benoît Van Caenegem, Collégiale Sainte-Waudru, Mons (tbc)
Prof Dr Yvette Vanden Bemden, Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la
Paix, Namur

The Low Countries Sculpture Society
POBox 1304, B-1000 Brussels 1, Belgium
infolowcountriessculpture.org
www.lowcountriessculpture.org