CALL FOR PAPERS:

"Current Perspectives on Manuscript Illumination in Late Medieval Paris"

Session to be held at the 2008 College Art Association (CAA)

Conference, Dallas, 20-23 February

Sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA)

Session Chair: Gregory T. Clark, University of the South

Between 1967 and 1974, Millard Meiss published the first comprehensive
history of Parisian manuscript illumination in the late fourteenth and
early fifteenth centuries. There Meiss ascribed the miniatures in the
hundreds of surviving manuscripts to ateliers led by a handful of known
individuals and by a much larger number of anonymous souls whose names of
convenience are still employed today. Meiss' three magisterial volumes in
five provided both the foundation and a partial template for the equally
groundbreaking efforts of such late twentieth-century specialists as John
Plummer, François Avril, and Nicole Reynaud.

In 2000, the husband-and-wife team of Richard and Mary Rouse produced a
two-volume study on the late medieval Parisian book trade. While earlier
scholars had built their arguments largely on the basis of connoisseurship,
the Rouses concerned themselves exclusively with such primary evidence as
tax records, inventories, colophons, and the like. These reveal that book
painters were just one group of specialized craftspeople involved in the
making of illuminated manuscripts, Their contributions were most often
orchestrated by entrepreneurial booksellers (libraires) who frequently
determined which artisans worked together in any given codex. Parisian
manuscripts thus emerge from the Rouses¹ study as collaborative efforts
that defy most modernist (and many postmodernist) notions of authorship.

ICMA's proposed session for the 2008 College Art meetings in Dallas will
focus on how early twenty-first-century students of late medieval Parisian
book illumination are evaluating and responding to the scholarship of the
last third of the twentieth century. Is connoisseurship still a crucial
scholarly skill today? In what ways have the more recent archival and
documentary investigations altered ­ perhaps in fundamental ways ­ our
understanding of the art of this period? How do current approaches
complement or diverge from those of our predecessors? The purpose of the
session is to present the widest possible range of current methodological
approaches to a flourishing field of study that our late twentieth-century
forebears effectively invented.

DEADLINE FOR PAPER PROPOSALS: 11 MAY 2007

Paper proposals should consist of the following:
1. Completed session participant proposal form (available at:
http://conference.collegeart.org/2008/)
2. Preliminary abstract of one to two double-spaced, typed pages
3. Letter explaining speaker's interest, expertise in the topic, and
membership status in both the CAA (the conference organization) and the
ICMA (the sponsoring organization)
4. CV with home and office mailing addresses, e-mail address, and phone
number
5. A stamped, self-addressed postcard for confirmation that the proposal
has been received

ALL PROPOSALS AND INQUIRIES SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO: Gregory T. Clark,
University of the South; mail to Gregory T. Clark, 735 University
Avenue, Sewanee, TN 37383, e-mail: gclarksewanee.edu

For information about the International Center of Medieval Art:
http://www.medievalart.org
Posted by Stephen Perkinson, Chair, ICMA Programs and Lectures
Committee (sperkinsbowdoin.edu)