Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Call for Papers: Push Me, Pull You: Art and Devotional Interaction in Late
Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Deadline: August 31, 2007

Late Medieval and Early Modern art was sometimes pushy. Its architecture
demanded that people move through certain passages, its sculptures played
elaborate games alternating between concealment and revelation, and its
paintings charged viewers with moving visually through two dimensions,
simulating imaginative pilgrimage journeys. The viewers of this period were
meant to push back, interacting with artwork in a performative manner,
while gaining insight into religious belief and their own reactions to
these demanding works of art. In recent years, scholars have begun to
investigate the many ways in which people interacted with artwork of this
period. Far from sitting back as spectators, viewers were often involved
in a physical and imaginative relationship with art, and artists and
architects designed their work with this in mind. This volume seeks to
bring further attention to how interactive artwork functioned in the late
medieval and early modern periods.

Scheduled to be published by Brill Academic Press, Leiden, in 2009, we are
looking for essays that explore interactive artwork: architecture,
sculpture, metalwork, manuscript illumination, painting, etc., all are
welcome.
Please send a 1-page (or less) abstract to:

Sarah Blick
Department of Art History
Bailey House 4, Kenyon College
Gambier, OH 43022
blickskenyon.edu

and

Laura Gelfand
Myers School of Art
The University of Akron
Akron, OH 44325-7801
lgelfanuakron.edu

by August 31, 2007