Call for Papers

Dear Colleagues,

Please find our description for the ICMA-sponsored panel, "Practical
and Theoretical Geometry in Medieval Art", for the 2009 International
Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, MI).

Please send abstracts to clakeyberkeley.edu and karlwhittingtonberkeley.edu
by September 15, 2008.

Practical and Theoretical Geometry in Medieval Art
In the Middle Ages, the discovery of the geometric structure within
all created objects was often seen as evidence for God's presence in
the physical world; similarly, opticians revealed the geometric basis
for human vision as a reflection of the divine. Writers from the mid-
twelfth century through the fourteenth made a clear distinction
between geometry's practical and theoretical uses. In turn, the
practical application of geometry in architecture, cartography, and
the mechanical arts was balanced against a more theoretical approach,
as in representations of the divine in texts, diagrams and pictures.

This session investigates links between geometric, optical, or spatial-
perspectival inquiries and their relationship to medieval
representation. Papers could address questions such as: How did
geometry influence medieval conceptions and representations of space,
both pictorial and architectonic? What evidence exists that suggests a
link between newly translated Arabic theories of optics in the
medieval west and the pictorial arts? How did the geometry of medieval
diagrams influence pictorial representation? With this session, we
hope to begin a dialogue concerning geometry's centrality for
conceptions of medieval representation in a range of media.