International Symposium:

Early Modern Religious Images and the Margins of Art

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid / Thyssen Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
Thursday 22 April 2010- Saturday, 24 April 2010

In the early modern period, the nature of religious images came under heated
debate. The authors of the Reformation, and subsequently the leaders of the
Catholic Reformation, argued over the growing power of images and developed
different strategies to control them. While this polemic illustrates the schism
between Rome and Protestant Europe, it also sheds light on the challenges faced
by the long-standing tradition of religious images - indeed, dominant until the
High Middle Ages - when new discourses about Art began to emerge. Far from
disappearing, this tension informs the artistic production of a great many
works during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Aesthetic function found new
ways of coexisting with the devotional and cult status of religious images. In
Italy, Spain, and Spanish America, and in a general way within the Catholic
Church, this hybrid nature of religious images was visualized in the
competition or paragone between sacred and artistic images, between painting
and sculpture, and ultimately between Art and life.

This symposium will analyze the inherent paradox that defines religious images
from a variety of methodological perspectives. Beyond examining these types of
works, it will also address the hermeneutic challenges that their study
presents to Art History.

Organized by the Research Group En las fronteras de las imágenes:
consideraciones metodológicas y fuentes para el estudio de la imagen religiosa
en la Europa Moderna, Departament of History and Theory of Art, Universidad
Autónoma de Madrid (Spain)

For further details and inscriptions see:
http://www.uam.es/centros/filoyletras/convocatorias/Anuncio_Simposio.pdf