Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting.

[1] Beyond the Painter-Architect. Exploring Art and Architecture as Integrated Practices
From: Livia Lupi
Date: May 21, 2024
Deadline: Jul 5, 2024

This session explores the intersection of art and architectural practice in Renaissance Europe. In art historical literature, this dynamic is embodied by the ‘painter-architect,’ a definition epitomised by outstanding figures such as Raphael, Baldassarre Peruzzi, Pieter Coecke van Aelst or Lambert Lombard. But what about other craftsmen who also performed as architects and who were initially trained as sculptors or as metal or woodworkers? What were the social and professional conditions that enabled them to perform across crafts? The session problematises the ‘painter-architect’ as an art historical category, questioning the disciplinary gap between art and architectural history by investigating the fluidity of practice across architecture and the figurative arts. It aims to shed new light on craft in the early modern period, exploring the emergence of the architect as a new professional to better understand the value of architectural forms (be they two- or three-dimensional) as a kind of cultural currency. The session is linked to the digital exhibition Beyond the Painter-Architect: Artists Reinventing Architecture in Renaissance Italy (Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, autumn 2024).

Topics may include but are not limited to:
- Key figures performing across architecture and the arts (e.g. Giotto, Baldassarre Peruzzi, Francesco di Giorgio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Pietro and Tullio Lombardo, Wensel Cobergher, Hans Vredeman de Vries, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Lambert Lombard)
- Shared strategies of architectural representation (perspectival and isometric views, copying, model books, ruins, cityscapes, mapmaking)
- Architectural ornament and sculpture
- Materiality (e.g. real and fictive marble)
- Architectural theory versus practice
- Artists’ networks enabling transfer of knowledge
- Historiographical approaches on the disciplinary gap between art and architectural history
- Architectural training
- The social and professional status of the architect

Proposals should include the paper’s title (max 15 words), an abstract (max 200 words) and a one-page CV. Please send your material to Livia Lupi: livia.lupiwarwick.ac.uk

Proposal deadline: 5 July 2024
Notification date: 19 July 2024