CAA Annual Conference, Chicago, February 12 - 15, 2014 Paper proposal
deadline: May 6, 2013

Session: The Absent Image

Session chair: Michelle C. Wang, Georgetown University,
mcw57georgetown.edu

From Zhang Yanyuan’s Record of Famous Painters of Successive Dynasties
(847) to Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Eminent Italian
Architects, Painters, and Sculptors (1550), histories of art teem with
accounts of artworks that no longer exist. This panel examines the
uses and values of absent images for the history of art by exploring
how writings about them have informed our perceptions of art and
society in particular historical moments. How may we progress beyond
using such writings in purely documentary fashion or as sources in
need of independent verification? What is the status of lost artworks
in a discipline that deals from the outset with the visible and the
tangible? Seeking a platform for cross-cultural and comparative
dialogue, this panel seeks proposals from scholars in any field or
period of art history for papers that investigate the problems and
potential of studying art historical writings that address absent
images.

Please submit a completed session participation proposal form, 1-2 pp.
double-spaced abstract, letter of interest, and CV to:
mcw57georgetown.edu.

For the full 2014 Call for Participation (and session participation
proposal form), please see:
http://www.collegeart.org/proposals/2014callforparticipation.