Western Europe on the Move: Mobilities, Networks, and Artistic Productions (14th-17th Centuries).
KIK-IRPA Art History Seminar nr. 25.

Between the late 14th and 16th centuries, Western Europe experienced an intensification of mobility that profoundly transformed artistic and cultural practices. The movements of artists, craftsmen, clergy, merchants, and intellectuals all contributed to the dissemination and reshaping of knowledge, models, and techniques. Far from coming to an end at the dawn of the modern era, these dynamics persisted and evolved in an increasingly interconnected European and extra-European context.

Princely courts were among the principal hubs of these mobilities, attracting creators from diverse backgrounds and fostering the emergence of transregional styles such as the International Gothic—an art of courts shaped by the political and cultural ambitions of the elites. Ecclesiastical networks, supported by their institutional structures, also played a key role in the circulation of people and works. In addition to these well-known vectors, merchants acted as crucial intermediaries: attentive to patrons’ tastes and local specificities, they encouraged the movement of artists and accompanied the rise of a genuine art market in the second half of the 15th century.

Other networks likewise contributed to these dynamics: workshops and artistic communities ensured the continuity of skills, while foreign residents in cities—sometimes organized into confraternities, such as the so-called “German Brotherhood” in Barcelona as early as the 1490s—played a decisive role in integration and the transmission of practices.

This study day aims to explore these mobilities and the structures that sustained them, in order to better understand how their intensification at the end of the Middle Ages—and their continuation into the modern period—helped shape the European cultural landscape in lasting ways.

Organisers : Elsa Espín, Eduardo Lamas, Christophe Masson

Scientific Committee : Elsa Espín, Eduardo Lamas, Christophe Masson,
Géraldine Patigny, Oskar J. Rojewki, Federica Veratelli.

PROGRAMME

Morning

9.00 - Welcome

9.30 - Introduction

Session 1: Courtly and Ecclesiastical Networks as Vectors of Mobility | Chair : Christophe Masson (F.R.S.-FNRS / ULiège)

9.45 - In the shadow of the Farnese. The flemish painting collection of the National Gallery of Parma | Jasmine Habcy (Università degli Studi di Ferrara) & Luigi Bello (Università di Parma)

10.00 - « Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam »: the Jesuits and the Migration of Artists and Artworks Between the Iberian World and the Low Countries | Eduardo Lamas (KIK-IRPA / ULB)

10.15 - Le sculpteur anversois Thomas Quellinuis et le royaume du Danemark | Wendy Frère (Fondation Périer-d’Ieteren)

10.30 - Discussion

11.00 - Coffee break

Session 2: Merchant Circulations and Cultural Exchanges | Chair : Oskar J. Rojewki (UNED Madrid)

11.15 - Merchants and consuls and the mobility of art : some less known examples of the 14th and the 15th centuries | Ronald van Belle (Koninklijke Academie voor Archeologie en Kunstgeschiedenis van België)

11.30 - Structures of Support: The Confraternity of Saint Barbara and the Migration of Northern Europeans to Fifteenth-Century Florence | William Torbeyns (VUB)

11.45 - "Gifts From Afar": The Magi and a Visual Culture of Trade, 1400-1600 | Melis Avkiran (KIK-IRPA / UCLouvain)

12.00 - Discussion

12.30 - Lunch break

Afternoon

13.30 - Continuation

Session 3: Traveling Professionals (part. 1) | Chair: Valentine Henderiks (ULB)

13.45 - Circulations et trajectoires artistiques dans le Midi toulousain (1460-1520) | Aurélia Cohendy (Musée du Louvre)

14.00 - Réseaux de circulation et ancrages locaux : les médiateurs de la mobilité du peintre brabançon Ayne Bru autour de 1500 | Elsa Espín (ULB – Fondation Périer-D’Ieteren / CY Cergy Paris Université)

14.15 - Réseaux, acteurs et dynamiques professionnelles au sein des ateliers Renaissance dans le sud de la péninsule Ibérique | María Teresa Rodríguez Bote (Universidad de Valladolid)

14.45 - Discussion

15.15 - Coffee break

Session 4: Traveling Professionals (part. 2) | Chair: Ralph Dekoninck (UCLouvain)

15.30 - Maître Hodart à Coimbra en 1530 : pérégrinations d’un terracottiste français dans la péninsule ibérique au début de l’époque moderne | Jean-Marie Guillouët (Université de Bourgogne)

15.45 - Jérôme du Quesnoy le Jeune (1602-1654) : mobilités artistiques entre Bruxelles, Rome et l’Espagne, et leur empreinte sur la sculpture baroque | Géraldine Patigny (KIK-IRPA / ULB)

16.00 - Discussion

16.30 - Closing remarks | Laure Fagnart (F.R.S.-FNRS / ULiège)

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Event Location:
Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
Campus Solbosch
Block S, room 15. 331
Brussels

Registration online is required : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfa3N6B96J7OKw0DJBCIwGei9klvuOI1q561FZLxmwDlvWEpg/viewform

Contact: eduardo.lamaskikirpa.be