Renaissance Society of America, Annual Meeting
New York, 27-29 March 2014

Session sponsored by the Italian Art Society

This session proposes to examine the realities of sculptors’ lives (1250-1500) and the factors that determined the appearance of the sculpture they produced. Papers are welcomed that address the following issues: the social status and reputation of the sculptor; their training and organization in workshop and guild; how they made a living as employees or entrepreneurs, the roles of patrons and employers, and of contracts, drawings and models in the manufacturing process. As regards the sculpture, speakers might consider the following: the advantages, disadvantages, popularity and prestige of different media (e.g. bronze, marble, wood) or examine how the appearance of an artist’s work changed depending on the medium employed; the factors that affected its appearance (e.g. the sculptor’s training, his travels, his need to adapt to local taste or to the audience for whom the work was made); tradition and innovation in the choice of subjects across the period; the display of sculpture at various sites (e.g. city portals, the town square, the home); the materiality and connotations of sculpture in various media and the language used by contemporaries (e.g. laymen, priests and poets) to describe, eulogize or condemn it; and the purposes that sculpture served and how people responded and behaved towards it (e.g. crying, laughing or kissing it, decorating or mutilating it).
The above are only suggestions, they are not meant to be prescriptive. Consideration will be given to any proposal that addresses the general theme.

Please submit a 150-word abstract and one-page CV to Brendan Cassidy at bfc1st-andrews.ac.uk by May 25, 2013.