Appel à communication : « All in the Family: Northern European Artistic Dynasties, ca. 1350–1750 » (Los Angeles, 21-24 février 2018)

Proposals are being accepted for the Historians of Netherlandish Art Sponsored Session at the College Art Association Annual Conference (Los Angeles, Feb. 21–24, 2018):

« All in the Family: Northern European Artistic Dynasties, ca. 1350–1750 »

In early modern northern Europe, many artists followed fathers, uncles, brothers, sisters, and spouses into the family business of art-making. From the Netherlandish brothers Herman, Pol, and Jean de Limbourg, to the Vischer family of sculptors in Nuremberg, to the Teniers dynasty of Flemish painters, artists all over the north learned from and collaborated with family members over the course of their careers. For a young artist, family associations helped ease entry into the profession and art market and provided a built-in network of contacts and commissions. However, these connections could also constrict innovation when artists were expected to conform to models set by preceding generations.

This session welcomes proposals for papers that deal with questions of northern European artists’ familial relationships, in all their rich variety of forms. Some issues that may be explored in the panel include:

Did artists seek to differentiate themselves from their pasts, or integrate themselves into a dynastic narrative?
What kinds of dynamics were at play when family members collaborated on projects or commissions?
How did familial ateliers organize themselves?
In what ways were family traditions valued in the marketplace?
To what extent did working in a family “style” (evident for example in the work of Pieter Brueghel the Younger) benefit or hinder artists?
Where in specific artworks do we see artistic debts to previous generations or deliberate breaks with the past?

Proposals are due Monday, August 14, 2017.

For information on how to submit an abstract, please see the CAA Call for Participation website: http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/call-for-participation.pdf.

Questions may also be submitted to the chair, Catharine Ingersoll, at ingersollcc@vmi.edu.