Appel à communication : « Art and Its Classes » (New York, 27-29 mars 2014)

For the panel « Art and its Classes” speakers are invited to explore how social mobility (or lack thereof) influenced patronage, creation and study of art during the Renaissance, and/or address the wider question of elitism in art history.

Topics could include but are not limited to :

· how Giorgio Vasari’s position at court influenced his Lives

· Karel van Mander’s nobility and his Het Schilderboek

· group patronage among the lower and emerging middle classes

· ennobling of artists (Michelangelo, Titian, Giambologna among others)

· social mobility expressed through display at French, English, Italian or German courts

· early modern/contemporary distinctions between « high” and « low” art

· collecting « exotic” art and objects from outside Europe (and vice versa) as class markers

· current diffusion of and /or « dumbing down” of Renaissance art history via television, video games, social media and public history.

Please send 150 word abstracts and a short c.v. to Meghan Callahan and David Boffa (meghan.a.callahan@gmail.com, davidboffa@gmail.com) by May 30.

Session du congrès de la RSA (The Renaissance  Society of America)