Appel à communication : « Beguiling Structures: Architecture in European Painting 1300-1550 » (Londres, septembre 2014)

Both Cennino Cennini in his Libro dell’arte and Leon Battista Alberti in his De Pictura noted how intertwined painting and architecture are, and the ubiquity of architectural structures within painting is testament to this. Yet, they often go unnoticed and their precise meaning remains elusive: why were buildings included in pictorial representations? What do they do for the picture? This conference aims to explore these questions among others.

Students and scholars working in the visual arts of the late-Mediaeval and Renaissance periods are therefore warmly invited to submit proposals for twenty-minute papers. Interdisciplinary approaches to these subjects and discoveries of current research are particularly welcome.  Potential topics for consideration may include :

• The use of architecture to demonstrate perspectival devices and to structure pictorial composition.
• The adoption of elaboration, ornamentation and the ‘fantastic’ in depicted architecture.
• The use of architectural forms to visualise historical time and specific topographies within narratives.
• The theoretical discourse of perspective and its terminology within contemporaneous accounts.
• The creation of dialogues between the architecture of the painting and that of its original location.
• The use and significance of architectural frames both within paintings and surrounding them.

Whilst papers on these themes are encouraged, submissions for proposals on topics across the broader spectrum of artistic media, chronological periods and geographical locations are also welcome. Proposed papers’ titles and abstracts of 250 words, and any additional enquiries, should be forwarded to beguiling.structures@gmail.com   by Monday 16th June 2014.

This conference, organised by Alasdair Flint, James Jago and Livia Lupi, forms part of the Galleries & Museums Research Partnerships Programme between The National Gallery, London and the Department of History of Art, The University of York.Beguiling Structures is one of two conferences conceived to complement the National Gallery’s exhibition   Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting .Whilst Beguiling Structures is aimed at graduate students and early-career scholars,Imagining Architecture , organised by Dr Amanda Lillie, is a symposium of papers by leading scholars that will take place on 6th June 2014 at the National Gallery in London.

Deadline: 16 June 2014

A Conference for Graduate Students and Early-Career Scholars
Sainsbury Wing Conference Room One, The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London, England
20 September 2014

Source: http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=213577