Appel à communication : « Objects und Elites – New Research on Artistic Production of the 12th and 13th Centuries and its Intellectual Context » (Munich, 19-21 mai 2017)

While interdisciplinary research on medieval art has been increasingly moving into the center in recent decades, it often fails because of distinct questions, priorities and approaches of each discipline. The research project “Innovation und Tradition. Objekte und Eliten in Hildesheim, 1130-1250“, which is funded by the German “Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung BMBF“, and a collaboration of the Dommuseum Hildesheim with the universities of Bonn, Kiel, Osnabrück and Potsdam, is addressing this desideratum. By taking Hildesheim as an example the project explores how culture, ideas and theology of the 12th and 13th centuries are visually reflected in artistic objects. Works of art are seen in relation to social configurations, as exponents of material culture with a defined position within religious practices and aesthetic ideas of the high middle ages.

This conference in collaboration with the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich would like to discuss these topics based on the project and set them into a larger European context: Thus proposals on 12th and 13th century art which explore the ecclesiastical, monastic, civic, material and technical context with regard to commissioning, production, and liturgical use are particularly welcome.

Papers could explore the leading classes of artistic donors, or the intended target audiences. What were the relations between objects and educational standards? How did the intellectual reorientation in the field of education and schools of this period lead to a new artistic quality? And how was artistic tradition transformed under the influence of new theological and liturgical trends of the time.

A publication of the papers is intended.

Please send your proposal of max. one page with your CV until August 15, 2016 to:
info@objekte-und-eliten.de