Religion, Art and Conflict: Disputes, destruction and creation (Courtauld Institute, 5-6 December 2014)

Although not a medieval conference per se, we think our readers will enjoy these two days on Religion, Art and Conflict at the Courtauld Institute in December, with sessions on manuscripts, historiographical reception of medieval art, and more besides.

Tickets (£26, £16 students, Courtauld staff/students and concessions) can be ordered here.

Throughout history religion and belief have been the catalyst for the creation of great buildings and works of art. However, religious art has frequently been disputed, despised and destroyed. Members are sought for a research group that will examine the role of reform, ideology and conflict in the destruction and preservation of religious art and architecture. The group will also investigate how theological disputes and religious conflicts have been the impetus for new intellectual and creative approaches to the visual and material arts.

The papers presented at the conference will cover 600 years of art history, from fifteenth-century Florence to depictions of Islam after 9/11, and a breadth of topics from medieval monasticism to William Blake’s theology of art, from Bhutanese seventeenth century art to the Vatican’s relationship with contemporary art, and much more.

Friday, 5 December
13.30 – 14.00 Registration

14.00 – 14.05 Introduction and Welcome

14.05 – 15.30 Session 1: Cultural Interaction or Conflict?

María Molina Fajardo (University of Granada): Building a ‘Catholic Site’: Spaces of Encounter, the Aggression and the Creation of the Village of Nigüelas (Granada) after
the Castilian Conquest

Ariana Maki (University of Colorado Boulder): Lines and Lineages: Depicting History and Religion in 17th-Century Bhutan

David Low (The Courtauld Institute of Art): The Ruins of Ani: the Rediscovery, Destruction and Reconstruction of an Armenian City

15.30 – 16.00 COFFEE/TEA BREAK (tea /coffee provided)

16.00 – 17.00 Session 2: Word, Image and Conflict – Liturgical Books in Late Medieval and
Reformation-era England

Jayne Wackett (University of Kent): Liturgical Images in the English Reformation:
Lost, Found and Altered

Michael Carter (The Courtauld Institute of Art): Tuppence Worth: an Annotated Missal
from a Cistercian Abbey

17.00 – 17.15 COMFORT BREAK

17.15 – 18.15 Keynote Lecture: James Carley (York University, Toronto / University of Kent): ‘So myserably peryshed in the spoyle’: John Leland and John Bale on the Dissolution of the English Religious Houses

18.15 – 18.30 Summary and discussion

18.30 RECEPTION

Saturday, 6 December

09.30 – 10.00 Registration

10.00 – 11.30 Session 3: Violence, Destruction and Creation in Renaissance and Counter-
Reformation Italy

Scott Nethersole (The Courtauld Institute of Art): ‘Art came to an end’: Making and Destruction in Fra Filippo Lippi’s Medici Altarpiece

Anna Marazuela Kim (University of Virginia): Idols of Art and of the Mind: Sculptural and Spiritual Iconoclasm in Michelangelo’s Rondanini Pietà

Eva Papoulia (The Courtauld Institute of Art): The Cappella Gregoriana in St. Peter’s: a Catholic Response to Protestant Claims

11.30 – 12.00 COFFEE/TEA BREAK (tea /coffee provided)

12.00 – 13.00 Keynote Lecture:
Sussan Babaie (The Courtauld Institute of Art): ‘Holy’ Wars and the Visual Poetics of
Innocence; Iran-Iraq, then (1980-89)

13.00 – 14.00 BREAK FOR LUNCH (not provided, except for speakers)

14.00 – 15.30 Session 4: Religion, Conflict and Identity
Lloyd De Beer (The British Museum / University of East Anglia): Burial and Belief:
Alabaster Sculpture in Context

Ágnes Kriza (University of Cambridge): Representing Destruction: Medieval Russian
Visualisations of Byzantine Iconoclasm

Emily Pegues (The Courtauld Institute of Art / National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.): To die for an ideal’: Three Wars, One Retable and the Foundations of a Belgian History of Art

15.30 – 16.00 COFFEE/TEA BREAK (tea /coffee provided)

16.00 – 17.30 Session 5: Religion, Art and Conflict in the Modern and Contemporary World

Naomi Billingsley (University of Manchester): Knock, Knock, William Blake’s Here: Creative Conflict in Blake’s Illustrations of Edward Young’s Night Thoughts

Anna Messner (University of Munich): In Search of Jewish Art and Identity: The Munich Artist Rudolf Ernst (1896-1942)

Lieke Wijnia (Tilburg University): Religion’s Reclaim of Contemporary Art: The Vatican
at the 2013 Venice Biennale

17.30 – 17.45 Concluding comments and discussion

17.45 END