--- On Thu, 3/12/09, lstrand@... <lstrand@...> wrote:

> From: lstrand@... <lstrand@...>
> Subject: [tsalist] Fwd: Renaissance Society of America Conference - Textiles
> To: tsalist@...
> Date: Thursday, March 12, 2009, 12:42 PM
> ----- Forwarded message from Carol Bier
> <carol.bier@...> -----
> Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 21:47:34 -0500
> From: Olga Bush olgabush@...
> Subject: Renaissance Society of America Conference -
> Textiles
>
>
>
> 2009 RENAISSANCE SOCIETY OF AMERICA CONFERENCE
>
> MARCH 19-21, Los Angeles, CA
>
>
> For a complete 3-day program, registration fee, etc. go to
> www.rsa.org
>
> Saturday, March 21, 2009
> 8:45 – 10:15
> *Hyatt Century Plaza / Pacific*
>
> *TOWARDS AN ICONOLOGY OF THE TEXTILE I: MOBILE** **IMAGES *
>
> *Organizer:* TRISTAN WEDDIGEN, *UNIVERSITÄT ZÜRICH*
>
> *Chair:* KOENRAAD BROSENS, *KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
> *
>
>
> ELIZABETH A. H. CLELAND, *THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART *
> “Ensconced behind the arras”: Small-Scale Tapestries
> and Private Devotion
> during the Renaissance
>
> Among the sumptuous array of paintings, collectibles, and
> tapestries
> inventoried at Lorenzo de Medici’s death in 1492 was a
> “tapestry panel depicting
> the Virgin in half-length with the Infant at her breast and
> the three kings.”
> Small-scale devotional tapestries are traceable throughout
> wealthy patrons’
> collections during the Renaissance, and some survive.
> Although the devotional
> role of small-scale paintings on parchment, panel, and
> cloth has received
> significant scholarly attention, the importance of
> tapestries as devotional aids
> has been relatively ignored. In their scale, iconography,
> function, and display,
> these small tapestries differed from their more well-known,
> monumental
> counterparts, having more in common with similarly-scaled
> devotional
> paintings, woodcarvings, and manuscripts. This paper
> provides new research about
> these understudied Renaissance objects of private devotion.
> The historical
> context and function of these expensive figurative textiles
> is explored using
> evidence from inventories and account books, together with
> surviving examples.
>
>
> LORRAINE KARAFEL, *NEW **YORK** UNIVERSITY *
>
> Site Specificity? Raphael’s *All’antica *Weavings and
> the Vatican’s Sala dei
> Pontefici Pope Leo X (r. 1513–21) commissioned Raphael to
> design several
> important sets of tapestries, including the famous *Acts of
> the Apostles*, the
> allegorical *Playing Children*, a magnificent ceremonial
> bed, and an innovative
> series in an antique style that came to be known as the
> *Grotesques of Leo X*.
> While tapestry is traditionally prizes as a medium of
> portable grandeur, these
> projects were conceived for specific spaces at the Vatican:
> the *Acts* for the
> Sistine Chapel, the *Playing Children* for the Sala di
> Constantino, and the
> papal bed for the Sala di Pappagalli. This paper proposes
> that the *
> Grotesques*, too, were planned for a particular room, the
> Sala dei Pontefici.
> Furthermore, the tapestries’ complex iconography with its
> pagan-Christian
> meaning complemented the room’s astrological painted and
> sculpted vault
> decoration, also executed in an antique style by Raphael
> and his workshop.
> Together, these decorative elements presented an
> unprecedented, integrated
> multimedia program that served to define Leo’s papacy as
> a fated new golden age,
> where peace and prosperity reigned and the arts and
> learning flourished.
>
>
>
> JAMES G. HARPER, *UNIVERSITY OF OREGON *
>
> *Solenne Comparsa*: Mutable Meaning and Contextual
> Significance in the
> Display of Tapestry in Seventeenth-Century Rome
>
> For tapestry, the history of meaning is complicated because
> each new hanging
> constitutes a new installation, especially when the
> tapestries are hung in a new
> place or in juxtaposition with new objects. The inherent
> instability of
> tapestry’s relationship to place means that its iconology
> is more complicated
> and richer in mutative possibility than any other early
> modern medium. Following
> Aby Warburg’s characterization of woven images as
> “mobile image vehicles,” this
> paper will explore a recently discovered account of the
> tapestry installations
> that marked the reception of the English ambassador to Rome
> in 1687. Particular
> attention will be paid to a banquet at the Palazzo
> Barberini. There, the
> installation of the *Life of Urban VIII* series in the
> *gran salone* and the
> juxtaposition of another tapestry series, a frescoed
> ceiling, and a monumental
> painted allegorical equestrian portrait of King James II
> added meaning to the
> tapestries that their creators could not have expected when
> they planned the
> series a quarter of a century before.
>
>
> Saturday, March 21, 2009
> 10:30 – 12:00
> *Hyatt Century Plaza / Pacific*
>
> *TOWARDS AN ICONOLOGY OF THE TEXTILE II: TEXTILE SPACES**
> ** *
>
> *Organizer:* TRISTAN WEDDIGEN, *UNIVERSITÄT ZÜRICH *
>
> *Chair:* CANDACE ADELSON, *TENNESSEE** **STATE**
> **MUSEUM**, **NASHVILLE** *
>
>
> OLGA BUSH, *THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART *
> Of Times and Tents in the Fourteenth-Century Alhambra
>
> The transmediality of the Alhambra, the palatial complex of
> the last Muslim
> kingdom in Iberia, is literally inscribed on its walls. The
> abundant epigraphy
> has frequent recourse to metaphors that describe
> architectural decoration in
> terms of textiles. Using the inscriptions to establish the
> three-way
> relationship between poetry, luxury textiles, and
> architecture, I turn to a
> transmedial analysis of the only extant testimony of a
> court ceremonial in the
> Alhambra: the celebration of the *mawlid*, the birthday of
> the Prophet
> Muhammad, in 1362. I focus on three prominent features: the
> ceremonial
> proceeded through different spaces, one of these was a
> royal tent erected within
> the architectural precincts, and poetry was recited at
> hour-long intervals.
> These elements, I argue, provide a crucial temporal
> dimension to the
> architectural space. Above all, the tent constitutes a form
> of temporary textile
> architecture, whose impermanence articulates the relation
> of temporal power to
> the religious sphere.
>
> JOSEPH IMORDE, *UNIVERSITY OF SIEGEN ** *
>
> *Domus ipsa rideat*: Textile Banquet Accoutrements in Early
> Modern Times
>
> In his treatise *De Conviventia* (1498) Giovanni Pontano
> describes the
> banquet in its entirety as a medium of princely
> self-representation, emphasizing
> the degree to which the textile decorations in the entire
> house must be made to
> represent stately virtues such as *magnificenza* and
> *abbondanza*. He imagines
> that the various levels of decoration enter into an
> ever-increasing competition
> with one another, in order to aim for the ordered and
> interrelated association
> of elements that he terms *splendore*. Such descriptions of
> banquets in the
> early modern era consistently place great emphasis on the
> detailed description
> of the textile accoutrements: the manner in which the walls
> are
> to be hung, the floors to be covered, the servants and
> soldiers clothed would
> seem to have been well worth mentioning and is described
> precisely because the
> event is accorded a higher meaning. In this way the event
> itself attains a
> narrative frame within the context of a “performative
> semantic.” Such
> conventions of decoration, decorum, and description will be
> developed in this
> text, which shall offer a contribution to the theory of
> staged extraordinary
> orderliness.
>
> ELISABETH PRIEDL, *ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS, VIENNA *
>
> Santa Susanna’s *Arazzi Finti*: The Textile Medium as a
> Subject of Debate in
> Counter- Reformation Rome
>
> The Church of Santa Susanna is one of Rome’s oldest
> titular churches. A
> general renovation begun in 1587 changed its appearance
> completely. Cardinal
> Girolamo Rusticucci, who commissioned its global
> decoration, was the Vicar
> General of Rome and Clement VIII’s adjunct on pastoral
> visitations. Against this
> background, the painted representation of the *Templum
> Salomonis* in the nave of
> Santa Susanna, using Solomon’s columns in combination
> with the *arazzi finti*,
> must be interpreted in theological terms as an argument for
> the use of pictures.
> The use of the *arazzi finti* makes this even more evident,
> since legend has it
> that the tapestries from Moses’s tabernacle, produced
> following God’s
> instructions, were later brought to Solomon’s Temple. The
> painted *arazzi* of
> Santa Susanna feature all the elements mentioned in Exodus:
> golden cherubim
> on red and blue background. It may, therefore, be concluded
> that the nave of
> the restored church, with the story of the Hebrew Susanna
> on the *arazzi finti*,
> was staged as the atrium of the sanctuary of the Christian
> martyr Susanna to
> whom the iconographic programs of both the apse and the
> presbytery are
> dedicated.
>
> Saturday, March 21, 2009
> 1:30 – 3:00
> *Hyatt Century Plaza / Pacific*
>
> *TOWARDS AN ICONOLOGY OF THE TEXTILE III: CLOTHES **AND**
> CLOTHS** ** *
> *Organizer:* TRISTAN WEDDIGEN, *UNIVERSITÄT ZÜRICH *
> *Chair:* JULIA GELSHORN, *STAATLICHE HOCHSCHULE FÜR
> GESTALTUNG, **KARLSRUHE*
>
>
> FELIX THÜRLEMANN, *UNIVERSITÄT KONSTANZ*
>
> Shrouded in the Ghent Altarpiece: Self-Reflexivity in
> Ecclesiastical
> Paraments of the Order of the Golden Fleece As Herbert von
> Einem has singled
> out, the three copes of the Vienna together manifest
> essentially the same
> iconographic program as the feastday side of the Ghent
> Altarpiece. The copes,
> executed in the most expensive and time-consuming textile
> technique, must
> also be considered as an artistic response to the
> masterpiece of the van
> Eyck brothers. The designer of the cartoons for the copes,
> identified by Julius
> von Schlosser as Robert Campin (ca. 1375–1455), accepted
> the challenge by
> consciously exploiting the possibilities of movable textile
> images, compared to
> the static medium of painting. He not only conceived a very
> original overall
> pattern appropriate to the bell-like form of the copes, but
> he also correlated
> the 114 holy figures according to their orientation,
> movement, and *mise en
> scène* with the priests wearing the copes. The represented
> saints thus actively
> took part in the performance of religious ceremonies.
>
>
> PHILIPP ZITZLSPERGER, *HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITÄT, BERLIN*
>
> Dürer in Furs: Reflections on an Iconology of Clothing in
> Early Modern Art
>
> Dürer’s self-portrait in Munich shows the painter in the
> manner of an *Imago
> Christi*. However, iconological research has neglected
> Dürer’s clothes, the
> magnificent coat with a fur trim. In the sixteenth century,
> marten fur was a
> common insignia of social elites. But the significance of
> Dürer’s clothing goes
> beyond a simple mark of social status. Its meaning as a
> symbol of justice can be
> clarified in the context of German Renaissance portraiture.
> The hermeneutics of
> clothing and its depiction is a subject that has received
> little attention in
> art historical research and in methodological debates.
> Dürer’s self- portrait
> offers the opportunity for reflection on the iconological
> functions of clothing
> in pictures. In portraits as well as in historical
> paintings, cloths create a
> reality of their own, different from the historical reality
> of everydaylife. Its
> interpretation is best performed in an interdisciplinary
> manner incorporating
> art history and fashion theory.
>
>
> MATEUSZ KAPUSTKA, *UNIVERSITY OF WROCLAW *
>
> Bloodstained Cloths: Textile Reminiscences in Early Modern
> Florentine
> Imagery
>
> This paper will investigate the textile representation code
> in Florentine
> paintings by Alessandro Allori. His *Harrowing of Hell*
> (1578) shows Christ
> descending into Limbo, while at the top the bloodstained
> cloth is presented by
> angels together with the cross and the column. This design,
> quoting
> Michelangelo’s *Last Judgement*, stages the cloth as a
> reminiscent medium of
> presence. Since Allori’s composition can be considered an
> unrealized project for
> the dome or aisle frescoes of the Florentine Cathedral
> after Giorgio
> Vasari’s death, three points will be considered: the
> combination of the *
> hetoimasia*- scheme with royal *chlamys *on the vacant
> throne; its relation to
> Baccio Bandinelli’s Cathedral altar and to other textile
> modes by Allori, such
> as in Palazzo Salviati; and the commemoration of the Pazzi
> conspiracy of 1478,
> committed under the same dome, symbolized by the
> bloodstained shirt of Lorenzo
> the Magnificent.
>
>
> Saturday, March 21, 2009
> 3:15 – 4:45
> *Hyatt Century Plaza / Pacific *
>
> *TOWARDS AN ICONOLOGY OF THE TEXTILE IV: TEXTS **AND**
> TEXTURES** *
>
> *Organizer:* TRISTAN WEDDIGEN, *UNIVERSITÄT ZÜRICH *
> *Chair:* ALEXANDER NAGEL, *NEW **YORK** UNIVERSITY *
>
>
> URSULA LEHMANN, *HUMBOLDT UNIVERSITY, BERLIN *
>
> Textiles and *Memoria*: Observations on the *Trajan and
> Herkinbald Tapestry*
>
> The famous *Trajan and Herkinbald Tapestry* (Historisches
> Museum, Bern)
> belonged to the mobile and prestigious equipment of Georges
> de Saluces, Bishop
> of Lausanne. New research on two wills of de Saluces
> suggests that the tapestry
> was displaced in his funerary chapel, the former chapter
> hall of the Cathedral.
> The paper will focus on the memorial functions of the
> textile images and the
> notions of law as represented in this tapestry. Apart from
> drawing a specific
> conclusion for the Bishop’s self-fashioning both as a
> mediator of divine justice
> and as an executor of secular power, the relation between
> textile and law will
> be examined in general terms.
>
>
> JOHANNES ENDRES, *UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE *
>
> Textures and Cuts: The Textile Metaphor in Jörg
> Wickram’s *The Golden Thread*
> (1557)
>
> In the German novel *The Golden Thread*, written by Jörg
> Wickram and
> published in 1557, the male protagonist Leufried, in an act
> of despair, cuts
> open his chest with a small penknife
> (“Schreibmesserlein”), because his beloved
> does not respond to his tender feelings. She had once given
> him a golden thread,
> a textile requisite, taken off her loom, which Leufried
> inserts into the fresh
> wound. The thread serves diverse purposes in Wickram’s
> text. As a sort of
> *Leitmotiv* it determines and plays through its manifold
> levels of meaning, both
> metaphorical and self-referential. For example, it appears
> in the love
> song composed and performed by Leufried, where it embodies
> the ambivalence
> of textile and textual medium. Yet it is also inherent to
> the incision on the
> protagonist’s chest: an incision as inscription, produced
> by cut and thread,
> thus paralleling the implications of writing and cutting.
> At the end of the
> novel Leufried removes the golden thread from his chest in
> front of the girl’s
> eyes. It thus works as a *mise en abyme* of the text inside
> the text itself,
> explaining also why the name Wickram refers to the
> beloved’s loom
> (“wirckrammen”).
>
>
>
> REBECCA OLSON, *OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY *
>
> Full of Device: Taking the Tapestry Metaphor Seriously
>
> Recent scholarship has forced us to reassess the importance
> tapestries in
> Tudor England: sixteenth-century arras hangings were
> powerful political tools
> and functioned as pedagogical texts at court. Literary
> scholars have much to
> gain by recognizing the significance of tapestries:
> extended tapestry
> descriptions appear in some of the period’s most
> canonical works and are among
> the most celebrated examples of Renaissance ekphrasis.
> However, our increasing
> interest in what was on Renaissance tapestries — the
> narratives and stylized
> images portrayed on their surfaces — has led us to
> overlook their very
> palpability. Consequently, we have not understood the way
> these woven
> textiles would have provided models of narrative complexity
> for early modern
> poets and dramatists. This paper reconsiders the familiar
> storytelling-weaving
> metaphor in light of Spenser’s description of
> Busirane’s tapestries in *The
> Faerie Queene* and argues that the literary arras, like its
> real-life
> counterpart, accommodates plurality without sacrificing
> narrative coherence.
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> SIUE Web Mail