CALL FOR PAPERS

 

ARCHITECTURE IN THE ARTS

The Intersection of Artistic and Architectural Practice on a Global Scale

c.1300 - c.1600

 

University of Warwick

November 2020

 

Architectural structures are often a prominent feature in narrative images, for which they create striking settings, or are themselves the main subject of representation, from wood inlays to sculpted reliefs, from frescoes to panel and oil paintings, from illuminations and scroll paintings to prints. They engage with the narrative, whilst also providing a narrative of their own, as they testify to the architectural imagination of artists and communicative abilities of architectural forms. Yet, two-dimensional buildings are often discussed only as spatial devices articulating depth, and as lesser counterparts of large-scale three-dimensional structures. This approach hinders our understanding of the structural and ornamental ambition of many two-dimensional buildings, which can present architectural solutions that were adopted only decades later in built structures. It also prevents us from fully recognising the cultural value attached to architectural forms and their rhetorical dimension.

 

Architecture in the Arts is a workshop open to postgraduate students, early career researchers and established scholars alike, aiming to challenge traditional approaches to the representation of architecture in the visual arts in order to bridge the historiographical gap between art and architectural history. The event will focus on the period between c. 1300 to c. 1600 as a turning point for the representation of architecture. This study day aims to shed light on the innovativeness of architectural representation across a variety of media within and beyond Europe, furthering research on the intersection of artistic and architectural practice on a global scale. Therefore, proposals discussing Northern European or Byzantine material are particularly welcome, as are those exploring Middle Eastern, Asian, African or Latin American artistic production. Papers may address a variety of topics, including but not limited to:

 

· Interaction and exchange between artists and architects

· Craftsmen working as both artists and architects

· The roles architecture plays within a narrative image

· The symbolism of architecture

· The relationship between representations of architecture and built structures

· The development of architectural project drawing in relation to painted and sculpted buildings

· Ornamental originality and structural ingenuity in both two and three-dimensional architecture

 

Papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of Architectural History, the journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. Travel and accommodation expenses will be reimbursed on the basis of funding availability.

 

Proposals of max. 300 words for twenty-minute contributions and a brief CV should be sent to Livia Lupi (livia.lupi@warwick.ac.uk) by 13 March 2020.