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The Afterlife of Artworks. A One-Day Interdisciplinary Workshop

Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick, seminar room
Tuesday 13th June 2017, 11.00 am – 5.00 pm

This one-day interdisciplinary workshop aims to investigate the manifold purposes of images – with a particular, though by no means exclusive, emphasis on print – particularly in the early modern period. From political and religious propaganda to the dissemination of scientific knowledge, images were powerful rhetorical tools targeted at various and specific audiences from the learned to the illiterate, and resulting in different experiences according to different socio-economic and cultural contexts.


Any methodology that utilises an interdisciplinary approach will show that the artistic images from this period are imbued with meta-meanings which venture beyond the supposed intentions of the patrons or the artists. On the one hand, in fact, patrons – be they sovereigns, scientists, religious or political personages – commissioned works of art in accordance with their own purposes and agendas; on the other, beholders would have grasped a very different meaning of those images depending on their expectations and background.

By investigating relevant and specific case-studies, the workshop also aims to bridge certain lingering and conspicuous gaps that remain between art history and other disciplines (such as art history, history of science, applied linguistics, etc.) to promote scholarly debate between such different fields and to engage especially post-graduate and early career scholars. While doing so, the workshop also promotes a multidisciplinary perspective that will prove particularly beneficial to postgraduate students working in the aforementioned fields.

Carlo Avilio, Art History

Rebecca Carbevali, Renaissance Studies

Reservation required. Email: C.Avilio@warwick.ac.uk










Reservation required (please specify any dietary requirements): C.Avilio@warwick.ac.uk
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