Renaissance Society Conference 2014

I was really looking forward to attending the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America that was held this year in New York City from March 27 to 29. This conference was the sixtieth in the RSAs history and because of the location turned out to be the largest in the Society’s history. The program book came to over 800 pages although an app was available for easy reference.

I was especially interested because the conference program showed a heavy emphasis on the art of the Venetian Renaissance. On Friday alone there were four consecutive sessions under the title, “Art, Architecture, and the Artist in Renaissance Venice.” In addition there was an early morning roundtable discussion entitled, “Early Modern Venetian Studies in the Twenty-First Century.”

I was only able to attend on Friday but looked forward to hearing from a mixture of leading scholars in the field and younger scholars anxious to establish their credentials. Before going any further I have to say that the panels I attended turned out to be disappointing for a variety of reasons that I will discuss below.

First, let me discuss the roundtable mentioned above. The abstract indicated that “this panel will bring together an international, interdisciplinary group of top scholars working in Venetian studies today to examine the current state of the field and to look forward to future directions of research.” There was indeed a distinguished group of professors from various distinguished universities who in turn briefly discussed their own work but in no way indicated any future directions in the field of Venetian studies.

One significant omission was the lack of any discussion of the role of the Internet. In his introduction the chairman of the panel spoke at length about a new publication of material from Venetian archives. Apparently, the publisher has printed less than a hundred copies of what sounded like a huge tome. Depending on demand a less expensive paperback version might be available in a few years.

Is this where Renaissance studies are going? Why shouldn’t this book be instantly and inexpensively available to a much wider audience? Medieval manuscripts used to be available only to a few until the appearance of moveable type. Why did these scholars fail to discuss the Internet and its uses in the twenty first century?

In the question period one member of the audience asked if Venetian studies might go into decline in this century after a meteoric rise in the past century. This question finally elicited a spirited if inconclusive discussion among the panel. Ironically, the discussion came to an end after an Italian scholar in the audience lamented the decline of modern Venice. Actually, he claimed that Venice was dying, not so much because of the threatening waters but from contemporary mis-management and corruption. It was a somber end to the roundtable.

I will only say a few words about the next two panels I attended, both under the title, “Art. Architecture, and the Artist in Renaissance Venice.” First, the future of Venetian studies would appear to include an excessive interest in funerary tombs and monuments. It is as if scholars, both old and new, believe that all that needs to be said about the great masterworks of the Venetian Renaissance has been said. Now they will work in fallow fields of little artistic value.

Second, one of the speakers gave an example of how not to present a paper at a conference. She did choose a large subject and even warned that she might have too much material. Participants are limited to a twenty-minute presentation and usually you can only read ten pages in that time. So one would expect that that the paper be edited carefully and discussion limited to a few examples. Instead, the professor just chose to read her entire paper at breakneck speed. What could she have been thinking of?

Finally, my day ended with another roundtable, a kind of summing up of the Art and Architecture series. This roundtable included a number of other luminaries. The room was packed with expectant listeners. The tone, however, was set by one of the three chairpersons who introduced each of the eight participants at length. Her introduction took almost 20 minutes of the allotted 90. I frankly can’t remember anything that was said by any of the participants. It was an exercise in non-controversy.

I do remember that they were all women, a fact pointed out by someone in the audience during the question period. Most of the people in the room were also women. Art History has become a province for women. This issue was never raised at the conference. What is the special appeal of Venice and its art to women? Why are men not interested? Maybe these questions could be addressed at a future conference.

###

   

Renaissance Conference New Orleans

The South Central Renaissance Conference held it's annual meeting in New Orleans this year from March 8 to March 11. The Society numbers over 170 members and includes three subgroups: the society for Renaissance Art History, The Queen Elizabeth I society, and The Andrew Marvell society.

Altogether there were 47 panels usually consisting of three papers of no more than 20 minutes in length. This year quite a few papers were dedicated to Shakespeare and Elizabethan drama. Seven panels were dedicated to Art history. (To the left are some of the participants with me tieless in the back row)

I read my paper on Titian’s “Sacred and Profane Love” on Friday morning as part of a panel entitled “Reading the Meanings of Renaissance Art in the Veneto.” I thought my paper was well received by the fifteen or so attendees. Afterwards some told me that they found the Mary Magdalen interpretation convincing. During the question time a couple raised objections or thought further work was necessary, but I believe that all could now at least consider the Magdalen as a possibility for the identity of the two women in Titian's painting.

My paper had been preceded by two others.  One by Jill Carrington (Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas) on “The Paired Altar Tombs of Barolomeo Sanvito and Bartolomeo Urbino in San Francesco Grande in Padua and the Effigy in Tombs of the Veneto.” The other was by Jasmin Cyril  (Benedict College, South Carolina) on “Carlo Crivelli’s Madonna of the Cucumber: Sacred Image and Morphology.” This latter paper was especially interesting to me because I have largely overlooked Crivelli in my work on Giorgione and Titian. Dr. Cyril’s presentation included some beautiful images of Crivelli’s work. She noted that the cucumber or gourd so prominent in Crivelli’s many versions of the Madonna and Child was a sign of Resurrection.

Carlo Crivelli

My wife and I did attend some of the other sessions on Friday and Saturday including papers on such diverse subjects as “The Flea Hunt Reconsidered” by Yael Even of the University of Missouri—St. Louis, and “Francesco Colonna and Edward Burne-Jones: Love among the Ruins” by Liana De Girolamo Cheney of the University of Massachusetts Lowell. The former was a discussion of a genre of paintings that dealt with attractive young women searching in their  bodices for the elusive flea. The latter discussed the interest of the nineteenth century Burne-Jones in Colonna’s “Hypnerotomachia Polphilo,” a work revered by Renaissance art historians but practically unreadable by anyone else. Actually, if it weren’t for the woodcuts in Colonna’s work, I don’t think anyone would be interested.

The conference also featured an optional tour of the New Orleans Art Museum on Friday evening. A docent gave my wife and I a private tour of their excellent collection which seems strong in Asian and African art. They also have a good French section that includes a magnificent portrait of Marie Antoinette by Elizabeth Louise Vigee-Lebrun done in 1788. The Italian Renaissance section was small but included some good things.

 Portrait of Marie Antoinette.

I must confess that we skipped some sessions to tour New Orleans, a beautiful city that seems on the surface to have come back from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. We took the St. Charles Street Car past some beautiful old homes as well as the lovely campus of Tulane University.

New Orleans is the craziest city I have ever visited. Our excellent Hotel Monteleone was in the midst of the riotous French Quarter. Compounding the usual crush of tourists was a major college basketball tournament going on in the Superdome. The narrow streets were crowded with revelers from morning through the wee hours. New Orleans is one of the few cities that allow people to walk the streets with open drinks in hand.

It all came to a head on Saturday evening with a parade in honor of St. Joseph whose celebration had been moved up from March 19 to make way for the even larger St. Patrick’s parade. The combined noise of marching bands, revving engines from the many exotic vehicles, and the crowd was deafening. It was a fitting end to a Renaissance conference for it brought to mind Venetian processions of old. On the one hand, there were statues of St. Joseph on gaily-colored floats, and on the other beautiful streetwalkers plying their trade.

###   

Giorgione: Renaissance Conference, March 2011, St. Louis

My wife and I recently attended the annual meeting of the Society for Renaissance Art History. The Society meets every year in conjunction with the meeting of the South Central Renaissance Conference. This year this relatively small conference was held at the University of St. Louis. Here is a report of one day, Friday, March 4.

The conference featured two panels in the morning and two in the afternoon following a break for lunch. Each panel featured three or four papers usually accompanied by illustrative slides. At the end of the day there was a plenary session with a featured speaker.

I presented my paper on Giorgione’s Tempest at the 10:00 session. The panel was simply titled, “ Reconsiderations” and featured four papers. Even if I had not been presenting my paper, I would have attended since the titles of the papers sounded very interesting.

William Levin, a recently retired professor from Centre College, was to discuss Ghiberti’s famous Gates of Paradise. Brian Steele, a professor from Texas Tech and current President of the Society, was going to discuss Giovanni Bellini’s famous Frari Triptych. My paper on the Tempest was about one of the most famous and enigmatic paintings of all time. Ryan Gregg of Webster University would end the session with a paper on Sangallo’s Reclining Pan, now in the St. Louis Museum of Art.


Levin’s paper, entitled “Towards a Fuller Understanding of Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise,” was a real eye opener. Ghiberti could have chosen any number of scenes from the Old Testament but what was the reason for the ten he finally chose? Levin argued that the theme in each scene represented reconciliation, whether it be the obvious meeting of Solomon and Sheba, or the not so obvious scene of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of his son, Isaac. The doors then were an attempt to aid in the process of reconciliation between Eastern and Western Christians as they faced a growing threat from Islam. It was very persuasive although I did wonder if the doors might also be an attempt to reconcile the contending factions in Florence itself.


Brian Steele’s, “Reframing the Context: Giovanni Bellini’s Frari Triptych as Salvific Wisdom,“ was equally well argued. Steele looked at not only the painting itself but also at the surrounding framework to show how every element related to the central theme. The central theme he found in a close examination of the page in the book held open by St. Benedict. In addition, Steele showed how the actual dimensions of parts of the Triptych fit into a unified whole. Marvelous!

In my paper I discussed the Tempest as the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt.” It was basically the same paper that I gave at the RSA conference in Venice last year but with the addition of some new material on the “solitary bird on the rooftop.” I have placed the paper with the PowerPoint slides on my website.



Frankly, I wasn’t expecting much from Ryan Gregg’s, “The St. Louis Art Museum’s Reclining Pan as Eclogue,” but was pleasantly surprised. Gregg argued that the sculpture was Sangallo’s homage to the recently deceased Michelangelo, and that every element in the sculpture brought Michelangelo to mind. I have to be continually reminded that every element in a Renaissance work of art is there for a reason. Very little was done by caprice or fancy.

Earlier in the day we attended a panel entitled, "Nuns as Patrons of Art and Theatre in Renaissance Italy." I was particularly interested in hearing a paper by Cynthia Stollhans on a 13th century fresco cycle about the legendary life of St. Catherine of Alexandria. Stollhans, a professor from the host university, is probably the world’s greatest authority on Catherine, the most popular female saint of the Middle Ages after Mary Magdalen.

Stollhans argued that cloistered nuns like those attached to the Church of St. Agnese in Rome could express and identify themselves through their patronage of the interior decoration of the church. Marilyn Dunn of Loyola University made much the same point about the nuns responsible for the decoration of the Church of S. Silvestro in Capite in Rome in the 17th century. In a paper entitled, “Theater and Music in the Florentine convent of San Girolamo,” Elissa Weaver of the University of Chicago argued that nuns were not only patrons of art but also creators and performers. She described the remarkable career of Maria Clemente Ruoti who in the early part of the 17th century entered the convent at the age of 9 but went on to write, produce, and perform two major plays before the Medici court.

It is an interesting sociological fact that the great majority of art history teachers and students today are women. Among them there would appear to be a great interest in exploring the role of religious orders of nuns during the Renaissance. Maybe it is even an identification with these extremely creative women who for various reasons spent their whole lives toiling in obscurity.
After hearing these three fine papers, it occurred to me that maybe women during the Renaissance were better able to explore their creativity inside the convent than outside its walls.

After an afternoon siesta, I went back for the plenary session held in the University’s beautiful art gallery. Diane Cole Ahl of Lafayette College presented the annual Louis L. Martz lecture, “This Splendid, Noble Art,” : Re-viewing Fifteenth-Century Painting in Italy.”

In effect her talk was a preview of her forthcoming book on 15th Century Art. Taking her cue from Giovanni Santi’s encomium on 15th century art, she described the great achievements of the Quattrocento throughout Italy, from Venice and Milan to Sicily. She demonstrated that the three themes, Classical Antiquity, Sacred Art, and depictions of love and pleasure, were certainly well established in the 15th.

She blamed Vasari for the undue emphasis placed upon Florence, Rome, and Venice in the 16th century. Vasari was motivated, she said, not just by personal conviction but also by his position as court artist to the Medici. Still, I cannot help but feel that Vasari had a point. He wasn’t the only one to discern a remarkable advance in art during the “High Renaissance.” I’m sure that Raphael, for example, felt that his work far surpassed anything that his father or even his master, Perugino, had ever done. Moreover, when opportunity beckoned, Raphael did not hesitate to leave Umbria for Florence and Rome.

Nevertheless, Diane Cole Ahl is certainly right to draw attention to artists living outside the big three major cities. Not only are they significant in their own right, but also they can throw considerable light on what was going on in Florence, Venice and Rome.

The day ended with a dinner at a local restaurant attended by most of the presenters. It was great to sit and talk on an informal basis. Sadly many of these art historians and educators are feeling the pain of the economic downturn that is forcing many schools to close down Art history programs. I heard of a major university in the South that is dropping its whole graduate program.

One final note about Dr. Jill Carrington of Stephen F. Austin University in Texas. She organized and hosted the dinner as well as chaired the Reconsiderations panel. From our first meeting she made this “independent” and “unaffiliated” scholar feel right at home.