AD VIVUM? Conference at the Courtauld Institute of Art
AD VIVUM?
Friday 21 November and Saturday 22 November 2014 The
Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN
The term ad vivum and its cognates al vivo, au vif, nach
dem Leben and naer het leven have been applied since the thirteenth century to
depictions designated as from, to or after (the) life. This one and a half day
event will explore the issues raised by this vocabulary in relation to visual
materials produced and used in Europe before 1800, including portraiture,
botanical, zoological, medical and topographical images, images of novel and
newly discovered phenomena, and likenesses created through direct contact with
the object being depicted, such as metal casts of animals.
It is has long been recognised that the designation ad
vivum was not restricted to depictions made directly after the living model,
and that its function was often to advertise the claim of an image to be a
faithful likeness or a bearer of reliable information. Viewed as an assertion
of accuracy or truth, ad vivum raises a number of fundamental questions about
early modern epistemology – questions about the value and prestige of visual
and/or physical contiguity between image and original, about the kinds of
information which were thought important and dependably transmissible in
material form, and about the roles of the artist in this transmission. The
recent interest of historians of early modern art in how value and meaning are
produced and reproduced by visual materials which do not conform to the
definition of art as unique invention, and of historians of science and of art
in the visualisation of knowledge, has placed the questions surrounding ad
vivum at the centre of their common concerns.
This event will encourage conversation and interchange
between different perspectives involving a wide range of participants working
in different disciplines, from postgraduate students to established academics.
Ticket/entry details: £25 (£15 students, Courtauld
staff/students and concessions)
BOOK ONLINE: http://ci.tesseras.com/internet/shop
Or send a cheque made payable to ‘Courtauld Institute of
Art’ to: Research Forum Events Co-ordinator, Research Forum, The Courtauld
Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN, stating ‘Ad Vivum’.
For further information, email ResearchForumEvents@courtauld.ac.uk.
Organised by Professor Joanna Woodall and Dr Thomas Balfe
(The Courtauld Institute of Art).
PROGRAMME
FRIDAY 21 NOVEMBER 2014
13.30–14.00
Registration
14.00–14.15
Joanna Woodall and Thomas Balfe, Welcome and introduction
14.15–15.00
Keynote Address: Sachiko Kusukawa, University of
Cambridge, ‘Ad vivum? Nature and knowledge in early modern Europe.’
15.00–15.15
Response: Robert Felfe, University of Hamburg
15.15–15.30
Questions and discussion
15.30–16.00
Tea
16.00–17.35
Session 1
Noa Turel, University of Alabama at Birmingham, ‘Live to
“from Life”: stages au vif and pictorial truth in painting’s first century.’
Sheila McTighe, The Courtauld Institute of Art,
‘Representing dal vivo in Florence, 1619: Filippo Napoletano, Jacques Callot
and Michelangelo Buonarotti the Younger.’
Ioana Măgureanu, National University of the Arts,
Bucharest, ‘Questions of authorship and authority in some early modern
anatomical Images.’
María Lumbreras, Johns Hopkins University, ‘Francisco
Pacheco and the “certainty of likeness”.’
17.35–18.00
Questions and discussion
18.00–19.30
Drinks reception
SATURDAY 22 NOVEMBER
09.00–09.30
Registration
09.30–10.45
Session 2
Lia Markey, Villa I Tatti, ‘Aldrovandi’s images al vivo
in late sixteenth-century Bologna.’
Juliette Ferdinand, Università di Verona/ EPHE Paris, ‘Au
plus pres du naturel: illusionistic research in the art of Bernard Palissy.’
Silke Förschler, University of Kassel, ‘Joris Hoefnagel’s
illuminations of natural history.’
Caroline van Eck, University of Leiden, ‘Too close for
comfort: some psychological aspects of moulage à vif.’
10.45–11.15
Questions and discussion
11.15–11.45
Coffee
11.45–13.30
Session 3
Richard Mulholland, Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘Painting
by numbers? Decoding Ferdinand Bauer’s Flora Graeca Colour Chart.’
Eleanor Chan, University of Cambridge,
‘Imagining/abstracting the lifelike: mathematical visualizations in early
modern England and the Low Countries.’
Questions
Daan van Heesch, KU Leuven, ‘“Jerusalem naert Leven”? The
meaning of ad vivum in a mid-sixteenth-century Netherlandish drawing of
Jerusalem.’
Pieter Martens, Université catholique de
Louvain/University of Leuven, ‘The earliest ad vivum prints of cities under
siege in the Low Countries.’
Questions
José Ramón Marcaida, University of Cambridge, ‘Ad vivum
as visual entanglement: painting al natural during the Hernández expedition
(1570–1577).’
José Beltran, University of Cambridge, ‘Nature from
nature: definitions of natural history in seventeenth-century France.’
Questions
13.30–14.15
Lunch (for speakers and chairs only)
14.15–15.30
Round table: Boudewijn Bakker, Mechthild Fend, Eric
Jorink, Karin Leonhard
15.30–16.00
Afternoon break (refreshments provided)
16.00–17.15
Session 4
Marcia Pointon, University of Manchester and The
Courtauld Institute, and Lisa Skogh, The Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘Materials
ad vivum: agate and ivory in the kunstkammer.’
Carla Benzan, University College London, ‘Living mountain
/ transfiguring nature at Sacro Monte.’
Nina Niedermeier, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich,
‘The artist's memory and the “death portrait ad vivum”: Jacopino del Conte's
vera effigies of Ignatius of Loyola.’
Christopher Heuer, Princeton University/Center for
Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, ‘Ad mortem: Heinrich Lautensack (1522–1590),
time, and the vitality of death.’
17.15–17.45
Questions and discussion
17.45–18.15
Summing up: Claudia Swan
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand,
London, WC2R 0RN www.courtauld.ac.uk