International conference organized by Sabine Frommel and Gerhard Wolf
Paris, December 14 – 16, 2009, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut
This conference is dedicated to the representations of architecture in both painting and drawing. It has been organized around an interdisciplinary topic and developed in the context of European scholarship, embracing a wide spectrum of topics spanning from the metaphorical significance of architectural monuments, encompassing both ruins and buildings in progress to the actual pictorial modes with which architectural spaces are evoked, bearing in mind processes such as fragmentation, transmutation and codification, as well as stylistic elements like the emulation of plasticity and chiaroscuro. Central themes in this discussion will be the migration of artistic formulas and ideas, how these ideas circulated, and the artistic dialogue between “North and South.”
In the context of a debate that seeks to consider both micro-history as well as changes over the ‘longue durée’, encouraging multiple viewpoints ought to promote a broadening of disciplinary boundaries. Similarly, the conference seeks to incite revisions of the periodization of the history of art and the creative dynamics between artistic genres as well as to develop a more accurate and nuanced understanding of the mutations and interrelations of artistic languages.