OSK/NIKI Winter School in Florence

Cult to Culture: The Artistic Impact of Miraculous Images

Date: January 2021 (stay in Florence 9-17 January 2021)
Venue: NIKI – Florence
Open to: RMA students and PhD candidates in Art and Architectural History, max. 10 participants. RMa students have precedence over PhD candidates
Credits: 6 EC, see below
Instruction language: English.
Faculty: Dr Machtelt Brüggen Israëls (University of Amsterdam) & Prof. dr Gert Jan van der Sman (NIKI)
Coordination: OSK (osk-fgw@uva.nl)
Fees: (See below)
Registration will open September 8th: Via website and send a CV and short letter of motivation to osk-fgw@uva.nl.

Deadline for application is October 20, 2020. Students will be informed about admittance no later than October 27.

1. Two seminars in Amsterdam: 4 January 2021, 10.00-13.00 & 5 January 2021, 10.00-13.00 (exact location to be announced)
2. A stay in Florence at the NIKI (Dutch University Institute for Art History): Arrival on January 7 or 8, departure on January 17, 2021. Program: January 9, 8 AM – January 17, 8 PM.
3. A presentation in Florence on the chosen monument or ensemble of monuments.
4. An annotated paper (ca. 5.000 words, excl. notes, deadline 3 February 2021) written by each participant after their return to the Netherlands, focusing on the chosen topic. The paper will be supervised by one of the professors.

Outline:

In early-modern Italy, images that worked miracles in people’s lives could also work wonders in art. Such is the thesis at the core of our course. As powerful images were reframed, repainted, raised on altars, veiled and unveiled, ritualized in processions, and as they became the recipients of gifts, did they transform the course of the history of art? How much do the tabernacles of Orcagna, Brunelleschi, or Michelozzo owe to devotional practice? How did the style of older, venerated images interact with that of their modern interpreters, such as Antoniazzo Romano or Rubens? How were ritual routes inscribed in the urban fabric? How did miracle-working images and the votive gifts they received predicate lifelikeness – a famous tenet of Aby Warburg? How did they impress the divine on matter and how did that affect materiality and the choice for new media such as paper, wax, and clay? In a research field that has been burgeoning ever since Hans Belting’s Likeness and Presence, can we still consider them images before the era of Art, or are they images that enabled Art?

Learning Objectives:

• In-depth knowledge of the miraculous and its impact on art.
• Development of an attitude to phrase and assess object-related and historically grounded theoretical issues.
• Furthering of your skills to present in an informative and clear manner.
• Nurturing of your talents to write an engaging essay.

Reading:

Mandatory

• Megan Holmes, The Miraculous Image in Renaissance Florence, New Haven and London 2013.

Elective (preliminary list)

• Robert Maniura, Art and Miracle in Renaissance Tuscany, Cambridge et al., 2018.
• Isabella Augart, Rahmenbilder: Konfigurationen der Verehrung im frühneuzeitlichen Italien, Berlin 2018.
• Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, Anachronic Renaissance, New York 2010.
• Cathleen Hoeniger, The Renovation of Paintings in Tuscany, 1250-1500, Cambridge 1995.
• Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, Chicago & Londen 1994.
• David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response, Chicago and London 1989.
• Richard Trexler, “Florentine Religious Experience: The Sacred Image”, Studies in the Renaissance xix (1972), pp. 7–41.
• Aby Warburg, ‘Bildniskunst und florentinisches Bürgertum’, Gesammelte Schriften, Leipzig 1932, I, pp. 89-126.

Practicalities: Participation in the OSK-NIKI RMA Winter School is open to all students enrolled in a Research Master Program or PhD program at a Dutch University. The number of participants is limited to 10. RMA students have precedence over PhD candidates. Deadline for application is October 20, 2020. Students will be informed about admittance no later than October 27. Students are expected to attend all seminars and lectures and read and analyze the texts in advance.

There is no course fee. All students will be offered free housing at the NIKI (rooms are for 2 persons, shared dining room, kitchen, bathrooms and toilets). Students who are registered with OSK will be offered a travel grant of €75. Students are responsible for booking a flight themselves. The travel grant will be paid after delivering a successful paper and presentation. Make sure to keep your (digital) ticket and proofs of payment, without them the grant cannot be paid.

Credits: 6 EC (possibility to expand), to receive after delivering a successful paper and presentation. Students have to check with their home university themselves whether the transfer of credits for this course is accepted. OSK will provide a testimonial of work load and EC.

Note: The programme may be subject to changes due to developments with regard to the COVID-19 crisis.