Written Culture, Visual Culture in Medieval Works of Art

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Art-Hist: A Virtual Symposium on History and Theory of Artistic Creation from Antiquity to Modern Times

Organizer Name

Vincent Debiais

Organizer Affiliation

Centre d'études supérieures de civilisation médiévale

Presider Name

Sébastien Biay

Presider Affiliation

Centre d'études supérieures de civilisation médiévale

Paper Title 1

Synthesizing Images and Texts at Tenth-Century Tours

Presenter 1 Name

Cheryl Goggin

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Univ. of Southern Mississippi

Paper Title 2

Seeing Medieval Language: Words and Signs in Graphic Space

Presenter 2 Name

Estelle Ingrand-Varenne

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Centre d'études supérieures de civilisation médiévale

Paper Title 3

Greek Crytpograms in Southern Italy (and Beyond)

Presenter 3 Name

Linda Safran

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

Paper Title 4

Secret Messages: Byzantine Greek Tetragrams and Their Display

Presenter 4 Name

Andreas Rhoby

Presenter 4 Affiliation

Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften

Start Date

9-5-2013 7:30 PM

Session Location

Bernhard 209

Description

The topic of this session concerns the role of writing (as a material object) in artistic creation. The discourse on art, theory a priori or critic a posteriori, shows how much creation and writing are dependent; works of visual art are always connected to a written production which gives it sense, comments on it, supplies its status of “work of art”. The artistic practice is inseparable of graphic one, of written language which impulses the artist’s work and which puts it in perspective with the world which receives it. On the other hand, the study of tituli in manuscripts and in works of art allows to measure the material implications of the presence of both forms of language (writing and image) within the same visual system, and not only in the very general cultural frame which creates it. As the interrogation does not exclusively concern the search for texts as sources of representation, written words – as graphic presence – can be considered for its real paper in the definition of images. This diversion of the analysis moves the interrogation about relations between word and image from the possibility of existence of an image from the medieval texts (it means, an archaeology of the creative phenomena) towards the study of what the image gives to see and to read thanks to inscriptions (an archaeology of graphic phenomena and artistic practices). The interest of this question exceeds Middle Ages and concern all the artistic manifestations; it offers the possibility to approach an original aspect of the work of art and perceive the artist’s work and his conception of his own action on the material.

Vincent Debiais

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May 9th, 7:30 PM

Written Culture, Visual Culture in Medieval Works of Art

Bernhard 209

The topic of this session concerns the role of writing (as a material object) in artistic creation. The discourse on art, theory a priori or critic a posteriori, shows how much creation and writing are dependent; works of visual art are always connected to a written production which gives it sense, comments on it, supplies its status of “work of art”. The artistic practice is inseparable of graphic one, of written language which impulses the artist’s work and which puts it in perspective with the world which receives it. On the other hand, the study of tituli in manuscripts and in works of art allows to measure the material implications of the presence of both forms of language (writing and image) within the same visual system, and not only in the very general cultural frame which creates it. As the interrogation does not exclusively concern the search for texts as sources of representation, written words – as graphic presence – can be considered for its real paper in the definition of images. This diversion of the analysis moves the interrogation about relations between word and image from the possibility of existence of an image from the medieval texts (it means, an archaeology of the creative phenomena) towards the study of what the image gives to see and to read thanks to inscriptions (an archaeology of graphic phenomena and artistic practices). The interest of this question exceeds Middle Ages and concern all the artistic manifestations; it offers the possibility to approach an original aspect of the work of art and perceive the artist’s work and his conception of his own action on the material.

Vincent Debiais