The Matter of Ornament
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Special Session
Organizer Name
Ashley Jones
Organizer Affiliation
Univ. of Florida
Presider Name
Ashley Jones
Paper Title 1
Material Presence and Painted Ornament in Carolingian Gospel Books
Presenter 1 Name
Beth Fischer
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Paper Title 2
Mediating the Earthly and Sacred: The Play of Ornament in Liturgical Objects from Saint-Denis
Presenter 2 Name
Gerry Guest
Presenter 2 Affiliation
John Carroll Univ.
Paper Title 3
Ornament as Interface: The Significance of Ornament in Intercultural Encounters
Presenter 3 Name
Johannes von Müller
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Warburg Institute/Max Weber Stiftung, Bonn
Paper Title 4
Ornament's Matter and Painting's Fiction in the Chapels of Charles IV
Presenter 4 Name
Allison McCann
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Univ. of Pittsburgh
Start Date
14-5-2017 10:30 AM
Session Location
Fetzer 2040
Description
Ornament has long occupied a troubled position in the history of western art. Subject to rising and falling fashions, it has been beset from all sides. Derided as feminine and dismissed as superficial, ornament has been defined against both classical and modern austerities. Medieval ornament, like so much of medieval art, has acted as foil in the grand narratives of the rise and fall of figuration and abstraction. But broader trends in the history of art and material culture have, in recent years, highlighted the role medieval objects, with their simultaneously heightened physicality and spirituality, can play in illuminating profound questions of the nature of matter and representation. This panel seeks to add ornament--arguably a fundamental mode of premodern abstraction--to that equation, through papers that investigate the intersections of materiality, representationality, and ornamentality in medieval material culture.
Ashley Jones
University of Florida
The Matter of Ornament
Fetzer 2040
Ornament has long occupied a troubled position in the history of western art. Subject to rising and falling fashions, it has been beset from all sides. Derided as feminine and dismissed as superficial, ornament has been defined against both classical and modern austerities. Medieval ornament, like so much of medieval art, has acted as foil in the grand narratives of the rise and fall of figuration and abstraction. But broader trends in the history of art and material culture have, in recent years, highlighted the role medieval objects, with their simultaneously heightened physicality and spirituality, can play in illuminating profound questions of the nature of matter and representation. This panel seeks to add ornament--arguably a fundamental mode of premodern abstraction--to that equation, through papers that investigate the intersections of materiality, representationality, and ornamentality in medieval material culture.
Ashley Jones
University of Florida