Iconography and Its Discontents II: Iconography and Technology
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Index of Medieval Art, Princeton Univ.
Organizer Name
Pamela A. Patton
Organizer Affiliation
Index of Medieval Art, Princeton Univ.
Presider Name
Pamela A. Patton
Paper Title 1
Image on the Edge . . . of the Internet: Has New Technology Pushed Marginal Art Back Into the Margins?
Presenter 1 Name
Emily Shartrand
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of Delaware
Paper Title 2
Archetype: A Digital Humanities Approach to Describing, Comparing, and Analysing Medieval Iconography
Presenter 2 Name
Stewart J. Brookes
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Cambridge
Paper Title 3
Studying Medieval Iconography at the Scale of Technology
Presenter 3 Name
Benjamin Zweig
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Start Date
11-5-2018 10:00 AM
Session Location
Sangren 1750
Description
Modern scholars often express discomfort with the term “iconography,” caricaturing its study as obsessed with rigidified taxonomies, elaborate stemmae, and the abstract pursuit of textual analogues for free-floating images. Yet the fundamental questions that drive iconographic studies remain central to scholarship in art history and many other medievalist disciplines. What did a medieval image mean, and to whom? How did these meanings change in different contexts and in the eyes of different viewers, and what can this tell us about the values and practices of the society in which they were made and viewed? The ways in which researchers answer these questions, meanwhile, has changed dramatically, bolstered by new methodologies and the increasing availability of digital tools to quantify, compare, and analyze a wide range of medieval images. Such advances suggest that the study of iconography not only is “not dead yet,” but is very much alive and open to reassessment.
The two sessions dedicated to “Iconography and its Discontents” capitalize on the new vitality of current iconographic studies by gathering papers that reexamine the potential of iconographic work for medievalists, prioritizing work that pushes past traditional approaches to engage with the new questions, new methods, new disciplines, and new technologies of greatest impact within the field. Following on the centennial and digital relaunch of Princeton’s recently renamed Index of Medieval Art, one of the first and longest-lived iconographic repositories of its kind, the sessions aim to chart a new path in a scholarship transformed by both technological advancements and disciplinary creativity.
Pamela Patton
Iconography and Its Discontents II: Iconography and Technology
Sangren 1750
Modern scholars often express discomfort with the term “iconography,” caricaturing its study as obsessed with rigidified taxonomies, elaborate stemmae, and the abstract pursuit of textual analogues for free-floating images. Yet the fundamental questions that drive iconographic studies remain central to scholarship in art history and many other medievalist disciplines. What did a medieval image mean, and to whom? How did these meanings change in different contexts and in the eyes of different viewers, and what can this tell us about the values and practices of the society in which they were made and viewed? The ways in which researchers answer these questions, meanwhile, has changed dramatically, bolstered by new methodologies and the increasing availability of digital tools to quantify, compare, and analyze a wide range of medieval images. Such advances suggest that the study of iconography not only is “not dead yet,” but is very much alive and open to reassessment.
The two sessions dedicated to “Iconography and its Discontents” capitalize on the new vitality of current iconographic studies by gathering papers that reexamine the potential of iconographic work for medievalists, prioritizing work that pushes past traditional approaches to engage with the new questions, new methods, new disciplines, and new technologies of greatest impact within the field. Following on the centennial and digital relaunch of Princeton’s recently renamed Index of Medieval Art, one of the first and longest-lived iconographic repositories of its kind, the sessions aim to chart a new path in a scholarship transformed by both technological advancements and disciplinary creativity.
Pamela Patton