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

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS
 
May 11th, 10:00 AM

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