AD VIVUM? Friday 21 November and Saturday 22 November 2014

AD VIVUM?
Friday 21 November and Saturday 22 November 2014
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN
The term ad vivum and its cognates al vivo, au vif, nach dem Leben and naer het leven have
been applied since the thirteenth century to depictions designated as from, to or after (the)
life. This one and a half day event will explore the issues raised by this vocabulary in relation
to visual materials produced and used in Europe before 1800, including portraiture, botanical,
zoological, medical and topographical images, images of novel and newly discovered
phenomena, and likenesses created through direct contact with the object being depicted,
such as metal casts of animals.
It is has long been recognised that the designation ad vivum was not restricted to depictions
made directly after the living model, and that its function was often to advertise the claim of
an image to be a faithful likeness or a bearer of reliable information. Viewed as an assertion
of accuracy or truth, ad vivum raises a number of fundamental questions about early modern
epistemology – questions about the value and prestige of visual and/or physical contiguity
between image and original, about the kinds of information which were thought important and
dependably transmissible in material form, and about the roles of the artist in this
transmission. The recent interest of historians of early modern art in how value and meaning
are produced and reproduced by visual materials which do not conform to the definition of art
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN
tel +44 207 848 2909/2785 web http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml
as unique invention, and of historians of science and of art in the visualisation of knowledge,
has placed the questions surrounding ad vivum at the centre of their common concerns.
This event will encourage conversation and interchange between different perspectives
involving a wide range of participants working in different disciplines, from postgraduate
students to established academics.
Organised by Professor Joanna Woodall and Dr Thomas Balfe (The Courtauld Institute of
Art).
Ticket/entry details: £25 (£15 students, Courtauld staff/students and concessions)
BOOK ONLINE: http://ci.tesseras.com/internet/shop Or send a cheque made payable to
‘The Courtauld Institute of Art’ to: Research Forum Events Co-ordinator, Research Forum,
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN, stating ‘Ad
Vivum’. For further information, email [email protected].
PROGRAMME
Friday 21 November
13.30–14.00
Registration
14.00–14.15
Joanna Woodall and Thomas Balfe, Welcome and introduction
14.15–15.00
Keynote Address: Sachiko Kusukawa, University of Cambridge, ‘Ad vivum?
Nature and knowledge in early modern Europe.’
15.00–15.15
Response: Robert Felfe, University of Hamburg
15.15–15.30
Questions and discussion
15.30–16.00
Tea
16.00–17.35
Session 1
Noa Turel, University of Alabama at Birmingham, ‘Live to “from Life”:
stages au vif and pictorial truth in painting’s first century.’
Sheila McTighe, The Courtauld Institute of Art, ‘Representing dal vivo in
Florence, 1619: Filippo Napoletano, Jacques Callot and Michelangelo
Buonarotti the Younger.’
Ioana Măgureanu, National University of the Arts, Bucharest, ‘Questions of
authorship and authority in some early modern anatomical Images.’
María Lumbreras, Johns Hopkins University, ‘Francisco Pacheco and the
“certainty of likeness”.’
17.35–18.00
Questions and discussion
18.00–19.30
Drinks reception
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN
tel +44 207 848 2909/2785 web http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml
Saturday 22 November
09.00–09.30
Registration
09.30–10.45
Session 2
Lia Markey, Villa I Tatti, ‘Aldrovandi’s images al vivo in late sixteenth-century
Bologna.’
Juliette Ferdinand, Università di Verona/ EPHE Paris, ‘Au plus pres du naturel:
illusionistic research in the art of Bernard Palissy.’
Silke Förschler, University of Kassel, ‘Joris Hoefnagel’s illuminations of natural
history.’
Caroline van Eck, University of Leiden, ‘Too close for comfort: some
psychological aspects of moulage à vif.’
10.45–11.15
Questions and discussion
11.15–11.45
Coffee
11.45–13.30
Session 3
Richard Mulholland, Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘Painting by numbers?
Decoding Ferdinand Bauer’s Flora Graeca Colour Chart.’
Eleanor Chan, University of Cambridge, ‘Imagining/abstracting the lifelike:
mathematical visualizations in early modern England and the Low Countries.’
Questions
Daan van Heesch, KU Leuven, ‘“Jerusalem naert Leven”? The meaning of ad
vivum in a mid-sixteenth-century Netherlandish drawing of Jerusalem.’
Pieter Martens, Université catholique de Louvain/University of Leuven, ‘The
earliest ad vivum prints of cities under siege in the Low Countries.’
Questions
José Ramón Marcaida, University of Cambridge, ‘Ad vivum as visual
entanglement: painting al natural during the Hernández expedition (1570–
1577).’
José Beltran, University of Cambridge, ‘Nature from nature: definitions of
natural history in seventeenth-century France.’
Questions
13.30–14.15
Lunch (for speakers and chairs only)
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN
tel +44 207 848 2909/2785 web http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml
14.15–15.30
Round table: Boudewijn Bakker, Mechthild Fend, Eric Jorink, Karin Leonhard
15.30–16.00
Afternoon break (refreshments provided)
16.00–17.15
Session 4
Marcia Pointon, University of Manchester and The Courtauld Institute of Art,
and Lisa Skogh, The Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘Materials ad vivum: agate
and ivory in the kunstkammer.’
Carla Benzan, University College London, ‘Living mountain / transfiguring
nature at Sacro Monte.’
Nina Niedermeier, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, ‘The artist's
memory and the “death portrait ad vivum”: Jacopino del Conte's vera effigies
of Ignatius of Loyola.’
Christopher Heuer, Princeton University/Center for Advanced Study in the
Visual Arts, ‘Ad mortem: Heinrich Lautensack (1522–1590), time, and the
vitality of death.’
17.15–17.45
Questions and discussion
17.45–18.15
Summing up: Claudia Swan
The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN
tel +44 207 848 2909/2785 web http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/researchforum/index.shtml