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Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts
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Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts

A special issue of Arts (ISSN 2076-0752).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2023) | Viewed by 11044

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Lisa Pon

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Art History, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA
Interests: Renaissance art, architecture, and visual culture; temporality and the material object; transmedial images in motion; implications of sensory input beyond the visual; the phenomenology of ritual
Prof. Dr. Kate Van Orden

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Music, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Interests: material history; cultural history of France, Italy, and the Mediterranean; orality; popular song; human and cultural mobility

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Between the fourteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Renaissance Florentines wrote extensively, committing their personal and business exchanges to ink on paper, even while thinking about wealth not in terms of metallic coins but rather in terms of abstracted moneys of account. In and well beyond Florence, Renaissance artists worked with gold and silver, wax and wood, sound and space to create both tangible and intangible cultural heritage. This Special Issue of Arts seeks to revisit the "material turn" in the humanities and to recouple Renaissance materiality to the immaterial.  Thus we ask about the spatial, technical, ritual, and institutional framings of any material work of art and about the past voices, phantom performers, and music that enlivened plays, dances, processions, liturgies, and other events. We seek to incite more performative, active imaginings of various objects in their artworlds—books, musical instruments, tools, pigments, dye woods, lead type, copper plates, among much more—and the artists who once manipulated them, breathed on them, and performed before them. 

We invite articles of 4000–10,000 words in length for this Special Issue. There is no limit on the number of images, which can be reproduced in color, but authors are responsible for obtaining permissions. For this special issue, articles that pass peer review and are published will not be subject to the 1200 CHF Article Processing Charge.

In order to coordinate with related papers submitted for presentation at the 2023 Renaissance Society of America annual conference in San Juan, please email both co-editors with a title, 300-word abstract, and brief cv BEFORE 1 MAY 2023.

Prof. Dr. Lisa Pon
Prof. Dr. Kate Van Orden
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Arts is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • materiality
  • intangible cultural heritage
  • art
  • performance
  • renaissance

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Editorial

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6 pages, 186 KiB  
Editorial
Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts
by Kate van Orden and Lisa Pon
Arts 2024, 13(1), 39; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13010039 - 19 Feb 2024
Viewed by 1212
Abstract
The inspiration for this Special Issue on Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts arose from two convictions: (1) that sensual experiences and the physicality of creation must be a part of our accounts of the past, and (2) that crosstalk among scholars of music, literature, [...] Read more.
The inspiration for this Special Issue on Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts arose from two convictions: (1) that sensual experiences and the physicality of creation must be a part of our accounts of the past, and (2) that crosstalk among scholars of music, literature, art, and architecture can reveal both the historiographical gaps endemic to specific disciplines and the critical tools each specialty brings to the project of incorporating living, breathing artists, builders, poets, singers, players, worshippers, scientists, and others into histories of the Renaissance arts [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

17 pages, 5642 KiB  
Article
On the Persistence of the Organic: The Material Lives of the Robinia pseudoacacia
by Lauren R. Cannady
Arts 2023, 12(6), 253; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12060253 - 14 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1663
Abstract
Just as plants confiscated from one part of the world and introduced to another may become naturalized over time, so too may the stories humankind tells about the natural world. Both can have consequences for local and global biocultures. The North American black [...] Read more.
Just as plants confiscated from one part of the world and introduced to another may become naturalized over time, so too may the stories humankind tells about the natural world. Both can have consequences for local and global biocultures. The North American black locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) offers a case study through which to consider the transmission of early modern environmental and cultural histories. The persistence of a singular specimen planted in Paris in the early seventeenth century stands in contrast to the mutability of histories over time and the divergent modality of narratives about the natural world in different cultures. The many material lives of the plant species—from its propagation and first publication by Europeans to accounts by European colonizers in North America to the tree’s historic and continued use in Indigenous craft practices—can be read through intertwined histories of botany, bioprospecting, settler colonialism, and the Atlantic slave trade. Expanding the profundity of the black locust’s history by connecting its prehistories to written narratives reveals the tree to be an entangled organic object whose histories are integral to its materiality. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts)
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17 pages, 4532 KiB  
Article
Echo’s Fluid (Im)materiality across Text and Performance
by Eugenio Refini
Arts 2023, 12(6), 249; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12060249 - 11 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1420
Abstract
This article explores the use of echoes in early modern theater, particularly in the context of opera. By examining the incorporation of echoes in plays, libretti, and scores, the article argues that the Ovidian trope of Echo occupies a fluid space spanning textuality [...] Read more.
This article explores the use of echoes in early modern theater, particularly in the context of opera. By examining the incorporation of echoes in plays, libretti, and scores, the article argues that the Ovidian trope of Echo occupies a fluid space spanning textuality and performance. The article begins by delving into how the sonic essence of Echo was conveyed in early modern dramatic texts and conceptualized in coeval theoretical writings, forming a continual negotiation between the specific features of the performance and the endeavor to record it on the page. Subsequently, it looks at the appearance of Echo in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, offering it as a case study for evaluation through the lens of modern performances and the interpretive questions they raise. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts)
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22 pages, 7114 KiB  
Article
Petrified Beholders: The Interactive Materiality of Baldassarre Peruzzi’s Perseus and Medusa
by Mari Yoko Hara
Arts 2023, 12(6), 246; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12060246 - 7 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1504
Abstract
Baldassarre Peruzzi’s cosmological vault fresco (1510–11) in the Villa Farnesina in Rome, prominently featuring a scene of Perseus and Medusa, showcases a dynamic operation that was often at work in the early modern period between the beholder and an immobile work of art. [...] Read more.
Baldassarre Peruzzi’s cosmological vault fresco (1510–11) in the Villa Farnesina in Rome, prominently featuring a scene of Perseus and Medusa, showcases a dynamic operation that was often at work in the early modern period between the beholder and an immobile work of art. These types of representational objects participate in the discourse around materiality, not by employing the signifying powers of their constituent materials, but by encouraging thought about their material presence. I explore the process of haptic engagement that the fresco painting urges in its beholders, raising the possibility that the trope of petrification, made popular by Dante and other Italian writers of amorous poems, unlocks the work’s layered meaning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts)
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27 pages, 18886 KiB  
Article
“Amphions Harp gaue sence vnto stone Walles”: The Five Senses and Musical–Visual Affect
by Katie Bank
Arts 2023, 12(5), 219; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12050219 - 23 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1942
Abstract
In 1582 George Whetstone described the feeling of entering a barren Great Chamber the morning after a night of sparkling social and musical entertainments. Recounting the previous night’s activities, he reflected on the relationship between musical activity and space, saying ‘the Poets fayned [...] Read more.
In 1582 George Whetstone described the feeling of entering a barren Great Chamber the morning after a night of sparkling social and musical entertainments. Recounting the previous night’s activities, he reflected on the relationship between musical activity and space, saying ‘the Poets fayned not without reason, that Amphions Harp gaue sence vnto stone Walles’. This article explores the complex relationships between sensing, sociability, activity, and space through an in-depth examination of a late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English interior design trend: personifications of the Five Senses. Using active imagining, it considers how the Five Senses engaged early modern English subjects in a dialectic between sensory/bodily absence and presence as a mode for exploring the precarious pleasure of holding the passions on the edge of balance. Looking at the spatial and musical-ritual framings of the Five Senses decoration at Knole House, Kent, it investigates how feeling, sensing bodies experienced musical–visual sensory interplay in early modern elite households. It seeks to better understand the aesthetic, emotional experiences of those who gave life to the musical, social situations in such spaces. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts)
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15 pages, 29589 KiB  
Article
{Not}ation: The In/Visible Visual Cultures of Musical Legibility in the English Renaissance
by Eleanor Chan
Arts 2023, 12(2), 75; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12020075 - 7 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1603
Abstract
Legibility can seem as similar to the quintessence of musical notation, without which any attempt at musical inscription has fundamentally no purpose. Nevertheless, the visual culture of the English Renaissance is full of surviving examples that feature music books that are, fundamentally, illegible. [...] Read more.
Legibility can seem as similar to the quintessence of musical notation, without which any attempt at musical inscription has fundamentally no purpose. Nevertheless, the visual culture of the English Renaissance is full of surviving examples that feature music books that are, fundamentally, illegible. Such instances are not useless, but rather shed vital light on the concerns of the visual culture of the English Renaissance, as well as what representation meant to the people who originally created and viewed these objects. What does it mean to include sheet music that merely looks similar to, but does not manifest, as legible notation? When does an object lose its semantic value? When do writing, notation, and signification pull lose from their seams and cease to be meaningful? Through the lens of a trio of objects (Four Children Making Music by the Master of the Countess of Warwick, an anonymous furnishing panel from Hardwick Hall, and a wall painting from High Street, Thame) that feature partially, or tantalizingly, legible musical notation, this paper seeks to explore the ramifications of visually depicting things that are and are not readable. Such objects have a graphic eloquence beyond the simple equation of sign and signified. Ultimately, entertaining the concept of illegible music notation within visual art objects as a deliberate stylistic choice, I argue that we can greatly enhance our understanding of what the notes on the page could mean in the English Renaissance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Im/Materiality in Renaissance Arts)
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