Negotiating Artistic and Artisanal Authority
Renaissance Society of America, March 11-13, 2027
Organizers: Sarah Rosenthal & Stella Wisgrill
Deadline: 15 July, 2026
As workers, late medieval and early modern artists occupied a peculiar position: they had desirable skills and abilities others, including most nobility, lacked, but the want of pay and the needs of their markets often shaped their work in dynamic tension to ideals of artistic license. Some may have been praised for quasi-divine abilities or applied particular talent in building lucrative relationships, but, like all humans, they were constrained by fortune, death, and providence. The goal of this panel is to showcase new art historical research about works of art in which are constituted artists’ and artisans’ bids for authority, or their failure to secure it. Contributions may reveal something about artisanal crafts as products of labor, or concern art as a reflection of the human condition as understood at the time. They could address what erasure, anonymity, and subservience on the one hand and visibility, authorship, and status on the other teach us about contests for power. Or they might concern images that reveal the differences between representing power itself and representing those who possess it. All will address how the creation of works of art, and the effects of those objects, reflect the decision-making privileges or struggles for autonomy inherent to creative participation in Renaissance society.
We welcome submissions about material from any culture, nation, and geographic location made in the period 1300–1700, including work made in colonial, collective/workshop, or other contexts that disrupt the paradigm of heroic artistic genius.
Please send proposals for 20-minute papers to Sarah Rosenthal (scr875@g.harvard.edu) and Stella Wisgrill (stella.wisgrill@khm.at) by July 15th. Proposal should include full name and affiliation (if applicable); paper title (max. 15 words), abstract (200 word maximum); brief CV (max. 2 page); (expected) year of PhD completion. Speakers will be asked to confirm their participation in late July.