Full Programme available here: bit.ly/3Xv2EQ8
To register please use the online form: https://agenart.org/seminarios/seminario-internacional-representar-la-reginalidad-en-la-monarquia-de-los-austrias-siglo-xvii/
The BritishSpanish Society is hosting an evening of music, wine and tapas at St James’s Church Picadilly this Friday 25 November 2022, doors open at 5:30 pm
The BSS is delighted to once again be holding their Autumn Concert in the impressive St James’s Church, Piccadilly. The church, which dates back to 1676, was designed by highly acclaimed British Architect Sir Christopher Wren. Wren’s aim for the church was to enable the largest number of people to hear the service and see the preacher. The acoustic qualities of the church have been consistently celebrated with the church hosting music greats across the ages from Haydn to Adele.
This year’s music director is former BritishSpanish Society scholarship winner Nicole Crespo O’Donoghue. Nicole describes the concert’s programme as a ‘celebration of Spanish composers’.
Programme (subject to change)
Julia Sanchez Merino (mezzo soprano) – A selection of songs by Falla & Lorca
Laura Peribañez (cello) – Allegro appassionat by T. Buxó
Lucia Veintimilla (violin) – Salve Regina by Jorge Muñiz & 3 ‘Hyperludes’ by F. Coll
Daisy Noton (flute) – Carmen Fantasy by F. Borne
Laura Peribañez & Nicole Crespo – Tango – I. Albeniz
Nicole Crespo (violin) – Playera and Zapateado by Sarasate
Ticket price includes a tapas and wine reception following the concert. The event is open to members and non-members.
Tickets available here: https://www.britishspanishsociety.org/events/talented-british-and-spanish-musicians/?currency=EUR
Please find the programme here: https://iemyrhd.usal.es/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Triptico-.pdf
Thanks to the generous support of the ARTES-CEEH Travel Scholarship, I was able to carry out some research at the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, Spain, in June 2021. The topic of my dissertation, The Archangel Saint Michael in the Fifteenth-century Crown of Aragon: a different perspective, gives an idea of the period I needed to research and the language in which many sources were written. It was difficult to find many journals about 15th century Spanish art (specifically in the Crown of Aragon) in the main libraries in London, due to the fact that they are Spanish publications. I had to do most of my research online due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic and online access to these types of journals was extremely difficult. A similar situation happened when I tried to access small museums online (diocesan museums in the regions of Cataluña, Valencia, Murcia). So, even if I knew there were some interesting examples of altarpieces in these cities, I couldn’t find or use any images.
The Travel Scholarship allowed me to travel to Madrid and expand my research, but sadly, due to the Covid restrictions that were in place in Spain at that time, I couldn’t travel to other cities to visit these small museums. Nonetheless, I managed to spend some time checking publications that were not available in London. Hence, I am most grateful to ARTES and CEEH for helping me to expand the research for my final dissertation.
The Public Statues and Sculpture Association (PSSA) is hosting an online lecture on the seventeenth-century Seville sculptor Pedro Roldán and his legacy as a master, discussing the work of some of his pupils, including of course his daughter Luisa, to be given by Cathy Hall van den Elsen on Tuesday 22 November at 7.30 pm.
The talk is free for PSSA members, and only £3.50 for non-members. Register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sculptural-lineage-masters-and-pupils-tickets-430347028547
The talk forms part of the PSSA series, Sculpture Lineage. Masters and Pupils. For more information please see: https://pssauk.org/event/sculptural-lineage-masters-and-pupils-2/
In 2021 I was awarded an ARTES-CEEH Travel Scholarship for the project “My darling, fly thou: New iconography of the Song of Songs in Iberian medieval sculpture”. Unfortunately, Covid forced me to delay my research and I was unable to pursue my work until this Autumn. In fact, I am currently at the British Library writing this report, surrounded by books dedicated to the medieval exegesis of the Song of Songs while a 700-year-old Bible with exquisite illumination awaits me at the Manuscripts Room, only a few meters from where I am now.
I came to London with a hypothesis that I wanted to tackle, that is, that a group of Romanesque sculptures in Asturias and Zamora (Spain) with embracing knights and ladies could be interpreted as a representation of the Song of Songs, one of the books of the Bible that was most heavily commented on during the Middle Ages. To strengthen this hypothesis, I had another group of sculptures of victorious knights being saluted by ladies that are believed to represent Psalm 45 (Vg.44), a passage deeply related to Solomon’s Song. Both the Song of Songs, written by king Solomon, and Psalm 44, written by king David, were interpreted by medieval exegetes such as Saint Augustin or Venerable Bede as the marriage of Christ with his followers or the marriage of Christ and Church. The iconographical epitome of this symbolic wedding is the Coronation of the Virgin, a theme that would become very popular in 12th– and 13th-century Europe.
During my stay in London, I had access to the extensive collection of books held at the British Library, the Warburg Library, and the Senate House Library. Through research I was able to strengthen my hypothesis and find arguments to support my claim that the kiss carved in stone on the portal of San Pedro de Villanueva (Asturias) is a representation of the first verse of the Song of Songs “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth” (Cant. 1:1). I was also able to study first-hand the Bible of William of Hales (MS. Royal 1 B XII), which has not yet been digitized by the British Library and has a representation of the Kiss between Christ and the Church. Furthermore, the Warburg Institute Iconographic Database allowed me to compare different representations of the Song of Songs in the history of art and I arrived at the conclusion that the carvings of knights and ladies embracing found in Villanueva, Narzana, Villamayor, Sograndio, Oviedo, Benavente, and Toro constitute an iconography partitcular to that part of Iberia. In the next days, I am planning to visit the Conway and Witt Image Libraries at the Courtauld hoping to deepen my research.
Finally, I look forward to next week, when I have been invited to present my work at the Courtauld Institute of Art where I will be giving the talk “So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty”: on the sculptures of knight and ladies at Santa María la Mayor de Toro (Zamora). I am hugely grateful to ARTES and the CEEH for making this opportunity possible!
With the generosity of the ARTES-CEEH PhD Scholarship, I have made significant progress on my research, writing, as well as additional skills training. I am a second-year PhD student in the History of Art department at the University of York working under the supervision of Dr Richard McClary. My thesis is titled ‘From Umayyad Madinat al-Zahra to Almohad Seville: The Reuse of Architectural Spolia in al-Andalus during the 12th century.’ My work considers the re-use of Umayyad spolia, particularly marble capitals of the Madinat al-Zahra-type, in later imperial Almohad architecture in Seville, primarily the Giralda and Alcázar.
Since my last scholarship report, I have continued working towards compiling an annotated literature review, a digital database of the corpus of caliphal capitals, and significant portions of my thesis which have been submitted as conference papers. Thus far, I have been able to study the capitals in London (Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Museum), Paris (Louvre), Cordoba (Museo Arqueológico de Córdoba and the Madinat al-Zahra Museum), and in Malaga. This year, I plan to continue my field work in Madrid (Museo Arqueológico Nacional), Barcelona (Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya), and at the Almohad sites in Seville (Giralda and Alcázar, as well as the regional museums). The current chapter I am working on establishes the significance of Madinat al-Zahra, both as the imperial centre in the caliphal period and in its ruined afterlife, as a repository of architectural fragments. In this chapter, I trace the development of the Madinat al-Zahra-type capital, highlighting its iconography, inscriptions, and uses. The importance of history, first in the caliphal period but especially for the Almohads who later used Córdoba as a visual and material compass in claiming political legitimacy, will be at the forefront of this project. The attitudes towards the past, feelings of nostalgia, and memory will be significant in my research.
This past year, I had the opportunity to present my work at the Association for Art History’s annual conference and the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean’s biennial conference, “Interruptions & Disruptions in the Medieval Mediterranean,” in Crete. This year I hope to present my work at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds and the postgraduate students meeting of the Ernst Herzfeld Society For Studies in Islamic Art and Archaeology. Finally, I plan to present one of my chapters at the “Islamic Art Research in Progress Seminar” which has recently launched at the University of York.
When not in the field or in the library, I spend the rest of my time on professional and skills development. I am continuing with language training in Arabic and Spanish, which will help me in accessing relevant primary texts that are significant for my research. I am also working towards the York Learning and Teaching Award (YLTA) through my work as a Graduate Teaching Assistant on the course, ‘Transmissions and Connections’. Successful completion of YLTA will award me with Associate Fellow of the HEA (AFHEA). Finally, I have been selected to serve as a Yorkshire Consortium for Equity in Doctoral Education (YCEDE) Scholars Board Member.
In conclusion, I would like to express my gratitude to ARTES and CEEH for their continuing generous support, which has provided me with the means to continue my PhD work in all its research, writing, and training aspects.
A reminder that our next Research Seminar will take place TODAY, 9 November at 18.00 on zoom:
Professor Sir Barry Ife, “George Vivian’s Spanish Scenery and the Politics of the 1830s”
Registration is required: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=i9hQcmhLKUW-RNWaLYpvlGP-wSu2R1JFpVjsNyCAKKVUOERSMThWRlpIMzFTN0JLQ0xGUUVNMFA1OS4u
Abstract: George Vivian’s book of 29 hand-coloured lithographs of Spanish ‘scenery’ was published in London by Colnaghi in 1838. It has remained largely overlooked in the rather crowded field of illustrated accounts by nineteenth-century travellers to Spain; and Vivian himself has been overshadowed by more prolific and higher-profile contemporaries such as David Roberts. This paper takes a fresh look at Vivian’s book, which was based on two journeys to Spain in 1833 and 1837. A great deal had happened in Spain between those two visits, and among the many other questions raised by this book is the extent to which those events are reflected in it. In a word, just how scenic is Vivian’s Spanish Scenery.
About the speaker: Barry Ife is a cultural historian specialising in Spain. From 1988-2004 he was Cervantes Professor of Spanish at King’s College London and from 2004-2017 he was Principal of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where he is now Research Professor. He is currently working on a book on the voice of Cervantes and is directing a project to collate all eighteenth-century manuscripts and printed witnesses of Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas.
The event is organised by the Zurbarán Centre with the ARTES Iberian and Latin American Visual Culture Group.
For details on the programme, please visit the Zurbarán Centre website.
Collecting Spain: textiles at the V&A, 1850-1950
Book launch: Collecting Spain. Coleccionismo de artes decorativas españolas en Gran
Bretaña y España / Collecting Spanish Decorative Arts in Britain and Spain (Madrid: Polifemo, 2022)
Ana Cabrera Lafuente (V&A Museum), introduced by Lesley Miller (University of Glasgow)
Respondent: Hilary Macartney (University of Glasgow)
In Collecting Spain: Coleccionismo de artes decorativas españolas en Gran Bretaña y España / Collecting Spanish Decorative Arts in Britain and Spain (Madrid: Polifemo, 2002), Ana Cabrera examines the collecting of Spanish decorative arts between about 1850 and 1945, from both British and Spanish perspectives. It focusses on the period in which museums and private collectors in both countries valued and acquired different types of objects from Spain, such as ivory caskets, silk textiles, carpets, lustreware ceramics, furniture, jewelry and silverware. The essays reveal similarities and differences in approach in Britain and Spain, as well as the key figures involved and the differing national contexts in which their activities took place.
Dr Cabrera will highlight the role played by specific museums, such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and by local, national and international exhibitions of the decorative arts, in disseminating knowledge about Spanish objects, historical and contemporary. In her talk, Dr Cabrera will also focus on the significant role of textiles in the history of taste and collecting in this period.
Thursday, 10 November 2022, 5 p.m.
This is an in-person event, at the TalkLab Room (University of Glasgow Library, level 3). However, by popular request, the event will also be available via Zoom (Zoom link from: https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwud-6gqTorH9DhNTkNkmEZJj_uPF7Ml5xB)
Early modern artistic literature is a crucial source for the study of art between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Treatise writers such as Vasari, Pacheco, Baldinucci, and Palomino were crucial to the construction and future interpretation of art and their texts, most of them of hagiographical nature, provide insight into early modern artistic theory and practice, while offering a glimpse of the lives and works of artists.
This session focuses instead on the readers and owners of these texts, many of whom have left annotations, scribbles, drawings, and poems on the book. Much can be learned from these comments written in the margins. For instance, the copies of Vasari’s Vite which were annotated by El Greco, Scamozzi, or Carracci, indicate how artists interpreted the text. Thus, through an interdisciplinary approach, the session seeks to deepen the study of art treatises (whether in their original language or translated) as key factors of knowledge transfer and we invite proposals that examine either manuscripts or printed books as an object, their readers in the early modern period (up to 1850), or their annotations.
If interested, please email Mario Zamora Pérez (mario.zamora@uam.es) and Patricia Manzano Rodríguez (patricia.manzano-rodiguez@durham.ac.uk) with a title and abstract (250 words maximum) for a 20-minute paper, your name and institutional affiliation (if any). Please make sure the title is concise and reflects the contents of the paper because the title is what appears online, in social media and in the digital programme. You should receive an acknowledgement of receipt of your submission within two
weeks.
Deadline for submissions: 11 November 2022
ARTES 