CFP: Portraiture and the Unworthy Subject in the Early Modern World
CFP for academic session chaired by Dr Carmen Fracchia as part of the Association of Art Historian's Annual Conference (9 – 11 April 2015).
CFP for academic session chaired by Dr Carmen Fracchia as part of the Association of Art Historian's Annual Conference (9 – 11 April 2015).
In the early modern period, the production of portraiture was governed by restrictive conventions. According to the first European treatise on portraiture since antiquity (Francisco de Holanda’s Do tirar polo natural [On Taking Portraits from Life], 1548), the essence of the genre was the worthy sitter’s moral or intellectual prestige. Thus, the main function of the portrait image was to immortalise the worthy elite, with the implicit moral understanding that there could be no room for the portrayal of the unworthy subject. What are the political and visual implications of this belief about portraiture? What are the notions of human diversity that prevent the portrayal of undeserving subjects? How are these concepts negotiated in the production of the portrait image outside Europe? This session aims to build on research by historians of art, literature and the colonial world, and work on slave narratives that illuminate the paradoxical nature of ‘slave portraits’ in the Atlantic World. It intends to explore a wider spectrum of what were considered ‘unworthy subjects’, and the complexity of the mutually exclusive categories of ‘portraiture’ and ‘undeserving subject’. It also seeks to tackle the oxymoronic categories of ‘self-portraiture’ and ‘unworthy subject’, and investigate how notions of human diversity might challenge the boundaries of traditional portraiture and self-portraiture. Contributions are invited that address the portrayal of ‘undeserving people’ across different media and cultures in the early modern world, as well as the historical context of social inferiority and the ‘undeserving’ between the 15th and the 18th centuries.
Abstracts for 30-minute papers should be no more than 250 words and should include your name and institution affiliation (if any). Proposals for papers should be sent with a short CV no longer than one side of an A4 sheet of paper, and submitted by Monday 10 November 2014 to Dr Fracchia directly at c.fracchia@bbk.ac.uk.