by Jon Lackman | 1 March 2009 | Conferences
From CAA, Allyson Drucker writes:
There was a noticeable decrease in attendance today at the third and final day of CAA, but some of the remaining few were treated to a series of neat papers at “The Northern Court Artist, 1400-1600.” The session was off to a great start with Carol Krinsky’s talk entitled “What Court Artists Did (and Sometimes Did Not Do)” in which she focused on Jan van Eyck in his role as varlet de chambre in the court of Philip the Good. She suggested that the artist may have been principally engaged in the designing of luxury objects and automata being produced at court in the 1420s, and that such designs exhibit the illusionistic ingenuity for which van Eyck’s later, painted work is known. Krinsky’s thoughtful evaluation of the role of the varlet de chambre was nicely complemented by Sarah Lawrence’s presentation on Jacopo Strada, court antiquarian at the Hapsburg court of the late 16th century. Together, the papers showed that the role of the court “artist” was an expansive one that required, or furthered, a dexterity in various media and ideas. As the conference drew to a close, there was a general sense of pleasant fatigue among the attendees – their own interests in various media and ideas likely furthered and temporarily sated by three days of papers and collegial conversation.
A very interesting website. I plan to access it again when I get home and have more time. There is much I need to look into here.