Category: Research

The research seeks to understand and develop new knowledge of the ways in which users engage with visual images in network culture in the light of recent generative AI image software. It will do this through a specific focus upon online engagement with Tate in relationship to the collection of British art from the 16th century to the present day and of international modern and contemporary art, including Tate’s exhibition and display programmes.

The project aims to contribute to a greater knowledge and understanding of the circulation of the computational image and the reproduced work of art in supporting the development of Tate’s online user base. There is also further opportunity to develop recommendations for an ethical and moral policy response, alongside noting the risks and benefits to Tate. The studentship offers the opportunity to develop practice-based doctoral research with Tate Digital to develop new modes of co-curating with a diversity of audiences. With recent developments of machine vision employed in AI generative interfaces, such as Chat GTP-3, DALL-E-2, Craiyon, Midjourney and Bing, new opportunities arise to investigate the ways in which users collaborate with machine vision in the process of image making. This research aims to reverse engineer what is involved technically and culturally in producing AI composite images from prompts such as, ‘a still life in the style of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’ for example. The research will be of benefit to Tate Digital and Art Museum curators in thinking about audiences of the future and how the museum can engage with them.

Four wooden ceilings from the Torrijos Palace, Toledo - BY ANNA MCSWEENEY,MARIAM ROSSER-OWEN

Alonso Cano’s rediscovered ‘Immaculate Conception’ for San Alberto, Seville - BY BENITO PRIETO NAVARRETE

Goya’s ‘Self-portrait with Dr Arrieta’ - BY MERCEDES CÉRON-PEÑA

Biting satire: notes on Salvador Dalí’s ‘Debris of an automobile’ - BY DAVID LOMAS

Edith Hoffmann’s early years in England, 1934–38 - BY YONNA YAPOU-KROMHOLZ

Eberhard W. Kornfeld (1923–2023) - BY JOHANNES NATHAN

Kavita Singh (1964–2023) - BY SALONI MATHUR

2. The Body and Daily Life as Metaphor and Analogy in Technical Language in the Works of Leonardo da Vinci, Vannoccio Biringuccio and Benvenuto Cellini - Andrea Bernardoni

3. Neudörffer's Notebook: Recipes and the Rendering of Calligraphic Technique between Manuscript and Print in Sixteenth-Century Germany - Hannah Murphy

4. Between arte and ingenio. Approaches to Technique in Early Modern Spanish painting - José Ramón Marcaida

5. ‘An old and calm woman, blind and mute’: Finding Words to Describe Technique in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Art Literature - Marije Osnabrugge

6. ‘Have a great care of the shadows’. Perspectives on Carefulness in Historical Recipes for the Restoration of Oil Paintings. - Maartje Stols-Witlox

7. Architecture and Technical Virtuosity in Eighteenth Century France - Valérie Nègre

8. The Debate about Technique in the Kunstwissenschaft around 1900 - Maria Teresa Costa

9. Somatic Language in Artistic Work Practices. An Ethnographic Perspective on Bodies, Materials, Practical Knowledge and Technique in Contemporary Art - Christiane Schürkmann

At once collector, botanist, reader, artist, and patron, Agnes Block is best described as a cultural producer. A member of an influential network in her lifetime, today she remains a largely obscure figure. The socioeconomic and political barriers faced by early modern women, together with a male-dominated tradition in art history, have meant that too few stories of women’s roles in the creation, production, and consumption of art have reached us. This book seeks to write Block and her contributions into the art and cultural history of the seventeenth-century Netherlands, highlighting the need for and advantages of a multifaceted approach to research on early modern women. Examining Block’s achievements, relationships, and objects reveals a woman who was independent, knowledgeable, self-aware, and not above self-promotion. Though her gender brought few opportunities and many barriers, Agnes Block succeeded in fashioning herself as Flora Batava, a liefhebber at the intersection of art and science.

Over the last 100 years, we have worked to locate and acquire approximately 5,000 objects in the collection, many of which are displayed in the house, wings, outbuildings, and museum galleries. The process is ongoing and involves a combination of documentary and provenance research and connoisseurship.

James Gillray (1756–1815) was late Georgian Britain’s funniest, most inventive and most celebrated graphic satirist and continues to influence cartoonists today. His exceptional drawing, matched by his flair for clever dialogue and amusing titles, won him unprecedented fame; his sophisticated designs often parodied artists such as William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds and Henry Fuseli, while he borrowed and wittily redeployed celebrated passages from William Shakespeare and John Milton to send up politicians in an age – as now – where society was fast changing, anxieties abounded, truth was sometimes scarce, and public opinion mattered.

Tim Clayton’s definitive biography explores Gillray’s life and work through his friends, publishers – the most important being women – and collaborators, aiming to identify those involved in inventing satirical prints and the people who bought them. Clayton thoughtfully explores the tensions between artistic independence, financial necessity and the conflicting demands of patrons and self-appointed censors in a time of political and social turmoil.

An enduring myth of Georgian architecture is that it was purely the pursuit of male architects and their wealthy male patrons. History states that it was men who owned grand estates and houses, who commissioned famous architects, and who embarked upon elaborate architectural schemes.

Hidden Patrons dismantles this myth - revealing instead that women were at the heart of the architectural patronage of the day, exerting far more influence and agency than has previously been recognised. Architectural drawing and design, discourse, and patronage were interests shared by many women in the eighteenth century. Far from being the preserve of elite men, architecture was a passion shared by both sexes, intellectually and practically, as long as they possessed sufficient wealth and autonomy.

• Permalink
• 
  
  Filed Under:  
  • Research

The volume presents a wide-ranging investigation of the ways in which Petrarch’s legacy informed the relationship between visual and literary portraits in sixteenth-century Italy. Petrarch’s vast literary production influenced the intellectual framework in which new models of representation and self-representation developed during the Renaissance. His two sonnets on Laura’s portrait by Simone Martini and his ambivalent fascination with the illusionary power of portraiture in his Latin texts — such as the Secretum, the Familiares and De remediis utriusque fortune — constituted the theoretical reference for artists and writers alike. In a century dominated by the rhetorical comparison between art and literature (ut pictura poësis) and by the paragone debate, the interplay between Petrarch’s oeuvre, Petrarchism and portraiture shaped the discourse on the relationship between the sitters’ physical image and their inner life. The volume brings together diverse interdisciplinary contributions that explore the subject through a rich body of literary and visual sources.

Across three chronological sections: 1530–1660, 1660–1760 and 1760–1830, this volume explores how architectural culture evolved from a subject carried solely in the minds and skills of craftsmen to being embodied in books and documents and with new professions – architects, surveyors and engineers – in charge. With chapters dedicated to towns and cities, landscape, infrastructure, military architecture and industrial architecture, and beautifully illustrated with new photography, detailed graphics and a wealth of historic images, Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530–1830 is an invaluable resource for students, historians and anyone with an interest in the architecture of this period, and promises to become a definitive work of scholarship in the field.

The Indian Cat first presents a delightful picture of the cat in our written and oral literatures. This is followed by a catalogue of paintings, each showcasing a different aspect of the place accorded to cats in our society. Then there is a selection of poetry about the cat, much of which is translated from a wide swathe of languages including Urdu, Hindi, Persian, and Bengali. The final section presents proverbs, sayings, and idioms on the animal.

The professorship is intended to comprehensively represent the area of Early Modern Art in research and teaching (architecture, painting, sculpture, art theory), with a focus on Italian Baroque Art. Methodological and theoretical competence, experience in teaching at all levels of training and in supervising theses as well as in obtaining third-party funding are expected. Tasks include participation in introductory and epoch-lectures at the Department of Art History as well as in the Research Cluster on “Art History and Visual Culture” at the Doctoral School of Historical and Cultural Studies.

Given equal qualifications, preference will be given to female candidates.

Session 1 - Gender  

Exhibition Co-Curator Dr Amy Orrock and Dr Olenka Horbatsch, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, will introduce Rubens’s writings and drawings on women. What might the evidence on paper reveal about his studio practice and the role of women in his life?

Session 2 – Beauty  

Jacqueline Ansell, Senior Lecturer and writer, explores the topic of beauty through the fashion of the time, its meaning and connection to the works of Rubens.   

Session 3 – Love

Dr. Bert Watteeuw, Director of the Rubens House, will present new archival discoveries on Helena Fourment, fleshing out a rather meagre historiographical profile and returning agency to a mute muse. 

Session 4 – Power 

Co-Curator Dr Ben van Beneden will highlight how Rubens merged politics and power in his art, as he was not only the most internationally acclaimed artist of his time but also an important diplomat who was sent on missions to Spain, the Netherlands and England.   

Established in the 1890s by Sir Robert Witt during his undergraduate studies at Oxford, the collection has a fascinating history. A comprehensive survey in 2013 showed that the Witt comprises 2,151,862 images in 102,995 folders, housed in 19,139 boxes. Its collection occupies nearly 1.4 km of shelf space and includes works from 26 different national “schools” of art.

British School by w/c 28 July 2024
French School by w/c 2 September 2024
Netherlandish School by w/c 11 November 2024
Italian School by w/c 10 February 2025
German and American Schools by w/c 11 March 2025
Remaining schools by w/c 15 April 2025

Art undeniably gains its power from its ability to fuel and drive our feelings. Because it is able to appeal to our inner beings, it can give solace and connection, linking us to lives and experiences far removed from us by time or distance. Just as potently, it can foment difference and dissent, intensifying our sense of dislocation, rage, or violence. Growing up in Belfast during the Troubles particularly sensitised me to this issue. Art is dangerous, and it can influence us in eloquent and sometimes uncontrollable ways. But it is also uniquely able to connect us to the peoples and worlds of the past.