The Art of the Poor in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance | The Warburg Institute 03/07/2017, 08*53

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The Art of the Poor in th

Renais

CALL FOR PAPERS

A conference at The Warburg Institute, London, Thursday 14 Friday 15 June 2018

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The Art of the Poor in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance | The Warburg Institute 03/07/2017, 08*53

Market stall selling ceramics and glass ware, from Francesco Bassano, Market Day, Late sixteenth c
(photographed at the Trafalgar Galleries, London, 1983; photo in the Warburg Ins

The art history of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance has generally been written a
cardinals, and popes and their artistic interests and commissions. Recent decades have s
material culture and include a wider range of objects than are discussed in the trad
architecture, but the focus has not fundamentally shifted away from the upper strata of
following this new approach even states confidently that there was no such thing as poor m

There are, however, countless modest images, decorated objects and buildings across Europ
pilgrims badges in the Museum of London to frescoed churches commissioned by village c
Crete. These works of art were made for the more than 95% of the population who were eco
unskilled and skilled workers in the building and manufacturing industries, small-time arti
the major art museums and exhibitions of the western world, or feature prominently in tou

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The Art of the Poor in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance | The Warburg Institute 03/07/2017, 08*53

museums of urban history and archaeology and the closest they come to mingling with rea
approach, such as the art of devotion. If they are discussed in artistic terms at all, these are
or provincial. There is also a common assumption that such objects did not have artistic tr
derived from the shining examples made by famous artists for the rich.

This conference aims to challenge these perceptions. For the first time, the art of the poor w
of case studies, objects, their functions and manufacturing traditions will be re-evaluated an
assumptions in scholarship re-examined. The conference will seek to give impetus to a new
archaeologists, historians, historical anthropologists, and art historians. This field, different
that its principal object is art, can help us re-assess the very concept of art and its function
understood properly without taking into account the broadest range of artistic activity.

Topics for papers may include, but are not limited to:

Art forms made for people with lower incomes, e.g. decorations of village and small par
decorated ceramics, drinking glasses, textiles, costume, modest paintings and sculptures
The iconography of images for the poor
The art market of the poor, including manufacturing traditions, vending of artefacts, (c
Relevant aspects of social history, e.g. income levels and purchasing power, records of tr
evidence from literary sources, visual evidence from paintings, manuscript illumination
Relations between the art of the poor and more upmarket artistic manufacture
The historiography (or lack of it) of the art of the poor
Relevant finds in urban archaeology, relevant aspects of museum collections

Papers by early career scholars are particularly welcome. The aim is for the conference proc

Papers are restricted to 25 mins. Please send a short abstract and a brief CV to rembrandt

2016 The Warburg Institute, University of London, Schoo

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