Multi-Sensory Entanglements across the Early Modern World
Session will present: On locationVision, especially as codified in linear perspective, has traditionally been the sense prioritized in scholarship on “Renaissance” art, reflecting Art History’s more general ocularcentrism. However, the material and sensory turns have led to growing interest in how other senses were engaged by artists, patrons and beholders in the Early Modern period. This session will consider multi-sensory encounters, exchanges and entanglements effected in and through images, objects, buildings, gardens, cityscapes and performances produced around the globe from the early fifteenth to the mid-seventeenth century.
A nautilus shell engraved in China, fitted with a precious mount in Antwerp and then used to savour wine; fragrant frankincense from the Arabian peninsula heated in gilded censers deployed in Christian services throughout Europe; tin mined in Cornwall used by Safavid artisans to glaze lusterware for banquets; slabs of polished obsidian looted and then repurposed from Mesoamerican rituals into enticing surfaces for Spanish Counter-Reformation devotees; ceramic jugs produced by Medici artisans for a Mughal emperor’s feast; or an Italian painting of the Adoration of the Magi with a delicate Chinese porcelain cup at its center – these are just some examples of how both raw materials and finished objects were extracted, exchanged, plundered, crafted and repurposed across the Early Modern world.
Proposals for papers are sought that document, but also reflect critically on the implications of these and other types of multi-sensory entanglements within and across cultures around the globe in the Early Modern period using eco-critical, decolonial, material studies or other relevant approaches.
Keywords:
Topics: Early Modern
Geographic Area: Global
Topics: Material Culture
Topics: Ecocriticism
Topics: Decolonization
Chair:
Geraldine A. Johnson, University of Oxford
Abstract Submissions Closed