“Impression(s): 1880-1920”
16 octobre 2015
Université de Bourgogne (Dijon, France)
Appel à communications :
On the occasion of the symposium “Impression(s): 1880-1920” organised by the Image-Texte-Langage research centre (EA 4182) at the University of Burgundy on 16th October 2015, we wish to invite contributions that explore the relationship between art criticism, literary impressionism and printmaking from the late 19th century to the immediate postwar period in Britain.
We invite researchers, librarians, curators and collectors to examine the writings and artwork of art critics and writers who were also professional or amateur printmakers, namely in the fields of lithography, wood-engraving, woodcut, and etching. The symposium aims to discuss intermedial practices, the mutual influence of artistic practice and textual production, as well as the dual meaning of impression as a mode of reception and of expression. Papers should examine impression both as theme and trope in literary texts and art criticism in connection with the material characteristics of media in which writers/artists chose to express themselves. They can also address how the shift from late Victorian aesthetics to modernist experimentation was negotiated in this field.
The time period considered here is framed by the creation of the Society of Painter-Etchers in 1880 and that of the Society of Wood-Engravers in 1920. It spans four decades which saw the advent of photomechanical process and the revival of printmaking as an “original” mode of expression based on the premium granted to individual impression as autographic response and to the trope of the print as imprint on a medium and/or on the mind.
Within this time frame, papers can focus on individual careers—like those of Edward Gordon Craig, Joseph Pennell, Campbell Dodgson, or young Moderns such as C. R. W. Nevinson and Paul Nash. They may also explore trends, groups and societies—from the Vale Group to The Bloomsbury Group, from Arts & Crafts and Aestheticism to modern design.
In parallel with literary texts and art criticism, a variety of publications and related aspects can be examined: lectures given and handbooks produced in art schools and technical schools (such as the Slade, the Central School of Arts & Crafts, and the Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts); reviews published in small magazines such as The Dial or reviews such as The Studio; exhibition and print room catalogues; manifestoes and statements issued by private presses or societies such as the Senefelder Club.
Deadline: please send your proposals (500 words along with a short bio-bibliography) to Sophie Aymes and Bénédicte Coste by the end of December 2014. Note that all papers should be in English. A selection of peer-reviewed articles will be published.
Confirmation: February 2015.
Sophie Aymes (Université de Bourgogne): sophie.aymes@u-bourgogne.fr
Bénédicte Coste (Université de Bourgogne): benedicte.coste@u-bourgogne.fr