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22nd Annual Medieval Postgraduate Student Colloquium: Medieval Collaborations
4 February 2017
10:00 - 18:00
Colloquium

The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK

In the earliest days of the discipline, medieval art historians were preoccupied with attempts to name and locate masters in anonymous works through formal analysis. In recent years, however, new approaches have favoured the proposal and identification of collaborative working practices. Recent investigations of collaborations like that of Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi, the illuminators of the Winchester Bible, or the creators of Opus Anglicanum reveal a more complex picture of artistic co-operation. Notions of the artist as master have been replaced with those of artists working together, from the collaborative artisan activity in eighth-century cloisters to the increasing specialisation in the twelfth-century shop. Collaborations spanned media, with the erection of stone churches requiring not just the mason’s carving but the carpenter’s scaffolding and centring. The master and apprentice paradigm has slowly been eroded with narratives of apprentices working alongside, subverting, and surpassing their so-called masters.

The Courtauld Institute’s 22nd Annual Medieval Postgraduate Colloquium invites speakers to consider new approaches to artistic collaborations of the Middle Ages, and how conceptions of collaboration have impacted on the study of these works.

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