CFP: Sculpture vs. Architecture: The “Other” Paragone (Boston, 31 March – 2 April, 2016)

Call for Paper abstracts for a session at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America
Boston, 31 March–2 April 2016
 Sculpture vs. Architecture: The “Other” Paragone
While copious literature has described the early modern affinity for comparing painting with sculpture and even explored the so-called paragone between painting and architecture, period ideas about the relationships between sculpture and architecture have received far sparser attention. This session will scrutinize the paragone between the plastic arts and architecture from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century as manifested in images, objects, buildings, and text. The goals of the session will be to determine what distinct and overlapping forms of artistic expertise were associated with sculpture and architecture in various contexts, and to integrate those insights into our broader understanding of early modern paragone discourses. Questions addressed may include: How did artists and architects negotiate control over architectonic projects with sculptural programs? How did architectural treatises address sculpture, and how did writings about the plastic arts treat architecture? In what ways did writers compare the aesthetic qualities of each medium? What forms of artistic expertise did architects and sculptors respectively claim? And where did critics locate the intersections between these areas of knowledge? Antagonism as well as accord between scuplture and architecture will be of interest to the discussion.
Please submit a 200-word abstract and a brief CV to Elizabeth J. Petcu at epetcu@princeton.edu before 12 noon EST on May 31.