Logiques du négatif, part 3

7. Mai 2024

Traces et empreints dans l’art du Moyen-Âge et des temps moderns

Following meetings at the Université Catholique de Louvain and at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, the group L ogiques du négatif will be holding a third symposium at the University of Fribourg on 15–16 May, 2024.

The aim of this international conference is to examine the phenomena of the trace and the imprint in their relationship to the history of art in the medieval/Early Modern and the modern period. The symposium will contribute to the activities of the project Logiques du négatif: Techniques et métaphores de l’empreinte, sponsored by the Early Modern Professorship of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Université Catholique de Louvain, with the support of the Fritz-Thyssen Stiftung and with the involvement of the Département d’histoire de l’art et d’archéologie at the University of Fribourg.

The aim of this multi-year project, which began in 2022, is to explore the practices and theory of the imprint, with the aim of creating a new framework for addressing its many facets (artistic, anthropological, philosophical) and its transcultural and transhistorical dimensions. From prehistoric hand prints to modern printing techniques such as printing and engraving, from practices of documentation such as rubbing (which was widespread in imperial China and early modern Britain), to technologies of industrial production, many techniques are based upon imprint. At the same time, imprints have aesthetic, epistemological, philosophical, and semiotic dimensions of great importance. The “logic of the negative” — from wax to seal, from cast to mould, from matrix to print — carries with it the enigma of filiation, of the transmission of a physical and visual resemblance to another object, of which the imprint constitutes the memory. In turn, the trace is situated at the crossroads of discourses concerning similarity, representation, and the construction of knowledge and of temporalities. By studying the techniques, products, representations, and metaphors of the imprint and the trace, in their similarities as well as in their divergences, this group hopes to gain a better understanding of the conceptual and practical connections between techniques, knowledge, and meaning.

The Fribourg symposium will explore the complex relationship between imprint and trace, and their metaphorical imaginings. How does early modern Western culture thematise the notion of trace in relation to that of imprint? What role did Christianity and the reception of classical antiquity during the Renaissance play in this process? How do artistic media such as textiles, painting and engraving give shape to the imaginary trace and its privileged place within historical discourse?

Programme:

Wednesday 15 May, University of Fribourg, Site de Miséricorde Salle Jäggi (4112)

10.00 – 10.30 Introduction Jérémie Koering (UniFR) Stefano de Bosio (FUBiS)

Session 1 Traces et dévotion (I), chaired by Ralph Dekoninck (UCLouvain)

10.30 – 11.15 Alexandre Varela Expósito (UniFR) De l’Arche de Noé au Sayfo : Trace, mémoire, écriture et oralité en monde syriaque

11.30 – 12.15 Finbarr Barry Flood (NYU) From Relic to Print : Tracing the Sandal of the Prophet Muhammad

Session 2 Traces et dévotion (II)

14.00 – 14.45 Michele Bacci (UniFR) L’expérience des traces du Christ sur le sol de Jérusalem

14.45 – 15.30 Stefano de Bosio (FUBiS) Les traces d’un reflet : Enjeux médiales des enseignes de pèlerinage à miroir

16.00 – 17.30 Table ronde, Sur quelques traces singulières (images choisies)

Moderation: Stefano de Bosio (FUBiS)

Interventions: Dominic-Alain Boariu (UniFR) Ralph Dekoninck (UCLouvain) Kathleen Christian (HU Berlin) Jérémie Koering (UniFR)