Art and Memory in Early Modern Europe

16 Mar 2023

ABSTRACT:

The conference “Art and Memory in early modern Europe” will explore the culture of commemoration in the early modern period as a testimony to the tectonic changes in the social, religious and political life of the period. Memorials and tomb sculptures, as well as portraits, reflected not only the desire of early modern elites to maintain family memory and to highlight their confessional identity but also the emergence of ‘collective memory’ and national identity crystallised and secured in artefacts. While Western European commemorative practices were the focus of several recent edited volumes, the Central and Eastern European culture of commemoration remains rather understudied and leaves us asking about the possible dialogue if not entanglement in the domain of commemoration between Western and East-Central Europe in early modern times.