During the eighteenth century, a range of artistic productions aimed to simulate motion and life, at the same time that individuals became ever more preoccupied with performing or embodying static works of art. This issue of Journal18 aims to explore such hybrid creations and the boundaries they challenged between animate and inanimate form, art and technology, nature and artifice, the living and the dead. Echoing contemporary discussions about vraisemblance and verisimilitude, as well as mimesis and imitation, in eighteenth-century artistic literature, these preoccupations also related to larger philosophical and scientific debates about matter, mankind and machines at a global level. What was considered “lifelike” in the eighteenth century? How did artistic practices engage this notion and participate in redefining it?

Argument

During the eighteenth century, a range of artistic productions aimed to simulate motion and life, at the same time that individuals became ever more preoccupied with performing or embodying static works of art. This issue of Journal18 aims to explore such hybrid creations and the boundaries they challenged between animate and inanimate form, art and technology, nature and artifice, the living and the dead. Echoing contemporary discussions about vraisemblance and verisimilitude, as well as mimesis and imitation, in eighteenth-century artistic literature, these preoccupations also related to larger philosophical and scientific debates about matter, mankind and machines at a global level. What was considered “lifelike” in the eighteenth century? How did artistic practices engage this notion and participate in redefining it?

Articles may focus on specific objects, such as automata created by Pierre Jacquet-Droz and others that imitated human acts of writing or harpsichord playing; hyperrealistic wax figures, sometimes displayed in groups, that were used for entertainment as well as pedagogical and medical purposes; “tableaux mécaniques,” or mixed-media paintings with motors on the back that enabled figures to move across their surfaces; and natural history materials, such as taxidermic animals, specimens or skeletons that were displayed in particular spaces. Other possible topics include the staging of collaborative tableaux vivants in eighteenth-century theaters, gardens, and salons; and related attempts to resurrect or animate ancient artifacts, as in Emma Hamilton’s “living statue” performances. Articles that consider the eighteenth-century specificity of such artistic productions, introduce new methodological perspectives, or discuss relevant examples from outside of Europe are especially encouraged.

Issue Editors

• Noémie Etienne, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
• Meredith Martin, NYU and Institute of Fine Arts

Submission guidelines

Proposals for #3 LIFELIKE are now being accepted.

Deadline for proposals: 15 May 2016.

To submit a proposal, send an abstract (200 words) and a brief CV to editor@journal18.org.

Articles should not exceed 6000 words and will be due on 1 November 2016. For further details on the submission process see: http://www.journal18.org/info/

Founding Editors

• Noémie Etienne, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
• Meredith Martin, NYU and Institute of Fine Arts
• Hannah Williams, Queen Mary University of London

Editorial Board

• Nebahat Avcioglu, Hunter College/CUNY
• Finbarr Barry Flood, Institute of Fine Arts/NYU
• Esther Bell, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
• Daniela Bleichmar, University of Southern California
• Jeffrey Collins, Bard Graduate Center, New York
• Thomas Crow, Institute of Fine Arts, New York
• Craig Hanson, Calvin College
• Anne Higonnet, Barnard College/Columbia University
• Kristina Kleutghen, Washington University, St Louis
• Anne Lafont, INHA, Paris
• Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Harvard University
• Mark Ledbury, University of Sydney
• Katie Scott, Courtauld Institute of Art
• Charlotte Vignon, Frick Collection
• Michael Yonan, University of Missouri