HomeImaginary places, real territories
Imaginary places, real territories
Territorial imagery and the creation of Dutch identities (1579-1702)
Published on Friday, September 10, 2021
Abstract
From the creation of a federal State in 1579 to the temporary disappearance of the Stadholderate in 1702, what role did the visual culture play in the political assertion of a national territory? How does the artist’s gaze on the territory, local or foreign, real or imagined, allows us to understand this rhetoric? How exactly are fantasized or real elements of foreign places integrated in a local visual discourse? What do these images reveal of the public who commissions, buys and looks at them? Within the process of national and territorial construction, how are these territorial perspectives integrated and part of the enrichment of the Dutch identity narrative? Considering the variety of these issues, this symposium aims to shed light on the ways in which Dutch depictions of national and transnational territories participated in the formulation of a shared identity.
Announcement
Argument
In 1548, Charles V gathers the Seventeen Provinces into one political entity through the institution of the Burgundian circle ; thirty years later, the Dutch revolt shatters this reunion and institutionalises the rupture with the Union of Utrecht in 1579. Therefore, the creation of a national sentiment, following the terms of an active process of legitimation in the self-appointed United Provinces constitutes a significant issue, as its geographical borders constantly fluctuate throughout the Eighty Years war. This period hence witnesses the progressive definition of a geographical and cultural frame for the Dutch territory, intertwined with a continuous formulation process of local identities. Although it’s only during the XVIIIth century that the term vaderland starts to be commonly used as a national trope of the Dutch Republic – emanating from a preceding regional usage – the sole notion of territory is invested with political meaning as early as the XVIthcentury in the Netherlands. This symposium aims to study this phenomenon in the visual culture.
In a context of territorial expansion and economic growth, cartography appears as a key element to observe ideological projections and political claims. Metaphorical maps showing the Habsburg territory as a regal woman whose head is shaped by the Iberian Peninsula, or the well-known example of the Leo Belgicus, are evident components of a political rhetoric claiming the historical and cultural integrity for said territories. In the United Provinces, both scientific information and exotic fantasies are superimposed in the many nautical charts that paved the way to its economic hegemony. A close examination of Early Modern painting of interior scenes proves how the iconographic motive of the map became a relevant topos in Dutch visual culture ; hence, the visual apprehension of landscape, real or imaginary, retrospectively participates in the rhetoric of the territory in the Netherlands through a variety of genres : topographical views, composite landscapes integrating existing and fantasized elements, local adaptation of foreign monuments, depiction of local folklore that embodies a particular place or region … etc.
This rhetoric does not limit itself to a patriotic gaze towards its domestic territory but also integrates foreign or unfamiliar landscapes in the process of national assertion. Whether it morphs into the narrative of the Dutch Republic as a New Israël, a powerful antiquarianism encouraged by the many journeys of artists in Southern Europe or in the Eastern World or a polished exoticism of the New World, artists interweave and converge reality and imagination by summoning the historical, cultural and religious charge of these territories.
From the creation of a federal State in 1579 to the temporary disappearance of the Stadholderate in 1702, what role did the visual culture play in the political assertion of a national territory? How does the artist’s gaze on the territory, local or foreign, real or imagined, allows us to understand this rhetoric? How exactly are fantasized or real elements of foreign places integrated in a local visual discourse? What do these images reveal of the public who commissions, buys and looks at them? Within the process of national and territorial construction, how are these territorial perspectives integrated and part of the enrichment of the Dutch identity narrative?
Considering the variety of these issues, this symposium aims to shed light on the ways in which Dutch depictions of national and transnational territories participated in the formulation of a shared identity. Multidisciplinary discussions will allow us to examine the terms of territorial imagery in Dutch visual culture, and their links with the formation of a national myth in the Early Modern Dutch Republic.
Organization Committee
- Suzanne Baverez (EPHE, Ens Paris),
- Carole Fonticelli (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne),
- Esther Guillaume (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne),
- Sarah Moine (Universiteit Leiden)
Scientific Committee
- Stijn Bussels (Universiteit Leiden),
- Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen (Ens Paris),
- Colette Nativel (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Registration
Contact : symposiumterritories@gmail.com
Covid information and regulations for on site attendees: In compliance with the French government’s regulations, Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne University requires all on site attendants to present a proof of full vaccination to our organizers before you can access the conference venue. If you have not been fully vaccinated, you will be asked to present a negative PCR or antigen test less than 72 hours old to access the conference venue.
Programme
Day one : October 7th 2021
10h00 : Welcome
10h15 : Welcome word from the organizers
Introduction
- 10h30 : Colette Nativel : Prof. dr. Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
- 10h50 : Stijn Bussels : Prof. dr. Universiteit Leiden
- 11h10 : Conversation and Break
Opening talk
- 11h40 : Boudewijn Bakker: Dr., Ex-Chief Curator of the Stadsarchief Amsterdam Concentric Identities: Landscape and Patriotism in the 17th-Century Dutch Republic
- 12h10 : Conversation
12h30 : Pause / Break
Session 1: Paradoxical aspirations : Territorial Unification vs. Local Affirmation
- 14h00 : Merlijn Hurx Dr., Assistant Professor, Universiteit Utrecht and Bram Vannieuwenhuyze Prof. dr. Universiteit van Amsterdam The Van Deventer Anachronism: Maps of the Northern and Entire Low Countries from about 1540
- 14h20 : Benjamin van der Linde, Dr., Research Associate, Universität Hamburg The Dutch Republic and the Two Frieslands. Mapping the north of the Netherlands and the role of early modern historiography
- 14h40 : Questions and conversation
- 15h00 : Sarah Moine, Ph.D. Candidate, Universiteit Leiden Besieged City, Liberated Republic: the Siege of Leiden in arts and its symbolism
- 15h20 : Carole Fonticelli, Ph.D. Candidate, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Mapping the religious identity in North Brabant through the prism of Mary Magdalene
- 15h40 : Questions and conversation
- 16h00 : Conversation and closing of 1st day
Day two : October 8th 2021
9h00 : Welcome
Session 2 : Appropriating the territory: using and being part of one’s environment
- 09h30 : Esther Guillaume, Ph.D. Candidate, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Outside the city walls: Negotiation of urban and social space in Joost Cornelisz. Droochsloot’s paintings of the Biblical Pool of Bethesda
- 09h50 : Sarah Mallory, Ph.D Candidate, Harvard University Ruinous Works: Willem Buytewech’s “Pleasant Places” Landscape Prints and the Dutch Ecological Imagination
- 10h10 : Lorne Darnell Ph.D. Candidate, Research Assistant, Courtauld Institute and University College of London Climatology and Civic Identity in the Landscape Tradition of Seventeenth Century Haarlem
- 10h30 : Questions and conversation
11h00 : Break
Session 3 : Bridging space and time: merging immediate and distant environments
Session 3.1 : Reinterpreting the city : imagination and memory
- 11h20 : Norbert Middelkoop, Dr., Senior Curator of Paintings, Prints and Drawings, Amsterdam Museum; Curator of Old Masters, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem The Amsterdam cityscape in the Golden Age: from representation tool to conversation piece
- 11h40 : Helen Hillyard, Acting Curator, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London Reading the Netherlands: Seventeenth Century Civic Memory and the Images of Pieter Saenredam
- 12h00 : Questions and conversation
12h20 : Break
Session 3.2 : Distant space, distant time
- 14h00 : Catherine Powell-Warren, PhD. Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Art History, Ghent University From Hortus Batavus to the Dutch Hesperides: Agnes Block, Vijverhof, and the domestication of the exotic in the fashioning of identity
- 14h20 : Suzanne Baverez, Ph.D. Candidate, EPHE, Ens Paris Naturalism, picturesque, exoticism, orientalism : insights on Dutch Italianate paintings
- 14h40 : Danielle Gravon, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Manchester « Kandy is now Flanders »: Cartographic propaganda and the mapping of Dutch Ceylon
- 15h00 : Questions and conversation
Keynote
- 15h30 : Koen Ottenheym, Prof. dr. Universiteit Utrecht The imaginary country and buildings of the Ancient Batavians, as reconstructed by early modern scholars
- 16h00 : Questions and conversation
- 16h20 : Closing of the Symposium
Subjects
- Early modern (Main category)
Places
- Galerie Colbert, Salle Vasari, 2ème étage - 2 rue Vivienne
Paris, France (75002)
Event attendance modalities
Hybrid event (on site and online)
Date(s)
- Thursday, October 07, 2021
- Friday, October 08, 2021
Keywords
- territoire, territory, identité, identity, histoire de l'art, art history, visual studies
Reference Urls
Information source
- Esther Guillaume
courriel : esthergllme [at] gmail [dot] com
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Imaginary places, real territories », Conference, symposium, Calenda, Published on Friday, September 10, 2021, https://doi.org/10.58079/174x
