Royal Scottish Academy exhibition: Ages of Wonder: Scotland’s Art, 1540 to Now

Work by John Duncan titled, Ivory, Apes and Peacocks

Ages of Wonder: Scotland’s Art, 1540 to Now

 Royal Scottish Academy building on The Mound, Edinburgh

 4th November 2017 - 7th January 2018

Dr Tom Normand, Senior Lecturer in the School of Art History, has been involved in the production and curation of the exhibition ‘Ages of Wonder: Scotland’s Art, 1540 to Now’.

Featuring over 400 objects many of which
have rarely been seen in public

A thematic review of the various collections held by the academy, the exhibition has been some three years in the planning. It promises to be a major review of the Scottish art world featuring over 400 objects many of which have rarely been seen in public. The exhibition will include over 450 works by over 270 artists and architects, from the masterpiece ‘The Adoration of the Magi’ painted by Jacopo Bassano of 1540, to recent Diploma Works by Callum Innes and Alison Watt, and works commissioned for and during the exhibition by Calum Colvin, Kenny Hunter and Richard Murphy

To complement the exhibition Dr Normand has edited a book of original essays on the academy and its history. This publication, featuring new essays from academics, scholars, curators and artists, will be a significant contribution to scholarship on Scotland’s visual culture. Dr Normand is an Honorary Member of the Royal Scottish Academy.

For further details: http://www.royalscottishacademy.org/exhibitions/ages-of-wonder/

Exhibition supported by: Museums Galleries Scotland, The Morton Charitable Trust, The Pilgrim Trust
Sponsored by: Lyon & Turnbull

In addition:

COLLECTING WITHIN ACADEMIES 

The RSA Sir William Gillies Bequest Lecture 2017 

Friday, 3 November 2017 15:00 to 16:30pm 

Hawthornden Lecture Theatre
The Mound
Edinburgh

Tickets free but must be booked BOOK HERE 

This symposium will be a rare opportunity to hear a discussion by the Presidents of all four British national academies: the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Academy in London, the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin and the Royal Ulster Academy in Belfast, on collecting and how this is reflected within the various institutions.

Joining the discussion will be David R. Brigham, President of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, to which the RSA’s second President, John Watson Gordon, was awarded Honorary Membership and which is the oldest academy in America.

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Thinking 3D: three-dimensionality and its impact on the arts and sciences

Thinking 3D is

• an interdisciplinary exploration of the concept of three-dimensionality and its impact on the arts and sciences; 
• an innovative project which puts the minds of the 21st century in touch with those of early practitioners exploring three-dimensionality; 
• a year-long series of exhibitions, events, public talks, gallery shows, and academic symposia intended to incite dialogue between artists, art and book historians, mathematicians, astronomers, geometers, earth scientists, botanists, chemists, etc. 

The project is centred on the development of the techniques used to communicate three-dimensional forms in two-dimensional media.

The representation of truthful three-dimensional forms during the Renaissance became a skill to practice, and its successful completion was considered a virtuoso display of talent. As reliable two-dimensional illustrations of three-dimensional subjects became more prevalent it also impacted the way that disciplines developed: architecture could be communicated much more clearly, mathematical concepts and astronomical observations could be quickly relayed, observations of the natural world moved towards a more realistic method of depiction.

Thinking 3D will put the 21st century mind in touch with the legacy of some of the greatest artists and thinkers (Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Andreas Vesalius, Johannes Hevelius, John Aubrey, William Hunter, etc.) through the medium of books, manuscripts, prints and drawings, offering a cluster of exhibitions and events, which will tell the story of the communication of three-dimensionality and the impact that the developments of related techniques had on artists and draughtsman throughout time and across space.

This theme is of great relevance today, as amateur and professional designers are constantly thinking about how to communicate three-dimensional forms in traditional media or by using computer software and 3D printing.

This a pan-Oxford season of events with the heart of the project constituted by a main exhibition at the Treasury of the Bodleian Libraries (in the Weston Library). It will be surrounded by a group of satellite exhibitions and supported by a series of conferences, talks and workshops. Exhibitions across the University and city will display books, manuscripts, prints and drawings from various local collections, loans from other institutions, reproductions of works of art which will enhance the understanding of the concept, and original pieces commissioned to contemporary designers and artists who will take direct inspiration from the items on show.

Follow Thinking 3D on Facebook and Twitter.

Daniele Barbaro (1514-70): In and Beyond the Text

The Venetian patrician, Daniele Barbaro, was one of the greatest intellectuals of his time and a prominent patron of artists and scholars, such as Palladio, Veronese and Titian. A complex and multi-faceted personality, he published several books and left unpublished writings on a range of subjects, including philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, optics, history, music, and architecture.

Paolo Veronese, Portrait of Daniele Barbaro, 1556-67, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

The International Network, Daniele Barbaro (1514-70): In and Beyond the Text, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, project partners University of St Andrews, Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours, and Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice, puts Barbaro under the lens of his writings, and adopting a cross-disciplinary approach it provides a reassessment of this figure in the context of the European Renaissance on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of his birth.

The project, co-ordinated by Dr Laura Moretti, of the School of Art History, started on the 1st of February 2014 and will end on the 31st of January 2016. The project partners are the University of St Andrews, the Centre d'Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours, and the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice.

A recent exhibition of the work (University of St Andrews, 4-5 September 2014) set up in parallel with a workshop on Barbaro’s manuscripts and printed works, his relation with printers, and the context of book printing in sixteenth-century Venice (see the exhibition catalogue for further information). 

A major exhibition of the work opens in Venice on the 10th of January in the Salone Sansoviniano of the Marciana Library.

New research centre at St Andrews: CATCH

The Centre for Archaeology, Technology and Cultural Heritage (CATCH) is a multi-disciplinary centre that brings together researchers from across the University of St Andrews. The Centre promotes research into all aspects of past human activity from across the globe, with the aim of making our research accessible to the widest audience as possible. The Centre brings together arts and sciences in order to investigate how humans have been influenced by, and changed, their environment.

The Schools, Departments and Units involved in CATCH are: Art History, Classics, Computer Science, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Geography & Sustainable Development, History, Museum Collections Unit and Social Anthropology.

"Digitising cave art will prevent it being lost forever"
New Scientist, April 2014

Role of the Middle East in the Development of Photography

Dr Luke Gartlan, of the School of Art History, has co-edited, with Ali Behdad, the volume Photography’s Orientalism: New Essays on Colonial Representation. This publication is part of the Getty Research Institute’s ‘Issues & Debates’ Series. In addition to the co-authored Introduction, he contributed the article ‘Dandies on the Pyramids: Photography and German-Speaking Artists in Cairo’. The book explores European and non-European photography in the Middle East and India and how it influenced the development of photography generally.

The Arts and Crafts Movement in Scotland: A History

Dr Annette Carruthers of the School of Art History has compiled an authoritative book, The Arts and Crafts Movement in Scotland: A History (Yale University Press, 2013), the most detailed account to date of the arts and crafts movement in Scotland. Arts and Crafts ideas appeared there from the 1860s, but not until after 1890 did they emerge from artistic circles and rise to popularity among the wider public. The heyday of the movement occurred between 1890 and 1914, a time when Scotland’s art schools energetically promoted new design and the Scottish Home Industries Association campaigned to revive rural crafts.

Prestigious award for Prof. Fawcett's latest book

Professor Richard Fawcett’s book, The Architecture of the Scottish Medieval Church, has been awarded the prestigious Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. The Alic Davis Hitchcock Medallion is given annually to the author of the best architectural history book published in the past four years by a British author, or by a foreign author on a British architectural historical subject. The award was instituted by Professor Henry-Russell Hitchcock (1903-87). Professor Hitchcock was one of the greatest architectural historians of the twentieth century.

Prof. Fawcett, of the School of Art History, gave a talk to the British Archaeological Association in Burlington House on 3 October on the AHRC-funded Corpus of Scottish Medieval Parish Churches project, which he is carrying out with Dr Julian Luxford (also of the School of Art History) and Prof. Richard Oram (of University of Stirling). He has published widely on many aspects of architectural history and is currently leading an AHRC-funded research project looking at the medieval parish churches of Scotland. Richard is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Societies of Antiquaries of London and Scotland and was appointed OBE in 2008. 

Conference: Emblems of Nationhood

Emblems of Nationhood: Britishness1707–1901 is a multi-disciplinary and truly international conference co-organised by postgraduate students from the Schools of Art History and Modern Languages, and recently graduated students from the School of English. It takes place between the 10th and 12th August in Schools 1–3, United Colleges Quadrangle.

Courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library.

National identity is a central point of enquiry that is repeatedly called upon in contemporary social and political rhetoric. Our conference will address the roots of this theme by discussing depictions of Britain and Britishness in literature, philosophy, history, and art between the Act of Union in 1707 and the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. Over the course of this multidisciplinary conference, we aim to explore how expressions of nationalism have moulded both critical perspectives on national identity and their creative products.

In addition to our key speakers — Prof. Colin Kidd (Queen’s University Belfast), Dr Emma Major (University of York), Prof. Linda Colley (Princeton University), and Prof. Calum Colvin (University of Dundee) — we have attracted 65 speakers from around the world who will deliver papers discussing Britishness. The conference is also accompanied by an exhibition of artwork which is currently on display in the reception of Art History.

We have attracted significant funding from the following sources: the Paul MellonCentre for Studies in British Art, the Russell Trust, The University of the Highlands and the Islands, Capod, the Schools of Art History, History, English, and Modern Languages, the Scottish Society for Art History, the Society for French Studies, and the Royal Historical Society.

Beacon Lecture Thurs 23rd February

The new series of lectures, the Beacon lectures are free and open to all, and take place on Thursday evenings from 6-7pm in Physics Lecture Theatre C in the Physics building at the North Haugh. The lectures highlight post-doctoral researchers from various departments showcasing the cutting edge research being undertaken at the University. [Complete lecture series list]

23rd February 2012
A Jolly Good Show: Exhibitions, Photography and Victorian Scotland
Antonia Laurence-Allen, PhD Candidate: School of Art History
In 1853 an unprecedented exhibition of photography toured Britain. It came to Scotland and was celebrated as the product of a “union” with London. In the press, photography itself was positioned as an art historical descendent of alchemy, a perfect blend of art and science, mysticism and religion. Readers were asked to compare this new medium to other technological inventions magically transforming the world like the train and the telegraph, which enabled them to “travel by fire and speak by lightening.” As a consequence, the general public were impelled to view photography as a grand idea; something new and patriotic, as well as something that could link local communities in a national cause.
After discussing the potency of an exhibition as a site for distributing state enforced ideology in the nineteenth century, this lecture illustrates how the 1853 photographic exhibition stimulated the practice of photography at a local level. More specifically, it reveals how the organisers, all based in London and affiliated with the Royal Society of Arts, established a picturesque aesthetic for photography that was resolutely English. The message the exhibition sent to regions across Britain was that the gnarled oak, quiet village scene and babbling brook were the subjects of the best photographs in the Kingdom; and these were the sites locals should seek out in order to establish their professionalism. In doing this the travelling exhibition softly propagated a colonial vision of England’s role as educator and civiliser of clans and nations. It also reflected a commonly held belief that Britain was stronger as a united inclusive force, not one driven by the insular nationalism that had led other European nations into revolutions during the late 1840s.

Next lecture:
1st March 2012
Making computers solve problems without telling them how
Dr Chris Jefferson: School of Computer Science

8 REF St Andrews Sub-Panel members announced

The recent announcement of REF 2014 sub-panel members included eight members from the University of St Andrews. 

• Panel A, Sub-panel 4: Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience
  Professor Verity Brown
• Panel B, Sub-panel 8: Chemistry
  Professor David O'Hagan
• Panel C, Sub-panel 18: Economics and Econometrics
  Professor Alan Sutherland
  Panel C, Sub-panel 19: Business and Management Studies
  Professor Jan Bebbington
  Panel C, Sub-panel 21: Politics and International Studies
  Professor Richard English
• Panel D, Sub-panel 30: History
  Professor Andrew Pettegree
  Panel D, Sub-panel 32: Philosophy
  Professor Katherine Hawley
  Panel D, Sub-panel 34: Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
  Professor Brendan Cassidy
  

During 2011, the teams will work on developing the criteria and working methods specific to each panel. The full lists can be found on the HEFCE REF 2014 website.