THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE
ARTS IN THE LOW COUNTRIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Chairs: Dirk Van
de Vijver (KU Leuven) and Daniel Rabreau (UniversitA(C)
de ParisI PanthA(C)on-Sorbonne)
In 1989, Daniel Rabreau
and Bruno Tollon organized an international colloquium:
'Le ProgrA?s des Arts rA(C)unis 1763-1815: mythe culturel,
des origines de la RA(C)volution A la fin de l'Empire'
(published 1992). For the Low Countries, a comparable
approach, treating architecture, painting and sculpture
together, is absent in the historical research of
eighteenth-century art and culture. This session intends
to discuss explicitly the question of the relationship
between the arts and artists of different disciplines,
which is absolutely necessary for a better understanding
of all the challenges posed by artistic production.
Although in the past
artists had worked on programs which needed the combined
deployment of architecture, sculpture and painting,
the eighteenth century saw the emergence of new organizations
which renewed these relationships and even took them
to another level, e.g. the foundation of 'academies'
(drawing schools) and of learned and artistic societies.
From that moment onwards, architects, painters and
sculptors took lessons and taught their crafts in
the same institutions, or discussed and exhibited
their works in the same societies and in the same
Salons. These forms of informal exchange of 'artistic
knowledge' require close study. Srtistic concepts
specific to one branch now tend to migrate to other
disciplines: e.g. 'poetics' and the picturesque invade
architecture and gardens. The 'union of the arts'
in the service of urban, public and private programs
still needs multidisciplinary research, uniting specialists
of architecture, sculpture and painting and concentrating
specifically on iconological analysis.
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