North of Byzantium

The Symposium “Eclecticism at the Edges: Medieval Art and Architecture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Cultural Spheres” took place on April 5-6, 2019 in McCormick Hall 106 on the Princeton University campus.

In response to the global turn in art history and medieval studies, “Eclecticism at the Edges” explores the temporal and geographic parameters of the study of medieval art, seeking to challenge the ways in which we think about the artistic production of Eastern and East-Central Europe from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries. This event serves as a long-awaited platform to examine, discuss, and focus on the eclectic visual cultures of the Balkan Peninsula and the Carpathian Mountains, the specificities, but also the shared cultural heritage of these regions. It raises issues of cultural contact, transmission, and appropriation of western medieval and Byzantine artistic and cultural traditions in eastern European centers, and considers how this heritage was deployed to shape notions of identity and visual rhetoric in these regions that formed a cultural landscape beyond medieval, Byzantine, and modern borders.

The symposium is free, but registration is required to guarantee seating. Please register here: https://ima.princeton.edu/register/

For any queries, please contact the organizers at: eclecticism.symposium@gmail.com.

This event is generously co-sponsored by the following:

• The International Center of Medieval Art
• The Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture
• The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture
• The Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies
• The Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University
• The Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University
• The Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies with the support of the Stanley J. Seeger Hellenic Fund

SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM:

Friday, April 5, 2019

McCormick Hall 106

5:00-5:15	Maria Alessia Rossi, Princeton University Alice Isabella Sullivan, University of Michigan Welcome
5:15-6:30	Keynote Lecture Jelena Erdeljan, University of Belgrade Cross-Cultural Entanglement and Visual Culture in Eastern Europe c. 1300-1550
6:30-7:30	Film Screening and Exhibition Introduction by Julia Gearhart, Princeton University “No Woman’s Land”: A 1929 Expedition to Mount Athos and Meteora
7:30-9:00	Reception McCormick Hall

Saturday, April 6, 2019

McCormick Hall 106

9:00-10:40	Session 1 – New Constructs of Identity Chair: Charlie Barber, Princeton University Elena Boeck, DePaul University A Timeless Ideal: Constantinople in the Slavonic Imagination of the 14th-16th Centuries Gianvito Campobasso, University of Fribourg Eclecticism Among Multiple Identities: The Visual Culture of Albania in the Late Middle Ages Ida Sinkević, Lafayette College Serbian Royal Mausolea: A Reflection of Cultural Identity?
10:40-11:00	Coffee / Tea Break
11:00-12:40	Session 2 – Shifting Iconographies Chair: Pamela Patton, Princeton University Vlad Bedros, National University of Arts, Bucharest A Hybrid Iconography: The Lamb of God in Moldavian Wall-Paintings Krisztina Ilko, The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Dormition of the Virgin: Artistic Exchange and Innovation in Medieval Wall Paintings from Slovakia Ovidiu Olar, Austrian Academy of Sciences A Murderer among the Seraphim: Prince Lăpușneanu’s Transfiguration Embroideries for Slatina Monastery
12:40-2:00	Lunch Break
2:00-3:40	Session 3 – Patronage and Agents of Exchange Chair: Cristina Stancioiu, College of William and Mary Dragoş Gh. Năstăsoiu, Centre for Medieval Studies, National Research University “Higher School of Economics,” Moscow Appropriation, Adaptation, and Transformation: Painters of Byzantine Tradition Working for Catholic Patrons in 14th- and 15th-century Transylvania Christos Stavrakos, University of Ioannina/Greece Donors, Patrons, and Benefactors in Medieval Epirus between the Great Empires: A Society in Change or a Continuity? Nazar Kozak, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Post-Byzantine Art as a Network: Mobility Trajectories of the Akathistos Cycle in the Balkans, the Carpathians, and Beyond
3:40-4:00	Coffee / Tea Break
4:00-5:15	Keynote Lecture Michalis Olympios, University of Cyprus “Eclecticism,” “Hybridity,” and “Transculturality” in Late Medieval Art: A View from the Eastern Mediterranean
5:15-6:00	Roundtable Discussion, Questions, and Closing Moderator and Respondent: Ivan Stevović, University of Belgrade
6:00-9:00	Final Reception Chancellor Green Rotunda