Know Thyself: A Conference on Early Modern Images
The tragedy of Narcissus was his failure to recognise the image he admired on the surface of the pool as his own. His fate might have improved, had he possessed the deeper self-knowledge implied by the Delphic maxim, “know thyself.” The question prompted by Narcissus, of how images pertain to self-knowledge, is especially relevant to the Early Modern period, during which the ancient aphorism nosce te ipsum was engaged provocatively in a range of visual material: it is quoted in illustrations of anatomy, natural history and cartography, and evoked in religious and secular works of art. This renewed cultural imperative to self-knowledge is bound up with the scientific and technological advancements of the period. It is epitomised by the technical refinement of the looking glass, which enabled a person to admire – or better, scrutinise – her own face with unprecedented clarity.
The premise of this conference is that consideration of the Delphic maxim can be productively channeled into interrogating the role of the image in relation to the self: How might images mobilise the philosophical challenge to “know thyself”? What are the mechanisms within images that invite participation in the practices of self-discovery and self-representation?
10-10.30 am
Registration and coffee
10.30
Introduction & discussion
11.15
Session 1: The Art of Self-Reflection
Anita Sganzerla
Independent scholar
Self-knowledge as a Quest in the Art of G. B. Castiglione, il Grechetto
Nathanael Price
University College London
In their own image. Medallic portraits of Jews in sixteenth-century Italy
James Hall
Independent scholar
Sculptors as violators: Michelangelo, Bandinelli and creative destruction
12.45
Lunch (provided for speakers)
2.00 pm
Session 2: Reproducing the Self
Rebecca Whiteley
University College London
Revealing the secrets of the body: early modern images of the fetus in utero
Rosemary Moore
University College London
Title TBA (Charles Estienne’s The Dissection of the Human Body)
3.00
Session 3: A World of Self-Knowledge
Thalia Allington-Wood
University College London
The twentieth-century ‘discovery’ of the Sacro Bosco at Bomarzo: an exercise in
knowing thyself
Radu Leca
SOAS, University of London
The Refraction of Self-Knowledge in Early Modern Maps
Alexandra Marraccini
University of Chicago
The Mind, The Garden, And The Flask: Ways of Knowing In Elias Ashmole’s Alchemical Manuscripts
4.30
Concluding thoughts and discussion
5.00
Drinks Reception
For more information and registration, please email:
Sophie Morris sophie.morrisucl.ac.uk and Nathanael Price n.price.12ucl.ac.uk
Quellennachweis:
CONF: Know Thyself (London, 2 May 15). In: ArtHist.net, 17.04.2015. Letzter Zugriff 29.03.2024. <https://arthist.net/archive/10064>.