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Wed 22 March
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    16:30

Thu 23 March
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Fri 24 March
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Wednesday 22 March 2006 16:30
D-4 CUL03 Art and the representation of power
Room D
Network: Culture Chair: Fiona Smith
Organizers: - Discussant: Fiona Smith
Eva Deak : Clothing and Social Representation in Early Modern Transylvania: the Court of Gabriel Bethlen and Catherine of Brandenburg (1613-1630)
The first half of the seventeenth century was one of the most prosperous times of the Principality of Transylvania in terms of economics and culture. As a successful participant of the Thirty Years' War, prince Gabriel Bethlen (1613-1629) aspired to being internationally recognized as a sovereign European ruler. For that ... (Show more)
The first half of the seventeenth century was one of the most prosperous times of the Principality of Transylvania in terms of economics and culture. As a successful participant of the Thirty Years' War, prince Gabriel Bethlen (1613-1629) aspired to being internationally recognized as a sovereign European ruler. For that purpose he married Catherine of Hohenzollern, sister of the elector of Brandenburg, Georg William (1619-1640). Through this marriage he became relative of the most influential Western European Protestant rulers; Catherine was elected successor of her husband (1629-1630).
The representative role of the princely court gained higher significance in the period beginning with this marriage of Catherine and Gabriel. The increasing political role and wealth of the principality was manifested in the appearance of the princely couple as well as that of their courtiers. Not only had the amount of money spent on luxury goods increased with the rise in the whole income of the prince but also its proportion within the expenditure.
The paper examine representation through clothing in the princely court of Alba Iulia during the reign of Gabriel Bethlen and Catherine of Brandenburg. The examination includes the appearance of the courtiers as well as those of its servants. I focus, however, on the clothing patterns related to the person of the two rulers. The spectacular career of Bethlen, his marriage with his second wife Catharine and her short reign after his death make possible the examination of status and social representation in terms of dress through particularly important examples.
The paper is part of my Ph.D. project at the Central European University in Budapest. (Show less)

Britt-Inger Johansson : Housing a Dynasty: Architecture as a tool for monarchical representation in early 19th century Sweden
Today, architecture is often perceived as a natural backdrop to everyday life, and its representational possibilities are therefore frequently overlooked. However, before the advent of modernism its propagandistic value was highly appreciated by rulers. Due to its three dimensions, architecture offers many manipulative possibilities, not always obvious, to represent and ... (Show more)
Today, architecture is often perceived as a natural backdrop to everyday life, and its representational possibilities are therefore frequently overlooked. However, before the advent of modernism its propagandistic value was highly appreciated by rulers. Due to its three dimensions, architecture offers many manipulative possibilities, not always obvious, to represent and enforce power through the façade, as well as the internal organisation expressed in the plan and the qualitative experience of the rooms. Architecture may in a subtle way influence our psycho-social interpretation of self and others by affecting different senses, and therefore it can have a multiplying effect in its totality. As Hillier and Hanson (1988) so aptly put it in their ground breaking book on space syntax analysis: space does have a social logic waiting for us to decode it.

This paper is part of a larger cross-disciplinary study on the dynastic policies of the Bernadotte house. It seeks to explore the many ways in which Karl XIV Johan of Sweden, formerly the French field marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, used architecture as a versatile political tool in the power struggles of his era from his arrival in 1810 until his demise in 1844. A comparative perspective between the policies of his predecessors and of his own highlights continuity and change.

Bernadotte hailed from the small provincial town of Pau in France as the son of a humble lawyer. In the army he rapidly rose from common soldier to general in the Napoleonic wars. As a middle-aged, bourgeois foreigner, albeit successful war campaigner, instead of a prince of the blood, many critical eyes were on him. His was the formidable task of becoming truly accepted as a monarch both nationally and internationally. This required among other propagandistic tools, also the use of architecture. For what purposes did Bernadotte use the palaces and mansions at his disposal? What alterations were made, and what where their significance? Does a bourgeois ruler have other notions than one born to the purple as how to organise his immediate environment most efficiently? (Show less)

Joy Kearney : De Hondecoeter, the Dutch East India Company and exotic fauna in art
The new awareness of the diversity of the natural world in the seventeenth century provided artists with the opportunity to paint many exotic creatures, as did the travels of the Dutch East India Company which resulted in many exotic creatures being imported into the Netherlands. It heralded the beginning of ... (Show more)
The new awareness of the diversity of the natural world in the seventeenth century provided artists with the opportunity to paint many exotic creatures, as did the travels of the Dutch East India Company which resulted in many exotic creatures being imported into the Netherlands. It heralded the beginning of a new world, a new view of our fellow creatures and a new approach to painting them. The taste of the time tended towards the keeping of menageries as a decorative element on the country estate, populated by exotic imported creatures from Africa, Asia and South America and immortalized by painters such as de Hondecoeter. This was the threshold of a new age of scientific awareness. The most popular species and why they were chosen will also be discussed, as well as the contribution made by this painter and his followers.

Since its foundation in 1602 the ‘VOC’ or Dutch East India Company generated much wealth from the importation of exotic goods into the Netherlands. As well as tea, coffee, silks and spices, these early shipping magnates introduced exotic fauna into the Netherlands to adorn their country estates as the ultimate status symbol. Such menageries grew to become the zoological gardens with which we are familiar today.
The ownership of exotic animals, and paintings thereof, became an important status symbol for the wealthy merchants and landowners in the Netherlands. It was also a symbol, perhaps, of lands successfully conquered. (Show less)

Per Widén : Dynastic Histories. Art museums in early 19th century Sweden
This paper deals with the different projects of creating art museums in Sweden during the first half of the 19th century in connection with the coming of a new royal dynasty, the Bernadottes. From the 1820s until the mid 1840s there were numerous attempts made in parliament to raise money ... (Show more)
This paper deals with the different projects of creating art museums in Sweden during the first half of the 19th century in connection with the coming of a new royal dynasty, the Bernadottes. From the 1820s until the mid 1840s there were numerous attempts made in parliament to raise money for an art museum in Stockholm. Until 1845 and the establishment of Nationalmuseum, all attempts failed. The many plans for art museums had royal support and the monarch, Karl XIV Johan of Sweden, appears to have had personal interests in the question.

Two projects in special were connected to the monarch’s personal interest and his dynastic ventures: The portrait gallery at Gripsholm Castle and a project for an art museum at the royal palace of Rosendal, both of them funded by the king and not by the parliament. The portrait gallery at Gripsholm were established in 1822 and draws on an older tradition of Gripsholm as a palace with rich collections of portraits, among them portraits of royalties from the courts of Europe. In 1822 though, the collection was transformed into a royal collection of “merited citizens” (“medborgerligt förtjänta personer”). The gallery thus became a virtual tableau where the new dynasty could place itself in a line of predecessors, but also as a part of a larger Swedish cultural context.

The Rosendal project, which was never realized, can also be connected to dynastic ambitions. The planning started immediately after the parliament had turned down the proposal of a state-funded art museum in Stockholm, and, like Gripsholm, the Rosendal museum was to be funded by the king himself. The plan was to display the king’s personal art collections in two long galleries connected by a central rotunda. The rotunda was intended for five larger than life statues depicting the old norse god Oden, often used by Karl XIV Johan for propagandistic reasons, and four predecessors on the Swedish throne, Karl X, Karl XI, Karl XII and Karl XIII. In this case to, the king intended to use a museum as a focal point for dynastic interests, depicting himself not only as a patron of the arts, but also as part of a long tradition. (Show less)



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