While in recent decades art history has recognised the importance of materiality of artwork, it is still in a process of searching for appropriate tools and approaches to grasp its specific role. From the recognition that an artwork is a material object, being a product of skilful manipulation of natural substances, follows an obvious conclusion that it can and should be examined also with the methods of natural sciences. That is what basically Technical Art History does by bringing applied sciences, conservation and art history together. Consequently, the examination of artefacts with the steadily extending and perfected toolbox of scientific methods has become a standard procedure in (well-funded) museums and in the conservation practice, mainly for the sake of authentication, attribution and dating but also providing insights into historical technologies or transcultural connections.

Yet, with exemption of singular flagship projects, academic art history has rarely access to technical examination, or – if it does – its outcomes are seldom fully integrated into art historical argumentation and in the presentation of art. Although most current exhibitions include results from technical examination, they are symptomatically often presented separately from the main exhibition narrative. This is because artworks’ materiality is still rarely thought together in a transdisciplinary way “in one room” by all actors involved at all investigation stages: from the formulation of a research question, through examination, interpretation of the results, their presentation, to arriving at new questions arising from them.

The prevailing theoretical character of art historical academic education can be identified as one of the reasons of this shortcoming. Apart from a few specialised programs, most art historian would not be equipped within their academic education with a basic knowledge allowing for fruitful cooperation with natural scientists and conservators. The latter, however, are rarely instructed how to communicate their research results to non-scientists and non- practitioners.

Drawing on the historical entanglements between art and science and convinced that art can contribute to rebuilding of the globally and societally highly relevant connection between culture and nature as reflected by anthropology and ecocritical art history, the proposed session seeks to discuss strategies to overcome traditional separation between art history, conservation, natural and applied sciences.

Talks:

Part 1: Workshop practice as source for material studies

• Florence BOULC'H, Aurélie BOSC, Nicolas BOUILLON, Elodie BURLE ERRECADE, Laurence DE VIGUERIE , Valérie GONTERO LAUZE, Odile GUILLON, Sophie ROCHUT, Jean-Marc VALLET - Un dialogue entre les sciences humaines et les sciences des matériaux pour une approche inédite de la notion d’ateliers d’enlumineurs
• Maria Laura PETRUZZELLIS, Alessia MASI, Lorenza SELLERI , Giusi VECCHI - Exploring Giorgio Morandi's ateliers: a transdisciplinary investigation of materials, tools and space by bridging art and science
• Sara SÁ, Isabel POMBO CARDOSO, Maria João VILHENA DE CARVALHO - Combining art history and material studies: contributions to the study of the 15th century workshop of João Afonso

Part 2: Entanglements of art and nature

• Shanshan LIU, Xiao HUANG - Literati Medicinal Gardens in Chinese Paintings
• Clara LANGER, Anne-Sophie TRIBOT - L’Ichtyologie à la rencontre de l’histoire de l’art et de l’écologie : le projet BiodivAquArt
• Martina BARALDI - The art making in the context of creative and geological processes of stones