Icons in the Making, Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris, January 25–26, 2021

This conference-workshop invites art historians, conservators and conservation scientists to collectively analyse how visual effects in icons are created by the accumulation of layers, which, visible or invisible, participate fully in their final appearance. How to bring into dialogue different methods of analysis, historical, stylistic, iconographic and material, in order to understand the emergence of forms and the processes of creation?

The conference-workshop follows the workshop organized in December 2019 in Athens by Greek institutions (University of the Aegean, ArticonLab-University of West Attica, Directorate of Conservation of Ancient and Modern Monuments-Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Benaki Museum) and INHA, focusing on the Greek and Ethiopian cases. It is designed to broaden the subject to the Mediterranean area and the Slavic world. The themes addressed should make it possible to review current research, applied or fundamental, on the questions of creation and transformation of icons, for updating or maintenance and, more recently, for conservation-restoration; the dissemination of icons as well as possible transfers of materials, techniques and models between the various traditions. Eventually, the question of attribution to an author, a workshop or a centre can also be addressed. 

This conference-workshop will be held at the Institut national d'histoire de l'art with the support of the Musée du Louvre, the Petit-Palais - Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris and the Directorate of Conservation of Ancient and Modern Monuments-Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

Due to COVID-19, the conference has been rescheduled from June 2020 to January 25 and 26, 2021. A video-conference system will allow those who cannot travel to Paris to present digital communications.