In histories of Antwerp, the sixteenth century is known as the city’s “Golden Age.” During Antwerp’s short century, to which the Spanish retaking of the city in 1585 provides a definitive end, the city experienced a sweeping upheaval – economic, religious and artistic. Processes of economic rationalization transformed day-to-day life; systems of trade and finance became more complex, facilitating a more efficient movement of goods, currency, and people through the city in ever-greater numbers. Within half a century, the city became a kind of European “économie-monde” (Fernand Braudel). The newly expanded possibilities of trade opened up new markets to Antwerp artists, who supplied global demand by streamlining their own processes of production. However, there are diverging storylines in this account of cultural and economic standardization: the process of confessional pluralization, which brought with it practices of tolerance but also greater persecution of minorities, and the birth of artistic genres.
The goal of this workshop is to investigate the relationship between the aforementioned processes of standardization and pluralization in sixteenth-century Antwerp, foregrounding the city’s position as a crossroads – not just for the movement of goods but also ideas. At this moment of early capitalist development, the city offered its residents a “market of beliefs” as well as an art market. Just as the believer had his or her choice of religious affiliation, so the producers and consumers of pictorial art also had more options than ever before, with a set of new genres emphasizing the comic or low-brow dimension of everyday life. Workshop papers will explore the categories of difference and non-conformity in art, religion, and commerce, and how diversity was perceived by contemporaries. Which forms of economic, artistic and religious innovation and diversity were accepted, or even celebrated, and which were labeled as deviance or subversion?

Reference / Quellennachweis:
CONF: Diversity & Deviance: Art, Commerce & Religion in Antwerp
(Dresden 12-13 Dec 11). In: H-ArtHist, Dec 7, 2011.
.