In November 2016 I arrived at Bard Graduate
Center armed with a well-defined goal for my two-month fellowship there: to crystalize
the concept for an exhibition I am organizing on Flemish merchant collecting in
Renaissance Venice. The exhibition stems from the research for my first book (The Flemish Merchant of Venice, published
in 2015 by Yale UP) and my second book, which I am in the process of finishing,
both on cultural aspects of the Flemish merchant diaspora between 1450 and
1650. Part of my work involves public relations, in the sense that only a small
number of scholars are very familiar with early modern Flemish expatriate
trading communities. Before I even begin to speak about specific individuals
when making a presentation, I usually first show the extent of the diaspora and
give some statistics to demonstrate that the Flemish were important and are worthy
of scholarly attention. Because my approach is based on extensive archival
research, I see it as a great accomplishment if at the end of a presentation I
have been able to pull together all the “chicken scratchings” I have uncovered
in the archives into a coherent argument and to have sparked excitement for the
topic among those listening. It is in this context that two aspects of my time
at BGC made especially memorable impacts on me.
Sometimes
the greatest benefit of holding a visiting fellowship or attending an intensive
course is meeting the other fellows. On day one at BGC I met Paula Hohti of
Aalto University in Finland who would also be spending two months there,
working on her book. We hit it off immediately, discovering that we had many
scholarly interests in common. In particular, we both saw possibilities for
practical applications of our research outside of the academy; and, perhaps
because we both work on the early modern period and because Paula has researched
shopkeepers and artisans, we did not need to explain the significance of our
research to each other. It was a wonderful experience making this bond with such
a great scholarly comrade-in-arms.
The
second gift that I received during my BGC fellowship occurred near the end of my
time there, during my seminar presentation. I spoke about the Flemish merchant
communities in three geographic locations, the Atlantic islands (Madeira, the
Canaries, and the Azores), Seville, and Venice; about two commodities (sugar
and gems), and about the art that is connected to the Flemish presence in each
of these locations. For the Atlantic islands this is early sixteenth-century
Flemish art, mostly religious paintings and wooden sculpture as well as ecclesiastical
metalwork; for Seville architecture in the form of hospitals and chapels
founded by the Flemish as well as paintings commissioned for these buildings;
and in Venice a variety of Italian and Flemish works of art and musical scores that
the merchants commissioned and/or collected. At the end of the presentation I
was gratified by the questions I received, and really pleased to hear from
those who attended that, for example, they had no idea there was Flemish art
still in situ on the island of La Palma or, from the deputy representative of
the Flemish government in New York, that even he did not know any of this
history and was impressed by what I had to say.
Nonetheless, Ivan Gaskell had asked
a question that I did not feel I answered well, and that rankled for some time
afterwards. He wanted to know more specifically how the sugar, gems, and art
were connected. Although I had spoken about how the merchants that commissioned
and imported the Flemish art to the locations previously mentioned were involved
in the sugar and gem trades I had not spent much time discussing the
implications of this, and the kind of concepts that could be explored as a
result. A year later, I realize that my “takeaway” from this is that Ivan was
giving me permission to stop being so concerned about whether others found
Flemish merchants important or compelling. Instead, I now think of them much
more in terms of geographies of art; actor-network connections; and paradigms such
as shared values, professions, and geographies (e.g. port cities). I also look
at how and in which circumstances the transnational networks of the art market overlap
with those of other markets. The discomfort I experienced at BGC has gone a
long way to helping me relax about my area of research and, I hope, to bring
greater depth to my writing.
Christina M. Anderson, Senior Research Associate,
School of European Languages, Culture and Society, University College London;
Bard Graduate Center Research Fellow, November–December 2016.
