2011/2012 Theme Year at the Getty Research Institute
Artists mobilize a variety of intellectual, organizational,
technological, and physical resources to create their work. This scholar
year will delve into the ways in which artists receive, work with, and
transmit ideas and images in various cultural traditions.
At the Getty Research Institute, scholars will pay particular attention
to the material manifestations of memory and imagination in the form of
sketchbooks, notebooks, pattern books, and model books. How do notes,
remarks, written and drawn observations reveal the creative process?
In times and places where such media were not in use, what practices
were developed to give ideas material form?
In the ancient world, artists left traces of their creative process in
a variety of media, but many questions remain for scholars in residence
at the Getty Villa: What was the role of prototypes such as casts and
models; what was their relationship to finished works? How were artists
trained and workshops structured? How did techniques and styles travel?
