Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 March 2020
Through a close reading and reconstruction of technical recipes for ephemeral artworks in a manuscript compiled in Toulouse ca. 1580 (BnF MS Fr. 640), we question whether ephemeral art should be treated as a distinct category of art. The illusion and artifice underpinning ephemeral spectacles shared the aims and, frequently, the materials and techniques of art more generally. Our analysis of the manuscript also calls attention to other aspects of art making that reframe consideration of the ephemeral, such as intermediary processes, durability, the theatrical and transformative potential of materials, and the imitation and preservation of lifelikeness.
The authors of this article sincerely thank Jo Kirby, Christine Göttler, and Diane Bodart for stimulating lectures and discussions, and Naomi Rosenkranz and the participants in the fall 2017 lab seminar for their research and laboratory work. Research for this article has been supported by NSF1430843, NEH RQ-249842-16, and the Henry Luce, Gladys Krieble Delmas, and Florence Gould Foundations. This article has been published during Sophie Pitman's time on the “Refashioning the Renaissance” project, which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 726195). Unless otherwise specified, all translations are our own.