Published by Deutscher Kunstverlag (DKV)

Volume 84 Issue 3

September 2021

Issue of Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte

Contents
Journal Overview

Publicly Available September 12, 2021

Frontmatter

Page range: 1-4

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Aufsätze

September 12, 2021

Wandalgarius’ Letters of the Law: Figural Initials and Book Culture in the Late Eighth Century

Beatrice Kitzinger

Page range: 291-324

Abstract

Long sidelined by art historians, the Wandalgarius Codex is a compendium of legal texts dated to 793 that represents an early venture in a trend associated with the 790s: populating initial letters with lively figures. This article centers the Wandalgarius Codex in discussion of experimental book illumination in the late eighth century. The decade saw re-definition of the visual organization of books, the uses illumination could serve, and the ways manuscripts in many genres reflected and shaped projects of education and reform. The essay sets Wandalgarius’ approach to initials in conversation with the well-known Gellone Sacramentary, and investigates the scribe-draftsman’s characterization of his own work as an ambitious contemporary book-maker.

September 12, 2021

Aggiornamenti su Bartolomeo Varnucci

Daniele Guernelli

Page range: 325-364

Abstract

This article outlines the figure of the Florentine Bartolomeo Varnucci, an illuminator who for decades had his workshop in the Badia Fiorentina, where he was assisted by his brothers Giovanni and Chimenti. They where all cartolai , craftsmen able to take care of the production of manuscripts as a whole, from the preparation of the parchment to the binding. Active from the third to the eighth decade of the fifteenth century, Bartolomeo was able to interpret the rise of humanistic book production, with its typical decoration of white vine stems, but also to move through the vast requests of the devotional world, more inclined to conservative artistic solutions. This contribution gives a complete survey of the artist’s milieu and work, adding several new works to his catalogue.

September 12, 2021

Une figure sculptée de saint Aré conservée au Bayerisches Nationalmuseum de Munich : Michel Colombe et la sculpture tourangelle hors les murs ?*

Jean-Marie Guillouët

Page range: 365-378

Abstract

In the rooms of the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich, the astonishing sculpture of Saint Are stands out. The sixth-century bishop of Nevers is depicted lying dead on the bottom of the small boat that miraculously sailed up the Loire as far as the village of Decize. It is for the church of this locality that this sculpture was made, probably after depredations committed to the treasure of the sanctuary in 1484. A stylistic analysis reveals the close links of this work with contemporary sculpture in Touraine, particularly with the anonymous figure of a bishop now kept in Saint-Saturnin at Limeray (Indre-et- Loire). The same hand of an artist who seems to have worked in the entourage of Michel Colombe must be recognized in both works. The documented presence of the great sculptor in Moulins in 1484 further supports this presumption.

September 12, 2021

“Malerische Dichtungen”: Two Landscape Paintings of 1916 by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Sherwin Simmons

Page range: 379-407

Abstract

During 1916 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner created a group of landscape paintings, based on his experiences at the Kohnstamm Sanatorium in Königstein, which were more symbolic in character than his previous landscapes. This essay shows that contact with Carl and Thea Sternheim, who encouraged a reengagement with Vincent van Gogh’s paintings and letters, played a role in this change. Kirchner’s recognition of how Van Gogh could express an affect through his painting was reinforced by Dr. Kohnstamm’s writings about empathy’s role in artistic expression. Artistic practice and aesthetic theory were joined in representations of Jena done during Fall 1916 in which Kirchner transformed the landscape through formal means into symbols of his emotional relationship to that space.

September 12, 2021

The Anachronic Madonna Lactans: Impersonations of the Nursing Virgin by Cindy Sherman, Catherine Opie, and Vanessa Beecroft

Jutta Sperling

Page range: 408-440

Abstract

This article examines Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #216 (1989), Catherine Opie’s Self-Portrait/ Nursing (2004), and Vanessa Beecroft’s White Madonna or VBSS.002 (2006) in relation to the medieval and Renaissance artworks these photos quote and re-instantiate: Jean Fouquet’s Virgin of Melun (1452–1455); Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Madonna del Latte (1325–1335) and Leonardo da Vinci’s Litta Madonna (1490s); and Tino di Camaino’s Charity (1321) and Jan van Eyck’s Lucca Madonna (1436), respectively. This juxtaposition — framed by reference to Alexander Nagel’s and Christopher Wood’s concept of “anachronism” and to Aby Warburg’s notion of the Pathosformel — helps us ask new questions and gain new insights about the “old masters” under discussion.

Buchbesprechungen

September 12, 2021

Caspar David Friedrichs besonderer Naturzugriff

Werner Busch

Page range: 441-447

About this journal

Founded by Wilhelm Waetzold and Ernst Gall in 1932, the Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte is published quarterly by Deutscher Kunstverlag. As the leading international German-language journal of art history it is one of the foremost periodicals of the academic discipline world-wide. Scholarly articles undergo a double-blind peer review by two independent experts; contributions are accepted in German, English, French, and Italian.

The Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte is a journal covering the whole range of art-historical matters. It offers a space for contributions dealing with all epochs and subjects, and using all methodical approaches. Open to art-historians from all points of the compass, it should at the same time serve to retain the polyglot nature of the discipline.

Organisation

The editorial office of the Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte is located at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich. Since January 2020, Gerrít Walczak is Managing Editor.

The publisher delegates editorship to five Editors covering different areas of the discipline. For the sake of openness and plurality, Editors will generally serve for five years. The annual withdrawal of a member of the editorial board, and the subsequent by-election of a new Editor, assures steady change while maintaining continuity.

The Editors are nominated by an advisory committee, whose members are recruited from the institutes of art history at German universities, or operating outside higher education, and from the three German art historical research establishments at Florence, Paris, and Rome. Each institute or research establishment is invited to send a representative. Additionally, the board of directors of the Verband Deutscher Kunsthistoriker, the directorate of the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte and Deutscher Kunstverlag are represented each by a consultative member. All members serve on the committe for six years unless their term is extended.

Submissions

The Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte accepts only contributions that have not been published elsewhere. Submissions are welcome in German, English, French, and Italian. Translations of essays either previously published or about to be published as well as outtakes from books in the making will not be processed. The editorial office assumes that articles and reviews are not parallely submitted to other journals. Articles will first be assessed by the editorial office and the editorial board, then passed on anonymously to two external referees