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Max Dvořák, one of the pilasters of the Viennese school of art history, is nowadays widely known for the works of his final years as well as for writings on monument conservation. Through a reconstruction of the historical and academic context and a brief presentation of Dvořák’s studies on the transition period from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century, the author aims to show that the Bohemian scholar made an important contribution to the art historical debate of the time, for which he is hardly appreciated today. This article examines a selection of Dvořák’s early writings from the first decade of the twenthieth century. In particular, the habilitation thesis Das Rätsel der Kunst der Brüder van Eyck (The Enigma of the Art of the Van Eyck Brothers, 1903) is consulted. While many scholars claim that there is a wide gap between his older works and those from the last years of his life, as stated by his former students Karl M. Swoboda and Johannes Wilde in the preface to Kunstgeschichte als Geistesgeschichte (1924), it is argued here that Dvořák’s point of view already presents the basic elements of his more mature conclusions at the beginning of his academic career. Likewise, it is reflected on the fact that Dvořák made a remarkable contribution to a new consideration of the transitional period between the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, among other workd, with his Enigma, but that this is today attributed not to him but to the cultural historian Johan Huizinga and his work Autumn of the Middle Ages (1919).

In a wide‐ranging interview with AD Editor Neil Spiller, architectural artist Ben Johnson charts the course of his career to date – from his formative years at art school, through his epiphany moment when architecture took its key place in his practice, and beyond. He recalls the impact of painting the work of Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, particularly the reflections caused by their use of glass, and discusses the spiritual aspects that the act of painting instills in him, along with his more recent interest in depicting the geometries of Islamic religious buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay addresses the question of ethics and aesthetics of distance from a particular angle: the very instable fiction that is the human body. It traces how and what kind of distances collapse when the human body in all its resistance as an artistic and academic 'object' is approached. How does this interfere with scientific objectivity or the figure of historical distance? The paper touches upon (Christian) concepts of the human body and their entanglement with philosophical and, in its wake, art historical writing with a special focus on early modern European art. It grasps the subject via a medial experience with Eve from the Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, thereby aiming to explore relations between new media, painting techniques, or style as a means of operating distance effects. By examining relations of closeness and distance through media, technique, style, and the (art historical) discourses on bodies, the essay ventures into a self-critical destabilization of European concepts and formations of bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Review of the Oskar Rojewski´s book Los Valets de Chambre de los duques de Borgoña y sus tareas artísticas (1419-1477)

Copyright of Acta Musei Brukenthal is the property of Brukenthal National Museum and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

From the first third of the 15th century onwards, panel paintings with marbled reverses increasingly appeared in Flemish art. The fronts of these panels primarily depicted religious narrative scenes or portraits. The backs were decorated with an abstract pattern, referred to as marbling. These painted marble facsimiles often differed in terms of design from other examples of stone imitations such as those used on the frame decorations of other panels. Unlike these frames, which suggest a greater illusionistic intention, the marbled reverses appear to function as abstract ornamentation. However, this article proposes that the painted backs are thematically linked to the pictorial narratives of the fronts. The marbled backs of Rogier van der Weyden’s Crucifixion and the Portrait of Margareta van Eyck will be considered in the context of a profane and a theological iconography. Both panels feature a reverse that can be identified as both an imitation of red porphyry and a representation of liquid paint. Metaphysical, material–semantic, and theological references will be revealed in the pictorial examples.

The Crucifixion and Last Judgment, or the so-called New York Diptych, is one of the most controversial paintings attributed to Jan van Eyck (ca. 1390–1441) and his workshop. For well over a century, art historians have vigorously discussed its attribution, composition, functional intent, and even its dating. In light of prior scholarship addressing these remarkable panels, this paper focuses on the skeleton represented in the Last Judgment to reveal its iconographical meanings. Specifically, I highlight the inscriptions written on the skeleton’s wings, suggesting that the texts were cited from an All Saints’ Day sermon delivered by the Burgundian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) who discussed a temporal location for blessed or sinful souls.

Review of: Parada López de Corselas, Manuel, Jan van Eyck's trip from Flanders to Granada (1428-1429), Madrid: La Ergástula, 2017

The Monk by the Sea stands alone in the oeuvre of Caspar David Friedrich. Unlike the majority of his works, which are generally overburdened with meaning, making them easy to understand from a Romantic, Christian or nationalist perspective, this painting remained resistant to interpretation by almost all of his contemporaries - even by the artist himself - because the reduction and "minimalism" in the work was so unprecedented and extreme that it would take several generations before it became common practice. This was also the first work to feature Friedrich's famous innovation, the Rückenfigur, the picture's internal spectator, who forms a close and subjective bond with the external spectator, while the subject of the spectacle itself, for the very first time in the history of painting, is "nothing". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The painter Jan Van Eyck is one of the most significant representatives of Northern Renaissance art. The brothers Van Eyck painted the large almost 600-year-old Ghent Altarpiece. This polyptych with 26 paintings is an impressive rendering of Catholic mysticism. Jan Van Eyck used new techniques of handling both oil paint and transparent glazes. He was an early light designer and painted realistic lighting and shadows. Jan Van Eyck used central perspective, eye-level perspective and worm's-eye perspective in his paintings. He was the first to use aerial perspective. Jan Van Eyck included numerous verbal messages and symbols in his paintings, designed in every detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To speak about “languages of connoisseurship” could be misleading or even wrong: connoisseurship can neither be exhaustively defined in terms of a certain methodology, as for instance the history of style and form or Giovanni Morelli’s approach, nor is it limited to a certain text genre or even a genuine language. However, clauses that suggest clarity and a certain resemblance are characteristic for more or less all connoisseurial texts, a simple observation that is nevertheless worth paying more attention to. Starting from methodological statements by two of the most influential connoisseurs in art history—Bernard Berenson and Max J. Friedländer—, I examine the entanglement of connoisseurship and linguistic customs: epistemic canonization, delimination, quantification and the paradigm of resemblance still rank among the common textual instruments to built a connoisseurial argument. My hypothesis is that these uncritical practiced linguistic habits are a principle weakness of connoisseurship that make it vulnerable to failures. By spotlighting the famous Hubert-and-Jan-van-Eyck-dispute, I am finally trying to show that in more than one dimension the 200 years old connoisseurial debate around the altar piece is intertwined, even trapped in a textual dimension.

Copyright of Goya is the property of Fundacion Lazaro Galdiano and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study considers the relationship between English late medieval polyphony (both Latin-texted and vernacular) and visual art that is related to it by common religious and devotional themes and by the shared contexts, public and private, that they shared. It considers devotional poetry as evidence of modes of personal engagement (both clerical and lay) with particular subjects and imagery, and relates these to art and music looked at in tandem. In principle its themes and mode of enquiry relate to devotional imagery of all types, but its particular focus is on Midlands 15th-century alabaster sculpture, which evolved exactly coevally with the highly developed English polyphonic tradition under discussion. Both these traditions enjoyed regional, national and international reputations in their own time. It also examines, by way of contrast and control, another instance in visual art that is in many ways complementary to alabaster imagery: 15th-century Flemish religious and devotional painting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hans Memling (1430-1494) was one of those Flemish Renaissance painters whose life is not known about very well. He admitted himself that he was Rogier van der Weyden's (1399/400-1441) student, the artist who joined history with Italian painting. Some researchers believe that Jan van Eyck (1385/90-1441) and Rogier van der Weyden were the two greatest artists of 'the first golden period' of Flemish art. Memling deserves to be included in the list of the greatest Flemish artists of all due to his artistic opus and research. 'Portrait of a Reading Man' from The National Museum of Art in Bucharest strengthens Memling's painting reputation. I am, so far, the only person who has ever written a few sentences concerning this wonderful painting created at the very end of the artist's life. It is like one of the pearls on the necklace of Memling's creative opus.

Copyright of Filozofski Vestnik is the property of Scientific Research Centre of Slovenian Academy of Sciences & Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Alfonso el Magnánimo tuvo en su poder al menos un par de obras suyas, según nos cuentan las fuentes. Esta apreciación particular del gran maestro flamenco se inscribe naturalmente dentro de un fenómeno más general, cual es el de la emulación, por parte de tantas cortes regias o principescas europeas, del modelo de mecenazgo y de los ideales culturales de los reyes y los príncipes de la casa de Valois, incluyendo, por supuesto, la rama de los duques de Borgoña. Esta orientación comportaba, entre otras cosas, el consumo de objetos artísticos y suntuarios franco-flamencos o flamencos. Siguiendo la misma pauta, Alfonso invirtió grandes sumas en la adquisición de tapices de haute lisse, uno de los géneros pictóricos que mejor expresaban los ideales de magnificencia y esplendor que convienen al príncipe. En este artículo se propone una nueva lectura conjunta de las distintas fuentes documentales y críticas que nos hablan de este tipo de consumo por parte del rey Alfonso el Magnánimo.

The article analyzes marginal writing within books during the early modern period as representations of early forms of graffiti. These markings include signatures, annotations, inscriptions, and other various marks of ownership. Emphasis is given to the defamation of individuals in books, the importance of these various markings to knowledge about early modern English material culture, and the importance of books to English social life. The author calls for the anthropological study of books in relation to such graffiti.

The Crucifixion and Last Judgment, or the so-called New York Diptych, is one of the most controversial paintings attributed to Jan van Eyck (ca. 1390–1441) and his workshop. For well over a century, art historians have vigorously discussed its attribution, composition, functional intent, and even its dating. In light of prior scholarship addressing these remarkable panels, this paper focuses on the skeleton represented in the Last Judgment to reveal its iconographical meanings. Specifically, I highlight the inscriptions written on the skeleton's wings, suggesting that the texts were cited from an All Saints' Day sermon delivered by the Burgundian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) who discussed a temporal location for blessed or sinful souls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synchrotron-induced X-ray fluorescence (Sy-XRF) analysis was used to study the chemical composition of precious Renaissance silverpoint drawings. Drawings by famous artists such as Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) and Jan van Eyck (approximately 1395–1441) must be investigated non-destructively. Moreover, extremely sensitive synchrotron- or accelerator-based techniques are needed since only small quantities of silver are deposited on the paper. New criteria for attributing these works to a particular artist could be established based on the analysis of the chemical composition of the metal points used. We illustrate how analysis can give new art historical information by means of two case studies. Two particular drawings, one of Albrecht Dürer, showing a profile portrait of his closest friend, “Willibald Pirckheimer” (1503), and a second one attributed to Jan van Eyck, showing a “Portrait of an elderly man”, often named “Niccolò Albergati”, are the object of intense art historical controversy. Both drawings show inscriptions next to the figures. Analyses by Sy-XRF could reveal the same kind of silverpoint for the Pirckheimer portrait and its mysterious Greek inscription, contrary to the drawing by Van Eyck where at least three different metal points were applied. Two different types of silver marks were found in this portrait. Silver containing gold marks were detected in the inscriptions and over-subscriptions. This is the first evidence of the use of gold points for metal point drawings in the Middle Ages. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

On the basis of reports that Jan van Eyck visited England (he was well traveled in the service of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy), this essay speculates freely on what the diplomat and painter actually did in and around London for three weeks in 1428. The essay claims, for example, that van Eyck went to the village of Foots Cray to buy watercresses to use as models when painting greenery on the Ghent Altarpiece of the Mystic Lamb (which he completed in 1432). The recently erected gateway to the palace at Greenwich is said likewise to be the model for a towered gateway depicted on the altarpiece. After providing local detail about relevant parts of England in 1428, the essay closes with speculation (although the author writes, "The facts are known") about the origin of a harp, of a purportedly Welsh variety, appearing on the altarpiece in the hands of an angel. The author argues that it was the instrument of an itinerant Breton musician whom van Eyck had heard in recital at the Poor Clares convent of the Holy Trinity at the Minories in Aldgate. The harpist subsequently murdered his Stepney landlady and was himself killed by enraged local housewives. Van Eyck is said to have purchased the man's harp when his worldly goods were posthumously sold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Filozofski Vestnik is the property of Scientific Research Centre of Slovenian Academy of Sciences & Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)