Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann

Remarks on the Collections of Rudolf II: The Kunstkammer as a Form of Representatio

A series of recent discoveries calls for the reinterpretation of the fabled and long misunderstood collections of the Emperor Rudolf II of Habsburg (reigned 1576–1612). Since Julius Von Schlossers treatment of the late Renaissance Kunst- und Wunderkammer, Rudolfs collections have until recently been regarded as a kind of circus sideshow lacking any organizing principle or orderly display. Unicorn horns and magic stones are said to have been heaped up alongside great paintings by Durer and Brueghel throughout the rooms of the imperial castle in Prague. The Emperor is supposed to have grown increasingly mad as he spent his days contemplating his strange, secret treasure instead of tending to affairs of state.1

Antiquarianism, the History of Objects, and the History of Art before Winckelmann

In light ofpostmodemist and poststructuralist trends in the humanities which have contested notions of originality and of authorship, it might seem surprising that one outstanding myth of the eighteenth century has not yet been thoroughly challenged. This is the claim made by Johann Joachim Winckelmann in the foreword to the Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, originally published in 1764, that he had created a new history of art which was distinct from a history of artists and also different from what had previously been written about antiquities (Altertiimer):

Eurocentrism and Art History? Universal History and the Historiography of the Arts before Winckelmann

With its reputation for openness, Amsterdam is a good place to reconsider the vexatious question of Eurocentrism and the historiography of art. Although even those who decry “Eurocentrism” note that the term is difficult to define,1 it might appear easy enough to describe some of its symptoms in this case. The absence of any non-European art from the curricula of most continental European institutes of art history would seem to be one sure sign of a process whereby some artistic manifestations are preserved for memory, and others exiled to other fields, if not consigned to oblivion. Some revisionist art historians have begun to follow the lead of critics in other fields in taxing more recent work in art history for expressed or tacit assumptions whereby the non-Western-European is unfavourably compared to the Western, and in attacking art history of the nineteenth and earlier twentieth century for its more overtly nationalist and racist premises.2 Other writers would extend the critique to the Enlightenment, so often pilloried nowadays, and even to earlier periods.3

Introduction: Warburg's Library and Its Legacy

In this introduction to a Common Knowledge special issue on the Warburg Institute, the authors argue that the Institute remains today—as it has been, in different forms, for almost a century—one of Europes central institutions for the study of cultural history. At once a rich and uniquely organized library, a center for doctoral and postdoctoral research, and a teaching faculty, the Institute was first envisioned by Aby Warburg, a pioneering historian of art and culture from a wealthy Jewish family in Hamburg. Warburg rejected the traditional view that the classical tradition was a simple, purely rational Greek creation, inherited by modern Europe. He argued that it was as much Mesopotamian as Greek in origin, as at home in the Islamic as in the European world, and as often irrational as rational in its content—and on the basis of this rich vision he devised brilliant new interpretations of medieval and Renaissance symbols and ideas. Warburgs chosen associate Fritz Saxl put his creation on a firm institutional base, first in Hamburg and then, after a narrow escape from the Nazi regime, in London. For all the changes the Institute has undergone over the decades since then, it continues to ask the questions that Warburg was the first to raise and to build on the methods that he created.

Court, Cloister and City: The Art and Culture of Central Europe, 1450-1800@@@The Renaissance Print: 1470-1550

A heavily-illustrated guide to the art and culture of Central Europe between the years 1450 and 1800, this text looks at Central Europe as a cultural entity. It chronicles more than 300 years of painting, sculpture and architecture in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, the Ukraine, Lithuania and western parts of the Russian Federation. It surveys a remarkable range of artifacts from the coming of the Renaissance to the Enlightenment.

Editors Statement: Images of Rule: Issues of Interpretation

The essays on “Images of Rule” in this issue of Art Journal address a perennial topic with many implications for questions of interpretation. Since antiquity, artifacts have been made to represent or to symbolize persons or ideas connected with control, government, sway, or dominion. Effigies of Egyptian pharaohs and of such Sumerian and Akkadian rulers as Gudea of Lagash or Sargon are familiar early examples of this sort of imagery. Historians of all periods and cultures have thus long been concerned with the manifold uses of art in the form of portraiture, in broader symbolic programs, in pageantry, ceremonial, and in the guise of patronage or collecting to assert political power, reinforce social hierarchies, or make claims for state or religious institutions.