Object Studies in Art History
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Edited by:
Philippe Cordez
Recent developments in the field of visual studies have established how fruitful an art historical approach to images outside of the modern, western notion of art can be. Still, a reduction of art history strictly towards visual studies would be a drastic one, excluding from its scope entire categories of artefacts that are not images. Considering object experiences in all their sensuous and cognitive complexity and with all the resources of art history, this book series presents object studies as a productive and vital counterpart to visual studies.
Topics
In the Early Modern period, astronomical table clocks were among the most complex and indeed most expensive objects produced in the centers of craftsmanship in southern Germany such as Augsburg and Nuremberg. While the extensive information provided by the various timekeeping systems, the positions of the sun, the moon and the zodiac, and the many other features is truly impressive, an equally surprising element is the central principle by which the table clocks are designed: their presentation in the shape of other objects. The study shows how clockmakers developed formal strategies to set the scene for their outstanding craftsmanship and expertise. Astronomical table clocks fitted out with casings in the form of towers, mirrors or books thus take on the symbolic interpretation of these artefacts as technological wonders, images of the cosmos, and vessels of heavenly knowledge. From the invention of the spring drive to the implementation of the pendulum clock, the study offers countless findings on the practice and teaching of technology, art, and science.
The interrelations between objects and organisms take many forms, from the microbes known to inhabit medieval manuscripts to the biomorphic forms observable in Art Nouveau lamps, and from the androids cast in American superhero comics to the coral found on Chinese porcelain recovered from shipwrecks. The contributions to this volume investigate various interactions between inanimate and animate matter in art, literature, technology, and other areas of human perception and expression. The book highlights how certain characteristics allow objects to be understood as living organisms, and vice versa. Via a range of dynamics involving vivification and reification, objects and organisms emerge as unstable, transforming within evolving situations.
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Innovative, interdisciplinary object-scientific contribution to critical ecology
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From the early modern period into the 21st century
The "lion of Saint Mark's" in Venice, the "Capitoline wolf" in Rome, or the "griffin" on the imperial palace in Goslar: Monumental animal bronzes dominated many medieval cities and palaces. Whether taken from antiquity, reworked, and partially altered, or cast anew, they represent ideal figures of identification for single individuals or social groups until today due to their size, positioning, and generally open meaning. The book takes a look for the first time at selected bronzes south and north of the Alps, their histories and modes of reception from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective.
The historiography of timekeeping is traditionally characterized by a dichotomy between research that investigates the evolution of technical devices on the one hand, and research that is concerned with the examination of the cultures and uses of time on the other hand.
Material Histories of Time opens a dialogue between these two approaches by taking monumental clocks, table clocks, portable watches, carriage clocks, and other forms of timekeeping as the starting point of a joint reflection of specialists of the history of horology together with scholars studying the social and cultural history of time. The contributions range from the apparition of the first timekeeping mechanical systems in the Middle Ages to the first evidence of industrialization in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Military objects are popular items in literature and the fine arts, and have often been elaborately designed. However, the discussion of the artistic aspects of militaria is not only based on the relationship between the real, present artefact and the objects represented in the respective medium.The material properties, handling, and cultural inscriptions of the historic artefacts are often the basis of complex artistic redesigns and transformations, which in turn release the potential for the design of military artefacts.
Based on an interdisciplinary approach, the book is devoted to the dichotomous condition of objects of war and their representation in art and literature.
In the modern lexicon, ‘object’ refers to an entity that is materially constituted, spatially defined, and functionally determined. In contrast, the Latin word ‘fantasia’ has, since antiquity, referred to an apparition or the ability to imagine something that could be equally an object, an image, or a concept. This tension prompts further inquiry into the interrelations and differences between the experience of tangible objects (their perception and handling) and the creation of new objects (their conception and formation). What correlations exist between object fantasies, the self-consciousness of subjects, and the concrete and imagined conditions of human beings’ social lives? By addressing this question, this interdisciplinary book opens new perspectives in the field of object studies.
Talismans are objects much neglected by art historical research to date. This volume is the first to present such magical artefacts as a highly complex and extremely promising object genre in terms of visual studies, which can be discussed in the context of recent discourses such as material cultural studies, object studies, and the question of the agency of artistic works. Based on the Kunstkammer of Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, who was the most important collector of naturalia, artificialia and scientifica around 1600, Kunstkammer objects will also be considered as magica: artefacts to which a natural magical quality could be attributed due to their iconographic and material preparation or artistic craftsmanship.
Natural science collections were widespread in the early modern period. This volume focuses on the eventful collection history of the Chamber of Mathematics and Physics of the former Jesuit College in Cologne from its 17th-century beginnings to the present day. Political and (ecclesiastical) historical events influenced the organisation, function, and collection of instruments. As early as the 18th century, but more especially in the French period around 1800, the Jesuit collection developed into one of mathematics and physics, which Georg Simon Ohm later used to prepare for his important discovery of Ohm’s Law. In the context of science’s historical development towards modern natural science, the Cologne chamber played an active role, helping to shape this major transformation on a small scale.
