Art History Research Articles

Miracles in the MiddleAges and Today // Miracle Healing, Miracle Visions, and Miracle Narratives in the Premodern and Modern World

As much as we live today in a world that is seemingly mostly determined by rationality and technology, we are actually far away from such a status, fortunately so, at least depending on one’s perspective. Hidden behind much scientific research and a mechanistic world determined by machines, for instance, we can easily discover countless examples of superstition, faith, irrationality, wishful thinking, dreams, speculation, and imagination. This is fortunately so, indeed, because it respects the indigenous human nature irrespective of many faults and problems resulting from it. Contrary to Max Weber’s famous formulation, the modern experience of the disenchantment of this world was actually accompanied by a profound rediscovery of or return to magic, spirituality, and fantasy, whether we think of the Romantics, the high popularity of the genre of fairy tales, the ever-growing body of video games and related media today all predicated on science fiction and hence fantasy, or the world of movies. This paper, however, does not intend to develop a large concept about the history of science, the emergence of modernity and individuality, and the steady rise of rationality at the latest since the eighteenth century, all of which have been discussed already at length by historians, anthropologists, philosophers, literary scholars, art historians, and sociologists. Instead, the focus will rest on the belief in miracles and miracle healings and trace the vast discourse on charms and miracles from the early Middle Ages to the modern times as a constant, consistent, and impactful aspect of all human culture we cannot and should not deny if we want to subscribe to a realistic assessment of human culture and mentality. The argument focuses on the curious phenomenon that the belief in miracles continues to run strongly until today both among religious individuals and ordinary individuals who face, for instance, a desperate health situation, a personal crisis, or dangers of all kinds. Popular culture appears to be highly influenced by the belief in miracles, in divine agents who come to people’s rescue in critical moments, and hence the belief in the power of prayer. Each individual aspect would require an extensive scholarly discussion, which this paper cannot offer. Instead, I will trace primarily the discourse on charms and miracles from the early Middle Ages to the present, whereby we can determine the continuity of pre-modern ideas, values, and concepts as valuable aspects for all people throughout time. To make good sense, the concept of the charm as a verbal statement for a magical and religious transformation is widened to include all word magic in medicine, athletics, politics, friendship, and family relationships whenever there is a perceived need to draw from other powers for the well-being of a human being.

Five Algerian postcards: a brief history of ‘Images Populaires’ in Maghribi chromolithography

ABSTRACT This article provides a historical introduction to chromolithographic printing in the Maghrib, paying special attention to the role of print in the spread of vernacular iconographies and figurative forms of Islamic art. I focus on five postcards – all produced in Algeria before 1928 by Éditions Bonestève – whose vibrant illustrations depict a variety of figures, creatures, and narrative scenes. They act as windows onto a huge visual archive of printed matter from the 19th and early 20th centuries that remains understudied in both the literature on colonial visual culture and Islamic art history. Perhaps due to their explicitly religious iconography, what is often overlooked about these chromolithographic images is how they were co-produced by European and North African actors and consumed by diverse markets of Muslims and non-Muslims alike; understanding them as fundamentally hybrid is crucial to appreciating their full mobility, their widespread aesthetic and political influence, and their ability to be read in diverse and sometimes contradictory ways. Ultimately this article challenges the dismissive label ‘images populaires’, while also asking whether a new reading of certain images as ‘popular’ and ‘Islamic’ is in fact possible if we look to their historical (re)appropriations within different communities, geographies, and political or artistic movements.

Book Review - MONA MOMESCU, EDUARD ANDREI, Risipitorul de talent: Ilie Cristoloveanu, pictor și filolog în România și SUA [The Prodigal Prodigy Ilie Cristoloveanu, an Artist and Philologist in Romania and the USA], Bucharest, Paideia, 2022, 522 p., with ill.

Ilie Cristoloveanu (1893-1964), an artist trained in fine arts in the Belle Époque Romania, has recently made the subject of a consistent monograph written by philologist Mona Momescu and art historian Eduard Andrei. The artist’s archive and quasi-complete donation of works (about two hundred paintings, sketches, drawings, portraits), were identified in 2021 at the Romanian National Museum of Art in Bucharest. They came to the museum’s collection after a last-minute decision of the artist’s late wife Olga Cristoloveanu – herself an art lover, a soprano and her husband’s muse – to donate them in 1977 to a Romanian museum, against her husband’s anti- Communist will. Olga Cristoloveanu, a voluntary character, outlived her husband more than two decades and tried to leave his inheritance to Columbia University, New York, where her husband had lived and worked. Eventually, she donated the works to probably the most visible museum in Romania, which now appears to have been a wise decision, as it offered the artworks better visibility and recognition. The volume also includes a consistent corpus of images taken after the main assets of this archive.

The Impact of Historical Art Movements on Medicine

Art and medicine have long influenced one another, with historical art movements shaping not only aesthetic trends but also conceptions of health, disease, and human anatomy. This paper examines the intertwined evolution of art and medicine across pivotal historical periods, highlighting the Renaissance’s focus on anatomical accuracy, Romanticism’s emotional engagement with the human condition, and Modernism’s reflection of trauma from warfare and disease. The analysis considers how visual representations, from anatomical sketches to symbolic portrayals of illness, have impacted public health perceptions and medical education. Additionally, the study examines the therapeutic uses of art in contemporary settings, underscoring the psychological benefits of art therapy in clinical care. By tracing these influences, this paper sheds light on art’s role in shaping healthcare practices, patient experience, and medical ethics, while advocating for continued interdisciplinary collaboration to enhance medical humanities and patient-centered care. Keywords: Art and Medicine, Historical Art Movements, Renaissance Anatomy, Modernism and Trauma, Art Therapy.

계룡산국립공원 내 석조미술의 특징과 미술사적 의의

Gyeryongsan Mountain has long been recognized as an important mountain on the Korean Peninsula, as it was chosen as one of the five mountains of the Unified Silla Dynasty. Therefore, it was designated as a national park in 1968 . Gyeryongsan National Park has a considerable amount of stone art associated with temples and tombs, with the ones related to Buddhist beliefs predominating. The Dangganjiju, Stone Pagoda, and Budo, which were handed down to Gap-sa Temple, Donghak-sa Temple, and Shinwon-sa Temple in the national park, are representative of such stone art. From this viewpoint, it can be said that Buddhist stone art forms the center of the stone art history in Gyeryongsan National Park. From a timeline perspective, the Buddhist stone art in Gyeryongsan National Park shows a development process that is in line with the flow of stone art history in Korea. Each piece of stone artwork is believed to reflect the trend or culture of the time in which it was produced. However, although Gyeryongsan Mountain has long been recognized as an important mountain, stone artworks that are certain to have been created during the Three Kingdoms or Unified Silla Period have not been identified, as in other regions or cultural zones. It is expected that stone art related to this period will be excavated in the future.

Творчеството на художника Борис Денев за рубриката „Нашият дневник“ на вестник „Слово“ от 30-те и началото на 40-те години на ХХ век. (По повод 140 години от рождението на твореца)

Among the significant figures of our cultural and artistic history from the first half of the 20th century, the great Velikо Tarnovo artist Boris Denev (1883–1969) stands out – a prominent master of landscapes, of numerous military sketches, studies and countless drawings. Against the multiple and diverse fields in which he appeared during his life, his works, revealed on the pages of our periodicals published until the Second World War, remain out of the researcher’s attention today. “Slovo” newspaper (1922–1944) was among the longest-running Sofia dailies publications, with a significant role in the life of the intelligentsia. It was to it that Denev dedicated a significant part of his creative life fore more than a decade. The object of examination in the text is his writing and at the same time his artistic work for the newspaper column “Our Diary”. Boris Denev’s approach to visualizing his own literary texts is traced. The artist's work is divided into three main thematic groups: nature; war and politics. The texts, accompanied by numerous illustrations, clearly show Denеv's personal attitude to both art and various spheres of life, to which he remained not indifferent throughout his artistic career. Studying the littleknown material from the pages of the newspaper “Slovo” and highlighting parallels and interconnections in the text-image relationship would form a completely different picture of the remarkable and unique personality of the artist Boris Denev.

Exploration of the Role of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Revolutionizing Art Education

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies have become increasingly important instruments in the field of art education as information technology develops quickly, transforming the conventional art education approach. The present situation, benefits, difficulties, and potential development tendencies of VR and AR technologies in art education will be investigated in this study. By means of literature analysis and case studies, this paper presents the fundamental ideas of VR and AR technologies together with their several uses in art education, namely virtual museums, interactive art production, art history instruction, and distant art cooperation. The research examines how these technologies might improve students’ immersion, raise their learning motivation, and encourage innovative ideas and multidisciplinary cooperation. Practical application concerns including technology costs, content production obstacles, user acceptance, privacy, and ethical questions also come under discussion. At last, the article offers ideas and suggestions to help VR and AR technologies be effectively integrated into art education through teacher training, curriculum design, technology infrastructure development, and multidisciplinary cooperation. This study offers useful advice for teachers of art as well as important references for legislators and technology developers working together to further the creative growth of art education.

Music – Recording – Aura: Marginal Notes on the Debate between Adorno and Benjamin and on Adorno's Fragmentary Theory of the Gramophone Record

AbstractThere is hardly another Frankfurt School treatise on art theory today which is as much discussed and quoted as Walter Benjamin's notable “artwork”-study. This text has become a mandatory reading; however, it has been largely overlooked by musicologists. Benjamin developed his theory in connection with the visual arts: it is only the image that carries the aura, traveling through time and space and is saturated with historical substance. Benjamin remained seemingly uncertain about the place and role of the sound (and the music) in the historical process of losing the aura. Among the three surviving versions of his study, the first one posited a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the reproduction of sound and the paradigm shift that affects art as a whole, while in the third version, this connection is vanishing. It is generally known how challenging Benjamin's study was to Adorno's ideas on art theory. Adorno tried to deny the positive value of the change that Benjamin described. He raised doubts about the constitutive role of “reception in the distraction” in his famous “Fetish-Character” study. The “distracted perception,” the “atomistic hearing” dissociates the unity of the work. Adorno wanted later to preserve the validity of the “auratic work” and its derivatives that he called “critical works” (for example, in the famous footnote 40 of the “Philosophy of New Music,” or in the 1950s, when he faced efforts aimed at the radical erasure of the musical context, and for example, he classified Křenek's works written in the 1920s as productive forms of loss of aura). According to these, it is difficult to place the technical work of art on Adorno's aesthetic value horizon. This makes his writings on gramophone recordings or the relationship between music and mediality so interesting. Focusing on the discussion of Benjamin and Adorno, this presentation tries to find an answer to the following questions: how can the paradigm shift in art history (and art ontology) described by Benjamin be interpreted in relation to music? And what does this imply about the relationship between the “artwork of music” and the sound recording?

Intertwining of History and Reality: An Exploration of the Creation of Wang Yingsheng’s “The Return of Hong Kong”

This article aims to delve into the background, process, artistic techniques, and cultural significance and social impact of Wang Yingsheng’s important artistic work “The Return of Hong Kong.” Through an analysis of Wang Yingsheng’s artistic style, combined with a detailed interpretation of “The Return of Hong Kong”, this article reveals how Wang Yingsheng integrated his personal artistic pursuits with significant historical events to create a work that is both characteristic of the times and full of artistic appeal. Simultaneously, this article explores the position of “The Return of Hong Kong” in the history of Chinese contemporary art and its influence on Chinese culture.

ON THE “CATECHISATION” OF THE THEATRE GENRE IN M. GLINKA’S WORKS. THE OPERA A LIFE FOR THE TSAR. Dedicated to the 220th Anniversary of the Composer. Essay I

The essay continues the discussion about the specifics of Russian musical theatre, which was started about two hundred years ago by V. Odoevsky and in which several generations of art historians have already participated. We are talking about the content of the “new direction in art”, according to Vladimir Odoevsky, which appeared and headed the world musical culture in connection with the name of the Russian genius, M. Glinka, the author of three theatrical works: the operas A Life for the Tsar (1836) and Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842) as well as music for the tragedy Prince Kholmsky (1840). Let us say in advance that the last of the named works, despite its enduring artistic value, has not yet been included in the university curriculum for training musicians. The performance of this work in concerts is also a great rarity, given that the music to the tragedy Prince Kholmsky is, in essence, the first Russian program symphony, a “symphonic miracle”, as P. Tchaikovsky called it. In several essays, we will consider the three named works in detail: the dramaturgy of the libretto and the features of musical expression, the formation of the images of the characters. All these special issues will be studied in their relation to the Christian world-view, which has been, in our opinion, the main “marker” of Russian art at all times of its existence. This idea, although it is more and more pronounced these days, is still not assessed seriously enough in the scientific humanitarian sphere; it is considered most of all from the aesthetic side, only abstractly touching on the dramaturgy and the musical language of the works, in our case — ​operas and music for theatre. In fact, it is precisely the laws of the spiritual life of man, which underlie the world-view and behaviour of a Christian, that directly determine the logic of the theatrical action structure. Moreover, they explain the content of the libretto and music, constituting that very “novelty” designated by V. Odoevsky in connection with M. Glinka’s theatrical creative work.

Making a Case for Ebony

Abstract This essay makes a case for assessing the significance of material and labor in the context of the global history of early modern art, through an analysis of a single case or cabinet dated to the second quarter of the seventeenth century: an imposing ebony chest inlaid with mother-of-pearl created by Herman Doomer (1595–1650), a contemporary and compatriot of the Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669). The essay endeavors to address the place of enslaved labor in Dutch seventeenth-century taste that favored foreign goods and materials.

Between the Archive and the Feed

This article discusses feminist performance and internet art practices of the 21st century through the lens of Boris Groys’s theory of innovation. It analyses works by Signe Pierce, Molly Soda, and Maya Man, to position practices of self-documentation online in exchange with feminist art histories of performance and electronic media. The text proposes that the discussed contemporary art practices fulfil the process of innovation detailed by Groys through a process of re-valuation of values via an exchange between the everyday, trivial, and heterogenous realm of social media (‘the profane’) and the valorised realm of cultural memory (‘the archive’). Using digital ethnography and contextual analysis, framed by the theory of innovation, the text introduced ‘content value’ as a feature of contemporary art on the Internet. The article demonstrates how feminist internet art practices expand on cultural value through the realisation of a process of innovation via an intra-cultural exchange between the feed and the institution.

Monumental Artworks as Difficult Heritage

Abstract In 1936, Benito Mussolini invaded and occupied Ethiopia. The following year, he declared that Sicily represented „the geographical centre of the Empire“. This new Fascist empire and Sicily’s role within it gave rise to numerous interventions into the island’s urban landscape, from renaming streets and installing commemorative plaques to commissioning monumental colonially-themed artworks. It is on this last category that the present article focuses, examining three such works: two frescoes by Alfonso Amorelli for a privately-owned shopping arcade in Palermo; a mosaic by Michele and Basilio Cascella for a train station in Messina; and a series of frescoes by Gino Morici and Pippo Rizzo for the reception rooms of the local government headquarters in Ragusa. The article explores both the genesis of these works and then, primarily, the factors that have influenced their reception from the end of the Fascist regime in 1943 to today, considering the visibility of the works to the general public; their perceived quality and the artist’s reputation among art historians and critics; and the political and historical moment. Ultimately, the article asks to what extent these artworks should be regarded as examples of „difficult heritage“ and what the management of them in postwar Italy can reveal about memories of Fascist colonialism today.

The History of the Chuvash People through the Eyes of an Ethnographer

Ethnic history presupposes an interdisciplinary analysis of primary sources and basic publications on the subject. For this reason, the researcher must possess the skills not only of a historian; he is obliged to include the scholarly achievements in the study of ethnonyms, geography, genetics, anthropology, archeology, religion, ethnography, linguistics, art history, and folklore studies. In this instance, we turn our attention only to several fundamental characteristics and events in the traditional ethnography of the Chuvash people. The article covers the Caucasian, Volga-Don, and Middle Volga stages, according to the historical period in which the ancestors of the Chuvash were living. They are space-time boundaries in the history of the Chuvash. An interdisciplinary approach (history <-> ethnography) is used. The chronology of events extends from the 2nd to 10th centuries. At the same time, we try to trace the historical dynamics of one or another tendency. All of this should further the study of the ethnic history of one of the numerous peoples of the Russian Federation.

PERFORMING FEATURES OF CHAMBER VOCAL WORKS OF UKRAINIAN COMPOSERS

This study considered performing features of chamber vocal works of Ukrainian composers. The relevance of the study is conditioned by the fact that the issue of research in the music industry is determined by the cultural and social transformations that have taken place in the world and in Ukraine over the past decades. The purpose of this study is to understand the specifics of chamber vocal music by Ukrainian composers and identify the features of the process of mastering this genre of vocal music. The following methods were applied to achieve the research objective: analysis of scientific sources, logical and comparative analysis, descriptive and structural methods, scientific objectivity, and systematisation. The paper identifies and describes the main genre features of chamber vocal works of Ukrainian composers, which are mandatory for creating a performing interpretation. The methods of Ukrainian and foreign teachers in musicology, their systematic positions of understanding the specifics of chamber vocal works, and awareness of the tasks of performing musical works facing song performers are considered. The importance of a systematic approach in the practice of vocalists studying the features of chamber vocal works is emphasised. The analysis of studies allowed characterising possible methods of working on chamber vocal works of Ukrainian composers. The practical significance is conditioned by the possibility of applying the results in preparation for teaching the course of the history of Ukrainian musicology, cultural studies, and the history of vocal art in educational institutions. The scientific information contained in the paper can be used in writing methodological works, textbooks on Ukrainian musicology, and for the study of future research papers.

Architectural simulation from point clouds: Between precision and historical validity

Computer simulation of the incidence of natural light in heritage buildings has entailed a very fruitful field of experimentation within Digital Art History in recent years, although little has been discussed about its validity. This article seeks to demonstrate that although the accuracy of the results decreases when simulating the incidence of natural light of a heritage interior on a point cloud compared to a CAD, the margin of error can be accepted in historical studies. To carry out this test, the church of the Dominican convent of San Jacinto in Seville (Spain) has been used as a model. This interior has been analyzed with RELux and DIALux starting from a CAD and photogrammetry without simplifying it or cleaning it. With these examples, it can be concluded that these tools become useful for the study of historical buildings, despite their limitations.

Canonization/Quantification: Film Canon as an Empirical Matter

The main aim of this article is to open the traditional debate on the issue of canon formation in film studies to the quantitative methods, steadily gaining more momentum in the academic world in the face of the so called ‘computational turn’ in the humanities. For the past two decades, scholars of literature and art history have been attempting to define the canon and the processes governing its formation and transformation based on external, intersubjective criteria and numerical means of analysis. It is therefore worthwhile to inquire about similar mechanisms within the field of film studies. Viewing the canon as a social construct allows us to seek its institutional or social traces, such as the number of retrospectives, critical and academic works dedicated to specific films or filmmakers, awards given to them, or their presence in academic syllabi. Simultaneously, quantitative methods can be instrumental in undermining the canons primacy in historical research by turning towards objectified criteria for sample selection or the analysis of large data corpora. Thus, the issue of the canon may serve as a litmus test for the application of digital humanities methods in film studies, providing a testing ground for their potential and limitations.

I Like Feminism and Feminism Likes Me

Abstract When high-end block buster venues are the primary focus of curatorial reflections, even for feminist writers, what does the poor feminist curator have to say? What does curatorial “care work” look like from a different place? One semester the gallery budget was slashed so brutally, we had to give up the insurance. So, I co-wrote a two act play about Joseph Beuys’s first trip to the US, in 1974, when he asked to meet with “American feminists.” I Like Feminism and Feminism Likes Me (2020) was part slapstick, part exaggerated amateur dramatics, part allegorical attack on male charisma in the New York City borough that elected Trump (Staten Island), and part feminist revenge tragedy. In this paper I reanimate the project through the affective scrim of my experience of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is an experiment in teaching and writing art history through the body: mine, theirs, maybe yours as well.

AlUla Archaeological Decorations Regarding Ornamental Accessories Using Contemporary Printing Techniques by Metal Surface Treatment

The research aimed to explore the use of archeological rock ornamentations from AlUla in designing and manufacturing decorative accessories globally, employing up-to-date printing methods on metal surfaces. AlUla is the place in northwest Saudi Arabia that boasts a very rich cultural tradition expressed through different forms of ancient rock carvings, inscriptions, and decorative motifs. These archaeological constituents represent a great opportunity for the integration of historical art forms with state-of-the-art design practices in line with KSA Vision 2030, set on cultural promotion coupled with technological advancement. The central research problem looks into how AlUla's cultural motifs could be adapted for use in ornamental accessories by employing advanced surface treatment techniques on metals. The approach followed in the research is descriptive and analytical to explore, from a theoretical viewpoint, the historical significance and artistic value of the archaeological decorations in AlUla. It further probes into an experimental methodology of applying methods of contemporary digital printing on metal surfaces. This will not only try to bring to light how these ancient symbols influenced the evolution of the decorative arts in the Kingdom, but also how present-day technology may revitalize these traditional designs for today's market. The findings prove that digital printing techniques are actually useful in producing very complex and culturally inspired metal accessories, thus proving the point of heritage meeting innovation. From this research, it is necessary to establish that it holds great potential for functionality and aesthetic enhancement of ornamental accessories to foster cultural heritage via contemporary art. It goes to recommend further explorations of technological advances in digital printing and applications within metal accessory industries for further emphasis on integrating traditional art forms with modern technologies of production for added value to the cultural heritage and commercial practices.

Chinoiserie in the Radziwill Castles of the 18th Century. Luxury in Oriental Style

The monograph by Doctor of Art History Olga Dmitrievna Bazhenova is devoted to the problem of interpreting the artistic traditions of the East in the culture of Belarus in the 18th century, namely the embodiment of the ideas of the chinoiserie style (Chinese style) in the decorative programs of the Radziwill castles and masterpieces created at the princely manufactories of the 18th century. The central place in the book is occupied by the study of the album of drawn projects of furniture, weapons, ceramics of the court artist Fischer. As the author convincingly shows, the artist's graphic projects and the objects created according to them demonstrate the correspondence of the search for chinoiserie on the territory of modern Belarus to the current trends of this exotic style in European art of the 18th century. The publication is supplemented with valuable analytical information, based, among other things, on archival data. The richly illustrated edition is prepared in Russian and English, which allows it to be relevant not only in the Russian-speaking environment.