Papers by Stefaniia Demchuk
Ukrainian Historical Review (2), 2023
The emergence of a tradition of artistic depiction of a family banquet in the Netherlands dates b... more The emergence of a tradition of artistic depiction of a family banquet in the Netherlands dates back to the 1530s. This research aims to clarify the origins of a new type of portrait and explain the changes that led to artistic innovations. The source base consists of family portraits from the collections of world museums, cookbooks, and treatises of the ideologists of Humanism and the Reformation. Scholars such as Margaret Sullivan, Walter Gibson, Claudia Goldstein, and others have previously addressed the topic of family banquet pieces. In their opinion, portraits of the family at the table corresponded to the Protestant ethic (Sullivan) and social norms (Gibson, Goldstein). Such portraits were intended to strengthen the family’s status and create the desired image for descendants. During the study were used the iconographic and iconological analysis methods of Erwin Panofsky, who suggested interpreting iconographic shifts as symptoms of more profound transformations in society. The scholarly novelty is determined by the correlation between food images in portraits and that time cookbooks’ real recommendations.
Banquet portrait combined elements of two genres. While the compositional division into the “female” and “male” halves of the image originates from the 15th century devotional portraits, the influence of Marian subjects, as well as representations of biblical scenes, such as the marriage at Cana and the Last Supper, simultaneously mark the continuity of the artistic tradition and social changes, which consisted in increasing the prestige of family life and the emergence of the need to demonstrate it.
The more pragmatic medieval interpretation of the family as an instrument of controlling sinful desires and biological reproduction tolerated by the Church is replaced by the Renaissance ideal of a harmonious family united by empathy. Instead of the sacred space of a devotional portrait, two family members are placed in the space of a private residence. While in the 15th century biblical subjects were accom modated into the everyday interior to make them more understandable and closer to the recipient, in the 16th century, there is an inversion of meanings everyday images with the help of, in particular, food symbolism acquire sacred symbolism. A key role in this was played by the spread of the ideas of “Christian” humanism (Erasmus of Rotterdam, Juan Luis Vives) and the Reformation (Martin Luther, John Calvin) among the urban patricians. The increase in the status of family life left a mark on visual culture. After all, shifting the focus from marriage as a metaphor for salvation to marriage as the ideal of earthly life prepared the ground for emancipation of the family portrait from its religiously colored predecessor – the donor portrait. That is, the sacredness of everyday life was affirmed when the divinity of the most everyday duties or rituals, such as family meals, was emphasized.
Text and Image: Essential Problems in Art History, 2022
Текст є авторизованим перекладом лекції Ернста Ґомбріха, вперше опублікованої у 2022 році в Journ... more Текст є авторизованим перекладом лекції Ернста Ґомбріха, вперше опублікованої у 2022 році в Journal of Art Historiography. У лекції автор досліджує те, як історія мистецтва викладається і має викладатися в академіях мистецтв. Він також розглядає упередження щодо історії як дисципліни та недоліки традиційних способів її викладання. Наприкінці Ґомбріх узагальнює власні погляди на цю тему та пропонує можливі актуальні шляхи викладання історії мистецтва.
Text and Image: Essential problems in Art History, 2022
The essay discusses the state and the prospects of Ukrainian art history and its relationship wit... more The essay discusses the state and the prospects of Ukrainian art history and its relationship with the so-called 'Art studies'. It offers insights into the origins of the notion of art studies imposed by the Soviet authorities to replace the 'bourgeois' theory and history of art which flourished at the beginning of the 20th century in Ukrainian universities. The introduction of art studies meant the growth of the rift between Soviet scholarship and the rest of the world. This first shift was followed by acts aimed at provincializing Ukrainian scholars through censorship and limited access to publications and fellowships. The long-awaited independence of Ukraine has changed much neither in approaches to teaching the history of art at art schools and academies nor in the methodology of scholars. The science of art in Ukraine remains to a large extent outdated, rooted in connoisseurship and formal analysis and sometimes even confused with art criticism. Ernst Gombrich's lecture of 1966 pointed to the importance of tackling political, social and economic circumstances that impacted artistic development while teaching art history. His conclusions despite seeming obvious are still to be taken into account in Ukrainian realities as the attitude towards history in art academies remains rather superficial and condescending as to a 'science of facts', which completely ignores the last decades of methodological pursuits of historians and art historians. Going back to the notion of theory and history of art as a discipline that should be taught and researched as well as tackling linguistic obstacles and re-inventing methodology might help to overcome the divide between Ukrainian scholarship and their foreign peers and make research conducted in Ukraine and/or by Ukrainian art historians visible to the European and global art community. It, too, will mean the beginning of another science of art in Ukraine.
Text and Image: Essential Problems in Art History, 2021
This essay does not strive to give a comprehensive review of literature on Antwerp Ma... more This essay does not strive to give a comprehensive review of literature on Antwerp Mannerism, but rather to summarize the focal points of discussions and to outline key roadmaps for further studies.
The majority of scholars consider Antwerp Mannerism as a late Gothic style influenced by Italian Quattrocento. Its genesis, however, remains a subject of hot debates. If Hoogewerff argued on the German origins, Vandenbroeck attributed it to an inflow of provincial artists. Whatever were the origins, Expressionist shapes were not inherent to the early Netherlandish painting and the attempt to fuse them with ‘realism’ of the Flemish Primitives seemed a revolutionary breakthrough following the pictorial crisis of the 1480s. Despite a rift in chronology, Antwerp Mannerism has irrefutable similarities with the later Italian Mannerism. Thus exploration of intellectual and religious context of early sixteenth-century Antwerp art similar to Max Dvořák’s approach can be another direction for further research of the Italian and Spanish Mannerism. The subject matter of Antwerp Mannerist art, too, remains largely unexplored. Dan Ewing’s breakthrough essay showed that the changes in iconography (such as reinvention of the well-known subject) could mark shifts in identity. By no means they are merely ‘anecdotic’ as Paul Philippot stated. What subjects were popular beyond the Adoration of the Magi and why? Were there any secular subjects? How did the iconography of Antwerp art reflect the intersection of different Netherlandish schools of art? How did later artists incorporate the pictorial inventions of the Antwerp Mannerists? Finding an answer to these and similar questions can provide a rich context for further studies on this ‘contrived’ but unique style. Keywords: Mannerism, Antwerp, Max Friedländer, Gothic Mannerism, Renaissance.
17 травня 2021 р. на базі кафедри історії мистецтв Київського національного університету імені Та... more 17 травня 2021 р. на базі кафедри історії мистецтв Київського національного університету імені Тараса Шевченка відбувся VII науково-практичний семінар "Текст і образ: особливості взаємодії між наративом і візуальністю". 34 допо- віді були розділені в межах 4 секцій, а саме: "Нові підходи до іконології/іконографії" (дискутант доц. Котляров П. М.), "Соціальна історія мистецтв" (дискутант асист. Гоцало К. В.), "Дослідження візуальної історії" (дискутант проф. Казаке- вич Г. М.), "Архівне мистецтво. Методологія дослідження критики і критика як метод дослідження" (дискутант асист. А. О. Калугер). У цій розвідці ми розглянемо ключові дискусії, що розгорталися довкола двох секцій – "Нові підходи до іконології/іконографії" та "Архівне мистецтво. Методологія дослідження критики і критика як метод дослідження".
Journal of Art Historiography, 2021
Max Dvořák is widely recognized as a key contributor to the tectonic change in the perception of ... more Max Dvořák is widely recognized as a key contributor to the tectonic change in the perception of Mannerism amongst art historians. Prior to Dvořák, Mannerism was commonly regarded as evidence of a decline even within the Vienna School of Art History, thus prompting only limited attention that came with rather acrid remarks.
Dvořák drew an analogy between Mannerism and the Bolshevik revolution, defining it as an expression of the spiritual need of the masses to break free from the Renaissance tradition. He started to set forth his ideas in his lectures on Tintoretto and El Greco, and then initiated a lively scholarly discussion about the notion and
the nature of Mannerism in his latest writings and among his last students.
Soviet scholars could not ignore this discussion, for Dvořák’s writings
became available to them very early, especially when compared with the other representatives of the Vienna School. Boris Vipper and then Viktor Grashchenkov, Viktor Lazarev and Mikhail Alpatov, and others commented extensively on the writings by Dvořák’s and his disciples, making Mannerism one of the pivotal topics in Soviet and even Post-Soviet art theory. Having a profound connection with the debate on Expressionist art, Mannerism inevitably became the subject of ideological confrontation.
In this paper, I trace the impact of Dvořбk’s writings on Mannerism in Italian and Northern art on generations of Soviet scholars, who had been working on Renaissance/Baroque topics and methodological issues, My aim is twofold: firstly, to reconstruct how Soviet scholars met, discussed, adopted or rejected ideas of Dvořák and his followers and, secondly, to uncover the hidden connections between the discourses on Mannerism and Expressionism in Soviet art history.
The Journal of Art Historiography, 2020
the ideas and approaches of the Viennese art historians not
only heavily influenced Soviet histo... more the ideas and approaches of the Viennese art historians not
only heavily influenced Soviet historiography from its very beginnings but also exposed the contradictory nature of the Soviet Marxist methodological paradigm. The exchanges with the Vienna school received attention quite sporadically
and this paper aims to fill the gap via the case of Pieter Bruegel. This choice is not so arbitrary, as it might have seemed. So little is known about this painter, leaving art historians nearly without any reliable sources and a huge artistic heritage that his legacy became a testing ground for new methodological approaches of every new generation of the Viennese art historians. Pieter Bruegel was equally popular among
the Soviet and post-Soviet art historians tempted by his ‘humble origins’ and ‘realism’ of his paintings. Therefore, mutual influences between scholars who studied this enigmatic painter were inevitable as he had not supplied art historians with any ego-narratives and let them free to interpret his works in their own manner.
Journal of Art Historiography, 2019
This report looks at the conference ‘Iconologies. global unity or/and local diversities in art hi... more This report looks at the conference ‘Iconologies. global unity or/and local diversities in art history’ held by the Jagiellonian University in cooperation with the National Museum in Cracow on 23 – 25 May 2019. The dichotomy of the conference agenda was embedded into the structure of this conference report. The former section encompassed presentations on the ‘conventional’ iconology of Aby Warburg and Erwin Panofsky and its methodological confrontations with visual studies. The latter focused on ‘local iconologies’ and included case studies championing the idea of either presence or absence of the iconology in the Soviet and post-Soviet setting.
Vox medii aevi, 2018
This paper aims to analyse the construction of the “Spanish Fury” image in engravings during the ... more This paper aims to analyse the construction of the “Spanish Fury” image in engravings during the Eighty Years War. In the focus of this research are engravings by Frans Hogenberg published in 1572–1576 and depicting “the bloodbaths” in Naarden, Zutphen as well as the capture and looting of Antwerp later named “the Spanish Fury.” They were used to illustrate two co-existing phenomena: constructing of the image of “the Spanish Fury” by Hogenberg himself and copying as well as borrowing of certain elements from his engravings in other ones (published to illustrate “the History of Spanish Tyranny in the Netherlands” and tractate “Origin, Beginning, and Continuation of the Dutch Wars” by Pieter Bor). Current research has detected two key topics addressed by this series: the city on fire and the tortures committed by Spanish soldiers (“the tyranny”). The city was considered to be the symbol of the prosperity of the Nether-lands that gave a huge potential to contrasting it with its antitype — the razed and looted ruins. The second topic is related with the outrageous scale of atrocities committed by “the godless” (Ger. “gottlosen”) Spaniards associating them with the established perception of the Spanish Inquisition introduced in the Netherlands in the 1520s by Charles V.It is evident that Hogenberg had been consciously constructing his war images. They underwent numerous further constructions and deconstruc-tions serving the needs of the audience and authors, and have become an essential tool of the anti-Spanish propaganda of the Seventeenth century United Provinces.
Modus. Art history journal, 2018
This paper looks at two engraving by Jacob Cornelisz. Van Oostsanen made for a prayer book entitl... more This paper looks at two engraving by Jacob Cornelisz. Van Oostsanen made for a prayer book entitled “Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi”, published in 1523. We explore the visual and narrative sources of these two suppers – Passover and Last supper, paired for the first time in a passion book text. How these images were related to the text written by an Amsterdam humanist and fervent Catholic Alardus van Amsterdam? How did the Suppers affect Eucharistic controversy started by reformers and Martin Luther in particular? Which affirmation did the engravings make within the Eucharistic controversy context?
We can conclude that the book “Passio Domini Nostri jesu Christi” edited by Alardus of Amsterdam and published by Doen Pietersz with engravings by Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen can be considered a perfect example of the Counterreformation art created before the Council of Trent.
Nonconventional iconography and deviations in the storyline of the Passion had been employed on purpose. The Amsterdam humanist and artist countered Luther and his followers with a narrative and pictorials, including two suppers: the Passover and Last Supper; deviating from the canonical story line and established iconographic tradition in order to prove validity of the Catholic doctrine on the concept of the Eucharist at a time when it was sparking fiery debates with the reformers.
Therefore, Alardus intended to use the Passover as a proof of the validity of the Eucharist’s interpretation as a sacrifice. Following the God’s ordain the Jews sacrificed a lamb, marked the doors with its blood forcing the death to evade their houses and were eventually saved by following this routine. In order to ensure that salvation never failed they had to repeat this sacrifice on 10th day of each new year. Since the Passover has been always considered to be a direct prototype of the Last Supper and Christ’s sacrifice therefore a mass originating from the Passover had been taking over its features, regularity, and strict ritual and sacrifice (“a good deed”) paving the way for salvation. Whereas the Last Supper was intended to champion the Transubstantiation doctrine.
These methods allowed championing the doctrines branded by Luther as “captivities” of sacrament by finding irrefutable evidence in the Old and New Testaments. The Amsterdam Passion book dated 1523 represent an effort of the intellectual elite of the Northern Netherlands to restrain the spread of the Reformation that nonetheless will eventually succeed in conquering the north much faster than the south. However, “Passio Domini” is an invaluable source for the future researchers of the Reformation Eucharist controversy that took place in 1520s since its narrative and especially the visual background demonstrate the innovative capabilities of the Catholic party manifested at the early stage of a clash with Luther’s teaching.
The main research question of this paper is what was the way from folly to wisdom in opinion of t... more The main research question of this paper is what was the way from folly to wisdom in opinion of the Netherlandish intellectuals and painters? To answer this question we addressed the tropes of folly and wisdom from Antiquity and Medieval Ages to Renaissance in narratives and art, examined the works by Humanists and the most interesting painters of the Northern Renaissance such as Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen etc.
To cite the paper: Nosce te ipsum: путь от шутовства к мудрости в гуманистической мысли и искусстве ренессансных Нидерландов / С.А. Ковбасюк // Средневековый город: Межвуз. науч. сб. – Вып. 24. – Саратов: Изд-во Сарат. гос. политех. ун-т имени Гагарина Ю.А., 2014. – C. 76-86.
In this article, we aim to analyse the peculiarities of the interactions between the text and ima... more In this article, we aim to analyse the peculiarities of the interactions between the text and image taking two compilations as examples – the “Ship of fools” and the “Blue barge”. We will start from the very beginning, when they started taking their shape in the late medieval times until the Renaissance when they underwent some changes.
Both compilations had been shaped by H. Teichner and J. van Oestvoren in their poems of the early 15th century. However, the “ship of fools” underwent a considerable transformation in the humanistic culture. In the speech of J. Gall as well as in the eponym poem by S. Brant it turned from the image with a strong moralistic bias into a symbol of universal Folly and madness. Later Erasmus of Rotterdam in his “Praise of Folly” will refine the idea of Folly – Moria – that rules over the world.
Illustrations for the “Ship of fools” underlined the universal character of the Folly as far as only jesters
and not the ordinary people were depicted on the woodcuts.
The “blue barge” did not undergo such a substantial change. It was not included in the “big narratives” of the humanists and thereby remained in the semantic limits of the “burgermoral”.
Nevertheless, it did go beyond the framework of the popular culture. Its way to the “high culture” passed through the artworks by H. Bosch, P. van der Heyden and P. Bruegel the Elder. Painters visualized not just existing carnival practices, but also features of the burger and patrician ethics, which enriched the construct of the “blue barge” and popularized it among different strata of the early modern Netherlandish society.
Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art, 2016
Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art, 2015
Talks by Stefaniia Demchuk
Text and Image: Essential Problems in Art History, 2018
Koenraad Jonckheere is associate professor in Northern Renaissance and Baroque Art at Ghent Unive... more Koenraad Jonckheere is associate professor in Northern Renaissance and Baroque Art at Ghent University. The interview was recorded in August 2017 by assistant professor Stefaniia Demchuk (Chair of Art History, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv).
In the first part, Prof. Jonckheere talks about his career path of art historian, his teachers and the most influential books. He explains how the scope of his interests shifted from the Seventeenth-Eighteenth century art markets towards Iconoclasm, its impact and the theoretical debates on the Sixteenth century art.
His Ph.D. research on art markets was summarized and published in 2008 under the title “The Auction of King William’s paintings”. It was innovative because the author developed a new approach to work on art markets using auction catalogue.
In 2012 appeared his monograph on experiments in decorum in the Antwerp Art after Iconoclasm. The next year he curated the exhibition on the Sixteenth century Romanist artist Michiel Coxcie for Museum M (Leuven). Since 2014 Prof. Jonckheere has been working as an Editor-in-Chief at the Centrum Rubenianum (Antwerp). His own research on Rubens resulted in a monograph titled “Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard: portraits after existing prototypes” (2016).
Now Prof. Jonckheere is developing a new methodological approach towards historical interpretation of artworks, which he called the “Thimanthes effect”. This approach uses the rhetorical concept of “quaestio” as a guiding principle for interpretation. Prof. Jonckheere discusses it in the second part of the interview.
The third part focuses on the Reformation art and Iconoclasm. Prof. Jonckheere points out main directions in contemporary research on the Reformation art and highlights issues that are still to be solved. The interview concludes with advices to early-career art historians.
Conference Presentations by Stefaniia Demchuk
Ідеї Просвітництва (передовсім французького з найвідомішими його представниками - Ж.-Ж. Руссо, Ш.... more Ідеї Просвітництва (передовсім французького з найвідомішими його представниками - Ж.-Ж. Руссо, Ш.-Л. Монтеск’є та М. Ф. А. Вольтером) не лише запліднили політичну сферу тогочасного світу але й знайшли своє відображення та взаємодію в мистецтві. Франсіско Хосе де Гойя-і-Лусьєнтес (1746-1828 рр.) був безпосередньо перечулений цими ідеями: він брав пасивну участь у наполеонівських війнах і безпосередньо перебував у колі спілкування з видатними представниками іспанського Просвітництва. Метою дослідження є аналіз взаємодію тексту й образу в серії офортів Ф. Гойї “Лихоліття війни” та з’ясувати рецепцію ідеї “загального блага” в офорті 71 “Проти загального блага”. Теоретико-методологічний інструментарій, необхiдний для дослідження цієї теми, пов’язаний як із специфікою роботи з наративним родом писемного типу джерел, так і зображальним (візуальним) типом джерел. Комплексний підхід зумовлений використанням Ф. Гойєю як позавербальних, так і вербальних (подвійні номери офортів та артионіми, екфразиси) засобів. Методологічну основу дослідження складають принципи комплексності, історизму та науковості. Основними методами стали: іконографічний та іконологічний; емпіричний; просопографічний; метод синтетичної та аналітичної джерелознавчої критики; порівняльно-історичний. Вірогідно, Франсіско Гойя, який так само критикував тогочасний обскурантизм в Іспанії (що особливо віддзеркалюється в серії офортів «Капрічос»), звертався до ідей французького просвітництва, що породило, можливо, й несвідомі ремінісценції та алюзії в його роботах. Таким чином, питання обізнаності Франсіско Гойї з ідеями Ж.-Ж. Руссо не відіграє ключової ролі в даній проблемі (хоча й і є вкрай цікавою темою для дослідження), адже найціннішим аспектом для нас залишається не прямі запозичення в автора, а саме експлікація просвітницьких ідей (у нашому випадку – в мистецтві), що контекстуально свідчить про їх стрімке поширення в Європі та активне впровадження в різномані сфери людської діяльності.
Journal of Art Historiography by Stefaniia Demchuk
by Richard Woodfield, Fiona K A Gatty, Amy C Smith, Tomáš Murár, Tereza Hrdlička, Csilla Markója, Martin Horáček, Milena Bartlová, Stefaniia Demchuk, Hannah De Moor, Susanna Avery-Quash, and Swati Chemburkar Journal of Art Historiography, 2021
Update: ToC should include:
Hans Christian Hönes (University of Aberdeen) ‘Painting Art History’... more Update: ToC should include:
Hans Christian Hönes (University of Aberdeen) ‘Painting Art History’. Review of: Léa Kuhn, Gemalte Kunstgeschichte. Bildgenealogien in der Malerei um 1800, Paderborn: Fink 2020, ISBN-13: 978-3-7705-6453-8, 333pp., EUR 69,00. 25/HCH2
Hans Christian Hönes (University of Aberdeen), ‘Out of the shadows? Discovering Mary Warburg’. Review of: Hedinger, Bärbel; Diers, Michael (Eds.): Mary Warburg. Porträt einer Künstlerin. Leben, Werk, München: Hirmer Verlag 2020, ISBN-13: 978-3-7774-3614-2, 535 S., EUR 68.00. 25/HCH1
Link correction for Eckart Marchand (Warburg Institute), 'Apostles of Good Taste? The use and perception of plaster casts in the Enlightenment' 25/EM1: https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/marchand.pdf
Books by Stefaniia Demchuk
Kyiv, Yizhak, 2021
English version below
Оригінальні рецепти із середньовічних кулінарних книг занурять вас у атмосф... more English version below
Оригінальні рецепти із середньовічних кулінарних книг занурять вас у атмосферу королівського бенкету: смажені павичі та курки, які видихають полум'я, пироги із запеченими у них живими птахами, м’ясо з цукром, міноги та дельфіни.
Також у книзі на вас чекає спростування численних міфів щодо середньовічного раціону: чи справді м’ясо залишалося недосяжною мрією для селян та містян, а пиво та вино вважалися кориснішими за воду навіть для дітей.
Зрештою, ви довідаєтесь, які дива середньовічної кулінарії пішли у небуття, а які приносять нам насолоду й сьогодні.
Explore original recipes from medieval cookbooks that will transport you to the ambiance of a royal banquet: from roasted peacocks and chickens seemingly breathing flames to pies containing live birds and dishes combining meat with sugar, lampreys, and even dolphins.
Within this book, you'll discover a debunking of numerous myths surrounding the medieval diet: uncovering whether meat truly remained an unattainable luxury for peasants and townspeople, and whether beer and wine were deemed more beneficial than water, even for children.
Finally, you'll unravel which marvels of medieval cooking have faded into obscurity and which continue to delight our tastes even today.
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Papers by Stefaniia Demchuk
Banquet portrait combined elements of two genres. While the compositional division into the “female” and “male” halves of the image originates from the 15th century devotional portraits, the influence of Marian subjects, as well as representations of biblical scenes, such as the marriage at Cana and the Last Supper, simultaneously mark the continuity of the artistic tradition and social changes, which consisted in increasing the prestige of family life and the emergence of the need to demonstrate it.
The more pragmatic medieval interpretation of the family as an instrument of controlling sinful desires and biological reproduction tolerated by the Church is replaced by the Renaissance ideal of a harmonious family united by empathy. Instead of the sacred space of a devotional portrait, two family members are placed in the space of a private residence. While in the 15th century biblical subjects were accom modated into the everyday interior to make them more understandable and closer to the recipient, in the 16th century, there is an inversion of meanings everyday images with the help of, in particular, food symbolism acquire sacred symbolism. A key role in this was played by the spread of the ideas of “Christian” humanism (Erasmus of Rotterdam, Juan Luis Vives) and the Reformation (Martin Luther, John Calvin) among the urban patricians. The increase in the status of family life left a mark on visual culture. After all, shifting the focus from marriage as a metaphor for salvation to marriage as the ideal of earthly life prepared the ground for emancipation of the family portrait from its religiously colored predecessor – the donor portrait. That is, the sacredness of everyday life was affirmed when the divinity of the most everyday duties or rituals, such as family meals, was emphasized.
The majority of scholars consider Antwerp Mannerism as a late Gothic style influenced by Italian Quattrocento. Its genesis, however, remains a subject of hot debates. If Hoogewerff argued on the German origins, Vandenbroeck attributed it to an inflow of provincial artists. Whatever were the origins, Expressionist shapes were not inherent to the early Netherlandish painting and the attempt to fuse them with ‘realism’ of the Flemish Primitives seemed a revolutionary breakthrough following the pictorial crisis of the 1480s. Despite a rift in chronology, Antwerp Mannerism has irrefutable similarities with the later Italian Mannerism. Thus exploration of intellectual and religious context of early sixteenth-century Antwerp art similar to Max Dvořák’s approach can be another direction for further research of the Italian and Spanish Mannerism. The subject matter of Antwerp Mannerist art, too, remains largely unexplored. Dan Ewing’s breakthrough essay showed that the changes in iconography (such as reinvention of the well-known subject) could mark shifts in identity. By no means they are merely ‘anecdotic’ as Paul Philippot stated. What subjects were popular beyond the Adoration of the Magi and why? Were there any secular subjects? How did the iconography of Antwerp art reflect the intersection of different Netherlandish schools of art? How did later artists incorporate the pictorial inventions of the Antwerp Mannerists? Finding an answer to these and similar questions can provide a rich context for further studies on this ‘contrived’ but unique style. Keywords: Mannerism, Antwerp, Max Friedländer, Gothic Mannerism, Renaissance.
Dvořák drew an analogy between Mannerism and the Bolshevik revolution, defining it as an expression of the spiritual need of the masses to break free from the Renaissance tradition. He started to set forth his ideas in his lectures on Tintoretto and El Greco, and then initiated a lively scholarly discussion about the notion and
the nature of Mannerism in his latest writings and among his last students.
Soviet scholars could not ignore this discussion, for Dvořák’s writings
became available to them very early, especially when compared with the other representatives of the Vienna School. Boris Vipper and then Viktor Grashchenkov, Viktor Lazarev and Mikhail Alpatov, and others commented extensively on the writings by Dvořák’s and his disciples, making Mannerism one of the pivotal topics in Soviet and even Post-Soviet art theory. Having a profound connection with the debate on Expressionist art, Mannerism inevitably became the subject of ideological confrontation.
In this paper, I trace the impact of Dvořбk’s writings on Mannerism in Italian and Northern art on generations of Soviet scholars, who had been working on Renaissance/Baroque topics and methodological issues, My aim is twofold: firstly, to reconstruct how Soviet scholars met, discussed, adopted or rejected ideas of Dvořák and his followers and, secondly, to uncover the hidden connections between the discourses on Mannerism and Expressionism in Soviet art history.
only heavily influenced Soviet historiography from its very beginnings but also exposed the contradictory nature of the Soviet Marxist methodological paradigm. The exchanges with the Vienna school received attention quite sporadically
and this paper aims to fill the gap via the case of Pieter Bruegel. This choice is not so arbitrary, as it might have seemed. So little is known about this painter, leaving art historians nearly without any reliable sources and a huge artistic heritage that his legacy became a testing ground for new methodological approaches of every new generation of the Viennese art historians. Pieter Bruegel was equally popular among
the Soviet and post-Soviet art historians tempted by his ‘humble origins’ and ‘realism’ of his paintings. Therefore, mutual influences between scholars who studied this enigmatic painter were inevitable as he had not supplied art historians with any ego-narratives and let them free to interpret his works in their own manner.
We can conclude that the book “Passio Domini Nostri jesu Christi” edited by Alardus of Amsterdam and published by Doen Pietersz with engravings by Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen can be considered a perfect example of the Counterreformation art created before the Council of Trent.
Nonconventional iconography and deviations in the storyline of the Passion had been employed on purpose. The Amsterdam humanist and artist countered Luther and his followers with a narrative and pictorials, including two suppers: the Passover and Last Supper; deviating from the canonical story line and established iconographic tradition in order to prove validity of the Catholic doctrine on the concept of the Eucharist at a time when it was sparking fiery debates with the reformers.
Therefore, Alardus intended to use the Passover as a proof of the validity of the Eucharist’s interpretation as a sacrifice. Following the God’s ordain the Jews sacrificed a lamb, marked the doors with its blood forcing the death to evade their houses and were eventually saved by following this routine. In order to ensure that salvation never failed they had to repeat this sacrifice on 10th day of each new year. Since the Passover has been always considered to be a direct prototype of the Last Supper and Christ’s sacrifice therefore a mass originating from the Passover had been taking over its features, regularity, and strict ritual and sacrifice (“a good deed”) paving the way for salvation. Whereas the Last Supper was intended to champion the Transubstantiation doctrine.
These methods allowed championing the doctrines branded by Luther as “captivities” of sacrament by finding irrefutable evidence in the Old and New Testaments. The Amsterdam Passion book dated 1523 represent an effort of the intellectual elite of the Northern Netherlands to restrain the spread of the Reformation that nonetheless will eventually succeed in conquering the north much faster than the south. However, “Passio Domini” is an invaluable source for the future researchers of the Reformation Eucharist controversy that took place in 1520s since its narrative and especially the visual background demonstrate the innovative capabilities of the Catholic party manifested at the early stage of a clash with Luther’s teaching.
To cite the paper: Nosce te ipsum: путь от шутовства к мудрости в гуманистической мысли и искусстве ренессансных Нидерландов / С.А. Ковбасюк // Средневековый город: Межвуз. науч. сб. – Вып. 24. – Саратов: Изд-во Сарат. гос. политех. ун-т имени Гагарина Ю.А., 2014. – C. 76-86.
Both compilations had been shaped by H. Teichner and J. van Oestvoren in their poems of the early 15th century. However, the “ship of fools” underwent a considerable transformation in the humanistic culture. In the speech of J. Gall as well as in the eponym poem by S. Brant it turned from the image with a strong moralistic bias into a symbol of universal Folly and madness. Later Erasmus of Rotterdam in his “Praise of Folly” will refine the idea of Folly – Moria – that rules over the world.
Illustrations for the “Ship of fools” underlined the universal character of the Folly as far as only jesters
and not the ordinary people were depicted on the woodcuts.
The “blue barge” did not undergo such a substantial change. It was not included in the “big narratives” of the humanists and thereby remained in the semantic limits of the “burgermoral”.
Nevertheless, it did go beyond the framework of the popular culture. Its way to the “high culture” passed through the artworks by H. Bosch, P. van der Heyden and P. Bruegel the Elder. Painters visualized not just existing carnival practices, but also features of the burger and patrician ethics, which enriched the construct of the “blue barge” and popularized it among different strata of the early modern Netherlandish society.
Talks by Stefaniia Demchuk
In the first part, Prof. Jonckheere talks about his career path of art historian, his teachers and the most influential books. He explains how the scope of his interests shifted from the Seventeenth-Eighteenth century art markets towards Iconoclasm, its impact and the theoretical debates on the Sixteenth century art.
His Ph.D. research on art markets was summarized and published in 2008 under the title “The Auction of King William’s paintings”. It was innovative because the author developed a new approach to work on art markets using auction catalogue.
In 2012 appeared his monograph on experiments in decorum in the Antwerp Art after Iconoclasm. The next year he curated the exhibition on the Sixteenth century Romanist artist Michiel Coxcie for Museum M (Leuven). Since 2014 Prof. Jonckheere has been working as an Editor-in-Chief at the Centrum Rubenianum (Antwerp). His own research on Rubens resulted in a monograph titled “Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard: portraits after existing prototypes” (2016).
Now Prof. Jonckheere is developing a new methodological approach towards historical interpretation of artworks, which he called the “Thimanthes effect”. This approach uses the rhetorical concept of “quaestio” as a guiding principle for interpretation. Prof. Jonckheere discusses it in the second part of the interview.
The third part focuses on the Reformation art and Iconoclasm. Prof. Jonckheere points out main directions in contemporary research on the Reformation art and highlights issues that are still to be solved. The interview concludes with advices to early-career art historians.
Conference Presentations by Stefaniia Demchuk
Journal of Art Historiography by Stefaniia Demchuk
Hans Christian Hönes (University of Aberdeen) ‘Painting Art History’. Review of: Léa Kuhn, Gemalte Kunstgeschichte. Bildgenealogien in der Malerei um 1800, Paderborn: Fink 2020, ISBN-13: 978-3-7705-6453-8, 333pp., EUR 69,00. 25/HCH2
Hans Christian Hönes (University of Aberdeen), ‘Out of the shadows? Discovering Mary Warburg’. Review of: Hedinger, Bärbel; Diers, Michael (Eds.): Mary Warburg. Porträt einer Künstlerin. Leben, Werk, München: Hirmer Verlag 2020, ISBN-13: 978-3-7774-3614-2, 535 S., EUR 68.00. 25/HCH1
Link correction for Eckart Marchand (Warburg Institute), 'Apostles of Good Taste? The use and perception of plaster casts in the Enlightenment' 25/EM1: https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/marchand.pdf
Books by Stefaniia Demchuk
Оригінальні рецепти із середньовічних кулінарних книг занурять вас у атмосферу королівського бенкету: смажені павичі та курки, які видихають полум'я, пироги із запеченими у них живими птахами, м’ясо з цукром, міноги та дельфіни.
Також у книзі на вас чекає спростування численних міфів щодо середньовічного раціону: чи справді м’ясо залишалося недосяжною мрією для селян та містян, а пиво та вино вважалися кориснішими за воду навіть для дітей.
Зрештою, ви довідаєтесь, які дива середньовічної кулінарії пішли у небуття, а які приносять нам насолоду й сьогодні.
Explore original recipes from medieval cookbooks that will transport you to the ambiance of a royal banquet: from roasted peacocks and chickens seemingly breathing flames to pies containing live birds and dishes combining meat with sugar, lampreys, and even dolphins.
Within this book, you'll discover a debunking of numerous myths surrounding the medieval diet: uncovering whether meat truly remained an unattainable luxury for peasants and townspeople, and whether beer and wine were deemed more beneficial than water, even for children.
Finally, you'll unravel which marvels of medieval cooking have faded into obscurity and which continue to delight our tastes even today.
Banquet portrait combined elements of two genres. While the compositional division into the “female” and “male” halves of the image originates from the 15th century devotional portraits, the influence of Marian subjects, as well as representations of biblical scenes, such as the marriage at Cana and the Last Supper, simultaneously mark the continuity of the artistic tradition and social changes, which consisted in increasing the prestige of family life and the emergence of the need to demonstrate it.
The more pragmatic medieval interpretation of the family as an instrument of controlling sinful desires and biological reproduction tolerated by the Church is replaced by the Renaissance ideal of a harmonious family united by empathy. Instead of the sacred space of a devotional portrait, two family members are placed in the space of a private residence. While in the 15th century biblical subjects were accom modated into the everyday interior to make them more understandable and closer to the recipient, in the 16th century, there is an inversion of meanings everyday images with the help of, in particular, food symbolism acquire sacred symbolism. A key role in this was played by the spread of the ideas of “Christian” humanism (Erasmus of Rotterdam, Juan Luis Vives) and the Reformation (Martin Luther, John Calvin) among the urban patricians. The increase in the status of family life left a mark on visual culture. After all, shifting the focus from marriage as a metaphor for salvation to marriage as the ideal of earthly life prepared the ground for emancipation of the family portrait from its religiously colored predecessor – the donor portrait. That is, the sacredness of everyday life was affirmed when the divinity of the most everyday duties or rituals, such as family meals, was emphasized.
The majority of scholars consider Antwerp Mannerism as a late Gothic style influenced by Italian Quattrocento. Its genesis, however, remains a subject of hot debates. If Hoogewerff argued on the German origins, Vandenbroeck attributed it to an inflow of provincial artists. Whatever were the origins, Expressionist shapes were not inherent to the early Netherlandish painting and the attempt to fuse them with ‘realism’ of the Flemish Primitives seemed a revolutionary breakthrough following the pictorial crisis of the 1480s. Despite a rift in chronology, Antwerp Mannerism has irrefutable similarities with the later Italian Mannerism. Thus exploration of intellectual and religious context of early sixteenth-century Antwerp art similar to Max Dvořák’s approach can be another direction for further research of the Italian and Spanish Mannerism. The subject matter of Antwerp Mannerist art, too, remains largely unexplored. Dan Ewing’s breakthrough essay showed that the changes in iconography (such as reinvention of the well-known subject) could mark shifts in identity. By no means they are merely ‘anecdotic’ as Paul Philippot stated. What subjects were popular beyond the Adoration of the Magi and why? Were there any secular subjects? How did the iconography of Antwerp art reflect the intersection of different Netherlandish schools of art? How did later artists incorporate the pictorial inventions of the Antwerp Mannerists? Finding an answer to these and similar questions can provide a rich context for further studies on this ‘contrived’ but unique style. Keywords: Mannerism, Antwerp, Max Friedländer, Gothic Mannerism, Renaissance.
Dvořák drew an analogy between Mannerism and the Bolshevik revolution, defining it as an expression of the spiritual need of the masses to break free from the Renaissance tradition. He started to set forth his ideas in his lectures on Tintoretto and El Greco, and then initiated a lively scholarly discussion about the notion and
the nature of Mannerism in his latest writings and among his last students.
Soviet scholars could not ignore this discussion, for Dvořák’s writings
became available to them very early, especially when compared with the other representatives of the Vienna School. Boris Vipper and then Viktor Grashchenkov, Viktor Lazarev and Mikhail Alpatov, and others commented extensively on the writings by Dvořák’s and his disciples, making Mannerism one of the pivotal topics in Soviet and even Post-Soviet art theory. Having a profound connection with the debate on Expressionist art, Mannerism inevitably became the subject of ideological confrontation.
In this paper, I trace the impact of Dvořбk’s writings on Mannerism in Italian and Northern art on generations of Soviet scholars, who had been working on Renaissance/Baroque topics and methodological issues, My aim is twofold: firstly, to reconstruct how Soviet scholars met, discussed, adopted or rejected ideas of Dvořák and his followers and, secondly, to uncover the hidden connections between the discourses on Mannerism and Expressionism in Soviet art history.
only heavily influenced Soviet historiography from its very beginnings but also exposed the contradictory nature of the Soviet Marxist methodological paradigm. The exchanges with the Vienna school received attention quite sporadically
and this paper aims to fill the gap via the case of Pieter Bruegel. This choice is not so arbitrary, as it might have seemed. So little is known about this painter, leaving art historians nearly without any reliable sources and a huge artistic heritage that his legacy became a testing ground for new methodological approaches of every new generation of the Viennese art historians. Pieter Bruegel was equally popular among
the Soviet and post-Soviet art historians tempted by his ‘humble origins’ and ‘realism’ of his paintings. Therefore, mutual influences between scholars who studied this enigmatic painter were inevitable as he had not supplied art historians with any ego-narratives and let them free to interpret his works in their own manner.
We can conclude that the book “Passio Domini Nostri jesu Christi” edited by Alardus of Amsterdam and published by Doen Pietersz with engravings by Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen can be considered a perfect example of the Counterreformation art created before the Council of Trent.
Nonconventional iconography and deviations in the storyline of the Passion had been employed on purpose. The Amsterdam humanist and artist countered Luther and his followers with a narrative and pictorials, including two suppers: the Passover and Last Supper; deviating from the canonical story line and established iconographic tradition in order to prove validity of the Catholic doctrine on the concept of the Eucharist at a time when it was sparking fiery debates with the reformers.
Therefore, Alardus intended to use the Passover as a proof of the validity of the Eucharist’s interpretation as a sacrifice. Following the God’s ordain the Jews sacrificed a lamb, marked the doors with its blood forcing the death to evade their houses and were eventually saved by following this routine. In order to ensure that salvation never failed they had to repeat this sacrifice on 10th day of each new year. Since the Passover has been always considered to be a direct prototype of the Last Supper and Christ’s sacrifice therefore a mass originating from the Passover had been taking over its features, regularity, and strict ritual and sacrifice (“a good deed”) paving the way for salvation. Whereas the Last Supper was intended to champion the Transubstantiation doctrine.
These methods allowed championing the doctrines branded by Luther as “captivities” of sacrament by finding irrefutable evidence in the Old and New Testaments. The Amsterdam Passion book dated 1523 represent an effort of the intellectual elite of the Northern Netherlands to restrain the spread of the Reformation that nonetheless will eventually succeed in conquering the north much faster than the south. However, “Passio Domini” is an invaluable source for the future researchers of the Reformation Eucharist controversy that took place in 1520s since its narrative and especially the visual background demonstrate the innovative capabilities of the Catholic party manifested at the early stage of a clash with Luther’s teaching.
To cite the paper: Nosce te ipsum: путь от шутовства к мудрости в гуманистической мысли и искусстве ренессансных Нидерландов / С.А. Ковбасюк // Средневековый город: Межвуз. науч. сб. – Вып. 24. – Саратов: Изд-во Сарат. гос. политех. ун-т имени Гагарина Ю.А., 2014. – C. 76-86.
Both compilations had been shaped by H. Teichner and J. van Oestvoren in their poems of the early 15th century. However, the “ship of fools” underwent a considerable transformation in the humanistic culture. In the speech of J. Gall as well as in the eponym poem by S. Brant it turned from the image with a strong moralistic bias into a symbol of universal Folly and madness. Later Erasmus of Rotterdam in his “Praise of Folly” will refine the idea of Folly – Moria – that rules over the world.
Illustrations for the “Ship of fools” underlined the universal character of the Folly as far as only jesters
and not the ordinary people were depicted on the woodcuts.
The “blue barge” did not undergo such a substantial change. It was not included in the “big narratives” of the humanists and thereby remained in the semantic limits of the “burgermoral”.
Nevertheless, it did go beyond the framework of the popular culture. Its way to the “high culture” passed through the artworks by H. Bosch, P. van der Heyden and P. Bruegel the Elder. Painters visualized not just existing carnival practices, but also features of the burger and patrician ethics, which enriched the construct of the “blue barge” and popularized it among different strata of the early modern Netherlandish society.
In the first part, Prof. Jonckheere talks about his career path of art historian, his teachers and the most influential books. He explains how the scope of his interests shifted from the Seventeenth-Eighteenth century art markets towards Iconoclasm, its impact and the theoretical debates on the Sixteenth century art.
His Ph.D. research on art markets was summarized and published in 2008 under the title “The Auction of King William’s paintings”. It was innovative because the author developed a new approach to work on art markets using auction catalogue.
In 2012 appeared his monograph on experiments in decorum in the Antwerp Art after Iconoclasm. The next year he curated the exhibition on the Sixteenth century Romanist artist Michiel Coxcie for Museum M (Leuven). Since 2014 Prof. Jonckheere has been working as an Editor-in-Chief at the Centrum Rubenianum (Antwerp). His own research on Rubens resulted in a monograph titled “Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard: portraits after existing prototypes” (2016).
Now Prof. Jonckheere is developing a new methodological approach towards historical interpretation of artworks, which he called the “Thimanthes effect”. This approach uses the rhetorical concept of “quaestio” as a guiding principle for interpretation. Prof. Jonckheere discusses it in the second part of the interview.
The third part focuses on the Reformation art and Iconoclasm. Prof. Jonckheere points out main directions in contemporary research on the Reformation art and highlights issues that are still to be solved. The interview concludes with advices to early-career art historians.
Hans Christian Hönes (University of Aberdeen) ‘Painting Art History’. Review of: Léa Kuhn, Gemalte Kunstgeschichte. Bildgenealogien in der Malerei um 1800, Paderborn: Fink 2020, ISBN-13: 978-3-7705-6453-8, 333pp., EUR 69,00. 25/HCH2
Hans Christian Hönes (University of Aberdeen), ‘Out of the shadows? Discovering Mary Warburg’. Review of: Hedinger, Bärbel; Diers, Michael (Eds.): Mary Warburg. Porträt einer Künstlerin. Leben, Werk, München: Hirmer Verlag 2020, ISBN-13: 978-3-7774-3614-2, 535 S., EUR 68.00. 25/HCH1
Link correction for Eckart Marchand (Warburg Institute), 'Apostles of Good Taste? The use and perception of plaster casts in the Enlightenment' 25/EM1: https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/marchand.pdf
Оригінальні рецепти із середньовічних кулінарних книг занурять вас у атмосферу королівського бенкету: смажені павичі та курки, які видихають полум'я, пироги із запеченими у них живими птахами, м’ясо з цукром, міноги та дельфіни.
Також у книзі на вас чекає спростування численних міфів щодо середньовічного раціону: чи справді м’ясо залишалося недосяжною мрією для селян та містян, а пиво та вино вважалися кориснішими за воду навіть для дітей.
Зрештою, ви довідаєтесь, які дива середньовічної кулінарії пішли у небуття, а які приносять нам насолоду й сьогодні.
Explore original recipes from medieval cookbooks that will transport you to the ambiance of a royal banquet: from roasted peacocks and chickens seemingly breathing flames to pies containing live birds and dishes combining meat with sugar, lampreys, and even dolphins.
Within this book, you'll discover a debunking of numerous myths surrounding the medieval diet: uncovering whether meat truly remained an unattainable luxury for peasants and townspeople, and whether beer and wine were deemed more beneficial than water, even for children.
Finally, you'll unravel which marvels of medieval cooking have faded into obscurity and which continue to delight our tastes even today.