- Universität Zürich
Kunsthistorisches Institut
Rämistrasse 73
CH-8006 Zürich
David Ganz
Uni Zürich, Kunsthistorisches Institut, Faculty Member
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Art And Ecology, Media Studies, Multiple Images, History of visual perception, History of the Book, Visual Narrative, and 8 moreCollage, Montage, & Assemblage, Theory of Montage, Theory of ornament, Visions And Dreams, The Apocalypse of John, Books As Sacred Objects, Narratology, and Baroque Ceiling Painting edit
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Writing in gold has almost completely escaped the attention of art historical manuscript studies. Whereas the semantics and the materiality of gold used in works of goldsmithery as well as in illuminations and panel paintings have been... more
Writing in gold has almost completely escaped the attention of art historical manuscript studies. Whereas the semantics and the materiality of gold used in works of goldsmithery as well as in illuminations and panel paintings have been frequently discussed, the fact that gold has been also applied to embellish texts, be they single initials and titles or entire chapters and volumes, has drawn relatively sparse comment. This article is part of a larger research project on Western chrysography. Its scope is to investigate the specific reasons for the use of gold as writing material in the Western Middle Ages. This implies a critical re-evaluation of the standard explanations of the phenomenon in previous research. To approach the issue, it is fruitful to look at single manuscripts and analyse their specific places and ways of application of chrysography. One case that plays a prominent role in this paper is the Golden Psalter from St Gall: an illuminated manuscript that was begun at the court of Charles the Bald and later completed at the monastery of St Gall. In studying this and other examples, the particular and somehow contradictory colour and light effects of chrysography will be emphasized. On the one hand, gold script has the potential to attract visual attention at a long range, especially under the artificial illumination of candlelight; and, on the other, pages with gold script resist a fast, transparent reading of written notation. They draw the reader’s attention to the forms and arrangement of the letters, to the weave of the lines, to the oscillation between emphasis and fade-out on the page, and to reflections that dissociate the graphemes from their material carrier, provoking an optical state of suspense. In short, writing in gold constitutes a specific model of ‘Schriftbildlichkeit’ or ‘Iconographia’, defying the disappearance of the single graphemes behind the text which for a long time has been considered the most characteristic feature of writing.
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Das Gerresheimer Evangeliar. Eine spatottonische Prachthandschrift als Geschichtsquelle (Forschungen zu Kunst, Geschichte und Literatur des Mittelalters, 1), hg. von Klaus Gereon Beuckers und Beate Johlen Budnik, Koln 2016 (Bohlau), 232... more
Das Gerresheimer Evangeliar. Eine spatottonische Prachthandschrift als Geschichtsquelle (Forschungen zu Kunst, Geschichte und Literatur des Mittelalters, 1), hg. von Klaus Gereon Beuckers und Beate Johlen Budnik, Koln 2016 (Bohlau), 232 S. + 89 Farbtafeln (im Folgenden GE genannt). Das Sakramentar aus Tyniec. Eine Prachthandschrift des 11. Jahrhundertsund die Beziehungen zwischen Koln und Polen in der Zeit Kasimir des Erneuerers (Forschungen zu Kunst, Geschichte und Literatur des Mittelalters,3), hg. von Klaus Gereon Beuckers und Andreas Bihrer unter Mitarbeit von Ursula Prinz, Koln 2018 (Bohlau), 376 S. + 80 Farbtafeln (= ST). Das Jungere Evangeliar aus St. Georg in Koln. Untersuchungen zum Lyskirchen-Evangeliar (Forschungen zu Kunst, Geschichte und Literatur des Mittelalters, 5), hg. von Klaus Gereon Beuckers und Anna Pawlik, Koln2019 (Bohlau), 304 S. + 112 Farbtafeln (= JEG).
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History of the Book, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, The Apocalypse of John, Book of Revelation, Liber Floridus, and 6 moreTrecento and Quattrocento Italian Art, Hans Memling, The book as metaphor, 1st Bible of Charles The Bald | 9th C., symbolism and meaning of the medieval book, and Alexander Minorita
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When Philipp the Good, Duke of Burgundy (1396–1467), obliged his court to wear black as the new exquisite color of the court garments, it was no less than a revolution of inherited royal vesture conventions. This revolution established... more
When Philipp the Good, Duke of Burgundy (1396–1467), obliged his court to wear black as the new exquisite color of the court garments, it was no less than a revolution of inherited royal vesture conventions. This revolution established black, purple, and gold as the new aristocratic dress code. As this essay shows, Philipp’s color revolution only becomes comprehensible in the context of the Burgundian court’s elaborate textile production, which arrayed the protagonists with a semantics of color. The analysis will focus on the vesture practices of the royal congregation of the Golden Fleece and, especially, the paraments. Both as media of aristocratic representation and as artistically produced objects for a specific ritual context, the paraments tellingly reflect the concept of Philipp’s color strategy.
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This essay deals with the role of book decoration in a tactile approach to sacred texts in the Western Middle Ages. For a long time, books and artworks have been discussed as visual objects. Taking into account their intrinsic haptic... more
This essay deals with the role of book decoration in a tactile approach
to sacred texts in the Western Middle Ages. For a long time, books and
artworks have been discussed as visual objects. Taking into account
their intrinsic haptic qualities opens new ways to understand the contribution of the arts to the use of sacred texts in medieval Christianity.
to sacred texts in the Western Middle Ages. For a long time, books and
artworks have been discussed as visual objects. Taking into account
their intrinsic haptic qualities opens new ways to understand the contribution of the arts to the use of sacred texts in medieval Christianity.
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Ein Bildträger wird mit einem anderen durch ein Gelenk verbunden. Diese Operation ist so simpel, dass man sich fragen kann, ob der Gewinn den Aufwand lohnt. Was ist der Mehrwert solcher Doppel-Bilder? Die volle Tragweite dieser Frage wird... more
Ein Bildträger wird mit einem anderen durch ein Gelenk verbunden. Diese Operation ist so simpel, dass man sich fragen kann, ob der Gewinn den Aufwand lohnt. Was ist der Mehrwert solcher Doppel-Bilder? Die volle Tragweite dieser Frage wird erst dann deutlich, wenn man sie nicht allein bild-, sondern auch objekt- und medientheoretisch diskutiert. Denn die Einfachheit der Anordnung verdeckt leicht den Umstand, dass wir es mit beweglichen Objekten zu tun haben, die nicht allein in geöffneter Form existieren, sondern durch das Drehen der beiden ,Flügel' transformiert und in unterschiedliche Stellungen versetzt werden können. Der im Bildträger angelegte und vorgesehene Bewegungsspielraum des Klappens unterscheidet das diptychale Doppel-Bild vom (scharnierlos starren) Bilderpaar: Schließen, Öffnen, Umwenden verschieben das Verhältnis der Bilder zueinander. Dabei geht es nicht allein um Effekte einer visuellen Dynamik: Die Beweglichkeit der Scharniere ist das Zentrum von Handlungsvektoren, die durch den handgreiflichen Umgang mit den Bildträgern aktiviert werden können. Wie alle Klappbilder besitzen auch diptychale Bilder ein eminentes Potential der agency, das im Zusammenspiel der Objekte mit den Feldern ihrer praktischen Handhabung in unterschiedliche Richtungen gelenkt werden kann. Im Unterschied zum starren Bilderpaar sind dabei auch die von außen unsichtbaren Relationen des Kontakts (oder Nicht-Kontakts) beim Aufeinanderklappen der Bilder relevant.
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Painting and De Gruyter
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Book History, Visual Narrative, Provenance, Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Pictorial Narrative, and 9 moreRegensburg, Thirteenth-Century Book Culture and Production, Life of Christ, Medieval Bookbinding, Southern Germany, Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, Hochstift Eichstätt, Chrysography, and Hirschberg, Grafen von
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The aim of the conference is to illuminate the Camposanto venture as an innovative interaction between the two artistic mediums of architecture and mural painting and the funerary utilization of the space. The guiding concept of “Journey”... more
The aim of the conference is to illuminate the Camposanto venture as an innovative interaction between the two artistic mediums of architecture and mural painting and the funerary utilization of the space. The guiding concept of “Journey” allows us to consider perceptions of burial as an entry into an otherworldly Journey, as well as journeys to holy and otherworldly places, which are invoked in the iconographic program of the frescoes. Following this concept, the conference will focus on a long Pisan tradition of spatial interweaving of locations within the Mediterranean Region – in particular the holy sites of Palestine - which were diversely linked to Pisa through overseas trade, by military participation in the crusades and through its position as starting point and place of passage for pilgrimages.
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The construction of the Camposanto in Pisa, begun in the late 1270s, resulted in an innovative type of monumental cemetery. Generously dimensioned and surrounded by a prestigious shell of white marble, the new cemetery of the cathedral... more
The construction of the Camposanto in Pisa, begun in the late 1270s, resulted in an innovative type of monumental cemetery. Generously dimensioned and surrounded by a prestigious shell of white marble, the new cemetery of the cathedral complemented both the dome and baptistery as a third monument of equal ranking. Placed directly beside one of the city gates, the cemetery complex constituted an astonishing Portal of the powerful seaport. Great artistic expenditure was continued on the inside: the high walls of the four wings were decorated with frescoes of heretofore unknown dimensions, thus creating one of the most impressive painted spaces of the Late Middle Ages. The Campo-santo provided the municipal audiences with a place of burial which eclipsed that of the popular mendicant church cemeteries. The aim of the conference is to illuminate the Camposanto venture as an innovative interaction between the two artistic mediums of architecture and mural painting and the funerary utilization of the space. The guiding concept of " Journey " allows us to consider perceptions of burial as an entry into an otherworldly Journey, as well as journeys to holy and otherworldly places, which are invoked in the iconographic program of the frescoes. Following this concept, the conference will focus on a long Pisan tradition of spatial interweaving of locations within the Mediter-ranean Region – in particular the holy sites of Palestine-which were diversely linked to Pisa through overseas trade, by military participation in the crusades and through its position as starting point and place of passage for pilgrimages. Recent research projects have emphatically illuminated a widely circulating practice of " site-relics " and " site-transfer " in the medieval West. Pilgrim's ampoules with lamp oil and stones from the holy sites were media for the creation of composite places which superimposed the local topography and the Terra Sancta sites of memory. Transfer processes and the adoption of foreign locations were already abundant in the older constructions of the cathedral area in Pisa: the Dome itself was built on the occasion of the victory over the Saracens ruling in Sicily and to commemorate the seminal myth of the second Rome. The baptistery begun in the 11th Century cited the forms of the Anastasis in Jerusalem. The project of the Camposanto can be understood as a further development of this topographic memory. In this context, the narratives about the sacred earth, which was allegedly spread throughout Camposanto, played a central role. The notion that sacred earth could be spread in a cemetery can be understood as an innovative advancement of older models of site transfer. Source evidence suggest that these legends were greatly enriched over the centuries, although they already circulated in nuce at the time the cemetery was founded. These stories also motivated the innovative designation of a cemetery as " campus sanctus ". It is a key purpose of the conference to consider the interplay between the sacred substance of earth, the fictive spaces within the murals and the
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The monk Tuotilo (c. 850-913) was one of the most eminent figures during the cultural flourishing of St Gall abbey in the 9th and 10th centuries. Since the Middle Ages, he was remembered and celebrated as an exhibiting artist of the... more
The monk Tuotilo (c. 850-913) was one of the most eminent figures during the cultural flourishing of St Gall abbey in the 9th and 10th centuries. Since the Middle Ages, he was remembered and celebrated as an exhibiting artist of the monastery of St Gall. This international conference will be dedicated to the interdisciplinary exchange of new approaches to Tuotilo's life, his oeuvre as goldsmith, ivory carver, poet and composer as well as to the different facets of Tuotilo's image in later centuries. The conference will take place in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Abbey of St Gall.