Germany and Central Europe

Perspectives on Wenceslaus Hollar

By Andrea Bubenik and Anne Thackray, eds.

London/Turnhout: Harvey Miller; Brepols, 2016. 242pp, 6 b&w illus., 101 col. illus. ISBN 978-1-909400-42-9.

Review published June 2018

Only the most renowned printmakers ever seem to get closer analysis. But Wenceslaus Hollar, the multinational etcher (1607 Prague-1677 London), has chiefly received exhibition attention only, so this [...] Read More

Albrecht Dürer & the Epistolary Mode of Address

By Shira Brisman

Chicago/London: Chicago University Press, 2016, 223 pp, numerous b&w and col. illus. ISBN 978–0–226–35475–0.

Review published October 2017

This intriguing and ambitious book seeks to make a major contribution to the field by proposing the existence and importance of an “epistolary mode of artistic address,” which Dürer “played a large [...] Read More

Aus aller Herren Länder. Die Künstler der “Teutschen Academie” von Joachim von Sandrart

By Suzanne Meurer, Anna Schreurs-Morét, and Lucia Simonato, eds.

Turnhout: Brepols, 2015. 456pp, 200 b&w illus. ISBN 978-2-503-55321-4.

Review published September 2017

Until very recently, one of the most neglected of all foundational primary sources in European painting history remained Sandrart's Teutsche Academie (1675; Latin edition 1683), including a reliable [...] Read More

Michael Pacher: Zwischen Zeiten und Räumen

By Lukas Madersbacher

Berlin/ Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2015. 348 pp, 280 color and 25 b&w illus. ISBN 978-3-422-07307-4

Review published April 2017

In German art, the question a "Northern Renaissance" and when (or if) it occurred usually centers around such turn-of-the-epoch figures as Albrecht Dürer and the magic year 1500. Moreover, dominant [...] Read More

Bella Figura: Europäische Kunst in Süddeutschland um 1600

By Renate Eikelmann, ed.

[Cat. exh. Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, February 6 – May 25, 2015.] Munich: Hirmer, 2015. 420 pp, fully illustrated. ISBN 978-3-7774-2358-6

Review published April 2017

Bronze sculpture of the late sixteenth century tends to be associated with Italy, specifically with the work of Giambologna, so an exhibition of bronzes originating mostly from southern Germany [...] Read More

Visual Acuity and the Arts of Communication in Early Modern Germany (Visual Culture in Early Modernity)

By Jeffrey Chipps Smith, ed.

Farnham, Surrey/Burlington, VT: Ashgate 2014. 226 pp, b&w illus. ISBN 978-1-4724-3587-3

Review published April 2016

Made up of an established core and a changing array of international contributors, Frühe Neuzeit Interdisziplinär gathers every three years. Scholars present new research on early modern Germany, and [...] Read More

Georg Pencz. Künstler zu Nürnberg

By Katrin Dyballa

Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 2014. 484 pp, 320 illus., 91 color. ISBN 978-3-87157-237-1

Review published April 2016

If we consult received wisdom (I used Giulia Bartrum's reliable survey, German Renaissance Prints 1490-1550, 1995), we find several accepted facts about Georg Pencz (vital statistics given, c. [...] Read More

Fantastische Welten. Albrecht Altdorfer und das Expressive in der Kunst um 1500

By Stefan Roller and Jochen Sander

[Cat. exh. Städel Museum and Liebighaus, Frankfurt, November 5, 2014 – February 8, 2015; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, March 17 – June 14, 2015; in conjunction with the University of Leipzig.] Munich: Hirmer 2014. 288 pp, 255 color illus. ISBN 978-3-777-42266-4

Review published April 2016

I always thought that the term "expressive" was a modernist or twentieth-century concept, in which the depiction of figure types and formal elements conjured up a peculiar state of mind or conveyed [...] Read More

Men of Taste. Essays on Art Collecting in East-Central Europe

By Ingrid Ciulisová

Bratislava: VEDA 2014. 174pp, 58 illus, most color. ISBN 978-80-224-1338-1

Review published November 2014

A milestone in art history scholarship was laid down a quarter-century ago with the founding of the Journal of the History of Collections, and incrementally our gaps of knowledge of provenance and [...] Read More

Two New Studies on Dürer

By various authors

Review published April 2014

Stephanie Buck and Stephanie Porras, The Young Dürer: Drawing the Figure. [Cat. exh. Courtauld Gallery, London, October 17, 2013 – January 12, 2014.] London: Courtauld Gallery 2013. 287 pp, fully [...] Read More

Albrecht Dürer. His Art in Context

By Jochen Sander, ed.

[Cat. exh. Städel Museum, Frankfurt, October 23, 2013 – February 2, 2104.] Munich: Prestel 2013. 400 pp, 303 color, 72 b&w illus. ISBN 978-3-7913-5317-3

Review published April 2014

Hard on the heels of the blockbuster Nuremberg exhibition, The Early Dürer, of last year (reviewed in this journal November 2012), Frankfurt now presents its own reassessment with a wider reach. Let [...] Read More

Hans von Aachen in Context

By Lubomir Konecny and Stepán Vácha with Beket Bukovinská, eds., assisted by Markéta Jezková and Eliska Zlatohlávková

Prague: Institute of Art History 2012. 280 pp. ISBN 978-80-86890-42-5

Review published November 2013

The major 2010-11 exhibition, Hans von Aachen (1552-1615): A Court Artist in Europe generated widespread interest at its three venues (Aachen-Prague-Vienna) and occasioned an international conference [...] Read More

Imperial Augsburg: Renaissance Prints and Drawings 1475-1540

By Gregory Jecmen and Freyda Spira

[Cat. exh. National Gallery of Art, Washington, September 30 – December 31, 2012; Jack S. Blanton Museum, University of Texas at Austin, October 5, 2013 – January 5, 2014; Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, September 19 – December 14, 2014.] Washington DC: National Gallery of Art in association with Ashgate/Lund Humphries Publishing Company 2012. 120 pp, with color illus. ISBN 978-1-84822-122-2

Review published November 2013

During the Renaissance, the imperial city of Augsburg in southern Germany became an important artistic center. Its financial prosperity in banking and trade – as seen in the enormous wealth of the [...] Read More

German Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1350-1600

By Maryan W. Ainsworth and Joshua P. Waterman

With contributions by Timothy B. Husband and Karen E. Thomas, with Dorothy Mahon, Charlotte Hale, George Bisacca, Silvia A. Centeno and Peter Klein. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2013. 376 pp, 300 color, 40 b&w illus. ISBN 978-0-300-14897-8

Review published November 2013

Hard on the heels of a major catalogue of German drawings at New York's Metropolitan Museum, compiled by Stijn Alsteens and Freyda Spira (reviewed in this journal April 2013), comes a new catalogue of [...] Read More

Pygmalion in Bavaria. The Sculptor Ignaz Günther and Eighteenth-Century Aesthetic Theory

By Christiane Hertel

University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2011, 270 pp, 89 b&w and 27 color illus. ISBN 978-0-271-03737-0

Review published November 2012

Rococo remains an art historical stepchild, the more so for Bavarian Rococo. Seldom taught even in survey classes, let alone in stand-alone courses, its richly decorated surfaces may fascinate, but [...] Read More