Many Romes. Studies in honnor of Hans Belting
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
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| Description | Dedicating a special issue of Convivium to mark Hans Belting’s eightieth birthday is an altogether natural gesture. Few scholars have contributed as profoundly as he has to the mandate articulated in the new journal's subtitle: "Exchanges and Interactions in the Arts of Medieval Europe, Byzantium, and the Mediterranean". Fewer, still, have realized the fledgling periodical’s goal of extending art history into such allied fields as anthropology, literature, and history – from the Early Christian period to the sixteenth century. Even a cursory review of the bibliography printed herein confirms the overlap between Hans Belting’s prodigious production with Convivium's aspirations. His work fills the map comprehended by the journal, from the Caucasus to Constantinople to Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Germany; and, setting aside the contributions to modern art, photography, new media, and theory, his scholarship follows more or less the same development Convivium embraces – from the Justinianic period through the eighth and ninth centuries, into the High Middle Ages and beyond as far as the Reformation. Challenging many assumptions underlying the ways scholars consider the basic materials, furthermore, Hans Belting has extended a medievalist’s sensibility to materiality, reception, and function and also to works produced by Jan van Eyck, Giovanni Bellini and Hieronymus Bosch, anticipating in this way Convivium's call to broaden the definition of the field and to examine "the genesis and life of art-historical studies" by attending to historiography as in his highly influential synthesis Bild und Kult: Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst. Journal and scholar are a perfect fit. |