With contributions from Sabine Feser, Anja Grebe, Ulrich Heinen, Andreas Henning, Hans W. Hubert, Angeli Janhsen, Henry Keazor, Barbara Lange, Doris H. Lehmann, Laura Rodrigues Nöhles and Andreas Thielemann
“Artist Heroes?” What does this title mean? Who is an “artist hero”, what characterizes him, who heroizes him and how does he contribute to his hero status? This volume addresses these questions for the first time in an overview and in a methodically reflected manner. Outstanding artists are discussed who were the subject of a series of lectures that took place at the University of Freiburg in 2013/14 in connection with the SFB 948 »Heroes - Heroizations - Heroisms. Transformations and economic cycles from antiquity to modernity« was organized. The picture is supplemented and rounded off by further, specially collected contributions.
The selection of “artist heroes” that are analyzed by experts results not least from the art historical canon of “great” artists. This includes Andrea Mantegna (Andreas Thielemann), Leonardo da Vinci (Sabine Feser), Raffael (Andreas Henning), Michelangelo (Hans W. Hubert), Peter Paul Rubens
(Ulrich Heinen) and Albrecht Dürer (Anja Grebe). The norms set by the academies also played a major role in the veneration of artists and even divinization - in addition to Raphael, Nicolas Poussin (Henry Keazor) also experienced a special afterlife. As a key figure in French and Italian art history, the heroization of his artistic personality is subject to national perspectives in its modeling and different accentuations. In addition to the traditional pictorial and textual genres, popularization phenomena and current tendencies are also included in the individual analyzes with a look at modernity and today - Hans Makart (Doris Lehmann), Frida Kahlo (Laura Rodrigues), Joseph Beuys (Barbara Lange) and Marina Abramović (Angeli Janhsen).
In their contributions, the authors discuss the various media, forms of expression and topoi that were used in artist veneration. In addition, it is shown why painters, sculptors and architects became the subject of heroization processes and which cultural, social or national intentions underlay these constructions. The temporally and spatially broad framework of the essay collection makes visible both phenomena of the longue durée as well as transformations and cycles of artist heroization. By analyzing the semantics of the heroic and its media manifestations using a special group - the artists - the volume contributes to a better historical understanding of the cultural phenomenon of "heroization" in its entirety.
Review:
Friederike Zimmermann, The artist - a hero?, in: UNIversalis newspaper - for universities and colleges in Freiburg, summer 2016, 22nd edition/12th year, pages 1–3.
Identical to the online publication: Friedrike Zimmermann, Can artists be heroes?, in: Kultur Joker: http://www.kulturjoker.de/koennen-kuenstler-helden-sein/
