Search results for ""Schnell Steiner GmbH""

In 1955, Arnold Bode initiated the documenta in Kassel, thus laying the foundation for the internationally important exhibition series of contemporary art. The permanent exhibition "about: documenta" in the Neue Galerie uses artworks from the museum's own collection, visual material and documents to provide an overview of the development of documenta: from the initially one-off art event to the globally active discussion platform. "about: documenta" is a cooperation of the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel with documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH and the documenta archiv.

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In this multi-award-winning study, Joanna Olchawa sheds light on the extraordinary utensil type known as aquamanile, watering vessels for the religious hand-washing rite. The detailed research not only on Christian, but also on Islamic works leads to a new view of the bronze utensils of the Middle Ages. Lions, dragons or even women on horseback–figurative watering vessels for the hand-washing rite, which are referred to by the modern term as 'aquamaniles', have been enjoying great public attention for several years. They are admired for their shiny gold bronze, their technically sophisticated production and their unusual shapes. More astonishing is the lack of academic research into the form. With her dissertation, Joanna Olchawa presents basic research on aquamaniles. The catalogue includes detailed studies of the objects not only from West Central Europe and Hungary (12th–13th centuries), but also from the Islamic regions for the first time. Based on this catalogue, Joanna Olchawa approaches questions about the genesis of the form in West Central Europe, the dissemination of knowledge about its production and its significance in Islamic as well as Christian ceremonies and comes to new, surprising results.

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While many sources have been lost, scholars have devoted much time and effort to unearthing and analyzing the surviving material in Roman and European archives and libraries, allowing for a reassessment of Rome as a long-devalued place of university study. The term place of study (Studienort) is also intended to direct our attention beyond university institutions as such to the considerable range of locations for acquiring education that Renaissance Rome offered. The second section of the essay collection is dedicated in particular to a comparative, European view of two of the universities founded in the Holy Roman Empire north of the Alps within the context of a more general educational renewal: Trier and Mainz in 1473 and 1477, respectively. Taking the example of critiques of Rome and the pope, the volume’s closing essay illuminates selected controversies that also point to transalpine processes of perception and transfer on both sides of the Alps. The “national” and confessional discourses that developed above all from the sixteenth century on generated narratives that would have a lasting impact.

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The concept of »transformation« or simply »reshaping« contains the elements of what remains, the conservative, the kernel of what continues, as well as the elements of what changes, the innovative. In the framework of this publication of articles from a conference in 2016 on »Transformations of City and Countryside in the Byzantine Period«, we draw attention to this dichotomy and investigate the social dynamics behind changes in urban and rural life in the Byzantine period that can be detected by archaeology, history and art history. The Byzantine Empire is an ideal subject for studying how social transformation proceeds, what triggers transformation, what factors underlie it and what the processes involved are. Who were the agents of transformation and how did they and their environment change? How flexible were the state or its citizens in handling external and internal pressures of innovation? In what manner and to what extent were the Byzantines able to preserve their identity and the internal cohesion of their empire in the course of these processes of adaptation?

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Grotte des Pigeons, Taforalt (Morocco), is one of the most famous cave sites in North Africa. This book presents new findings on the Iberomaurusian hunter-gatherer inhabitants who faced the major challenges of a rapidly changing climate. In this volume we describe archaeological evidence covering the period 23,000 to 12,500 years ago. We examine the nature of environmental and behavioural changes, culminating in a major broadening of the food spectrum at around 15,000 years ago, linked to technological innovation in some aspects but conservatism in others. The cave also came to be used as a substantial human cemetery, enabling us to explore burial practices and recover additional information on diet and lifestyles.

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An introduction to the dispute about religious art conducted in France from the beginning of the sixteenth century until the end of the eighteenth century. The debate involved not only Catholic and Protestant theologians, but also lay writers who tried to replace dogmatic Christianity with the ‘religion of reason’ invented by the philosophes. A recurrent theme in the majority of statements in this discussion is a contention that religious images must not be perceived as ‘portraits of God’, but that they should be seen merely as ‘separated signs’, detached from their invisible prototype; signs that only remind the faithful about God. French writers favoured restraint in shaping paintings and sculptures, fearing that otherwise works of art might excessively fascinate viewers with their sophisticated appearance, or might too profoundly move the emotions of the faithful. Christianity was for these writers above all a religion of the Word, and they considered images merely as a pastoral aid intended for ‘simpletons’ who either could not read or were unable to grasp the teachings of the catechism or the message of simple homilies. So, these writers approached religious art with reservations. Yielding to the above theoretical assumptions, the makers of religious art in seventeenth-century France achieved a high level of workmanship, characterized by noble simplicity and purity, only to succumb to the banality of schematic solutions in the following century, as they were unwilling to exert themselves in a domain that was becoming increasingly disregarded by the elites.

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Thanks to a fortunate and rare circumstance, throughout the centuries her tomb was never robbed and numerous, precious grave goods survived. In 2001 an unusually rich and filigree assemblage of jewellery was lifted together with the deceased's skeleton in two blocks by a team of Chinese archaeologists in a far-sighted way and brought to the archaeological laboratory in Xi'an. There specialists of the German-Sino co-operation project of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum (Mainz) and the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology (Xi'an) worked together on the uncovering, documentation and presentation of the finds and contexts. For the first time such a multipartite and fine jewellery assemblage could be analysed and reconstructed within its archaeological context. The result is of impressive singularity. In the publication presented here an interdisciplinary team of academics deal in many individual studies with the complex investigations into the Tang period burial of Li Chui. Apart from archaeology, art and cultural history, as well as sinology, it is not only the scientific restoration and conservation, but also various fields of the natural sciences, which worked together towards one goal: to convey a unique and realistic insight into the world of Li Chui and her times.

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Between 1200 and 750 BC, the Mediterranean world saw the breakdown of Bronze Age civilizations, and the rise of Iron Age cultures. These chronological stages which unfortunately are often taken into consideration separately, have been bridged. The editors’ introduction and a picture of the theoretical framework of Mediterranean studies, are followed by five geographical parts. By commenting on cultural changes and interculturality in the sub-regions of the Mediterranean, new important insights into interregional mobility, connectivity, and decentering phenomena are provided. The vision of the Mediterranean parts as equally important for understanding the significance of contacts represents a special feature of the volume.

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