The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) in Brussels and the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) are advertising a position in an interdisciplinary research project concerning the painting collection of the Museum Sint-Janshospitaal (Museum St. John’s Hospital) in Bruges.
The position is a combination of a half-time position at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (50% SW2 work leader) and a half-time position at UCLouvain (50% postdoctoral researcher).
Applicants must have a PhD in art history or an equivalent degree indicating a specialization in the field of art historical research.
Job description
The main mission of the FED-tWIN researcher is to launch an innovative interdisciplinary project about the collection of paintings of the Saint John’s Hospital in Bruges, of which all Memling paintings are currently undergoing a new scientific imagery campaign for Musea Brugge.
Within this project the goal is to bridge the gap between two different approaches in studies on fifteenth-century Netherlandish painting. The first one deals with technical art history, a specialization of KIK-IRPA, studying the construction of the painting, the creative process, the underdrawing, the painting technique in order to find answers in terms of authenticity, attribution and dating. The focus of the second approach is not the question of ‘how’ a painting is made but ‘why’, an approach in which the UCLouvain and the GEMCA are specialized. This research deals with the intentions of the patron, the functions of the painting, its meanings and the way it was used in its original context. It involves devotional and ritual practices, and text/images relationships through an interdisciplinary approach between art history, literature and history of religions.
The final goal of the project is the publication of the overall research results in a monographic volume the series of the Corpus of Flemish Primitives, dedicated to the collection of the Saint John’s Hospital.