CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

Book launch: Online presentation of Koenraad Jonckheere’s ‘Another History of Art’

Online event: 12 May 2021

Wednesday 12 May, 18:00-19:00 CET, The Leiden Department of Art History organizes the online presentation of Koenraad Jonckheere’s ‘Another History of Art’a new reference work that offers a different view on art history, published by Hannibal Books and soon to be published in an English translation.

Art is much more than an aesthetic experience or an intriguing concept. It is an instrument of politics and religion, a catalyst of revolutions, a trigger of extreme responses, a laboratory of new technologies. Art is the blueprint of an era, the bearer of ungraspable meaning. Art is worth fabulous amounts of money, but is a sea of emotions too. This book deals with questions as how art evolved over 2,500 years, from attempts of representing the ideal man to a black square on a white canvas; and why on the art market a can of Merda d’artista is much more expensive than a splendid seventeenth-century landscape painting.

This book tells the story of the visual arts in Western Europe from Antiquity till Modernism in five chapters, each with its own perspective. Different from usual, the emphasis is not put on the canon of the most outstanding figures that have opened new horizons, but on the complex play of human ingenuity and imagination and of quickly changing historical circumstances.

First, the author will present his book. This will be followed by a reflection of David Freedberg on the new insights the book provides for the history of art.

For more information and to register for this event, see the University of Leiden website. More information on Another History of Art is available on the publisher’s website.

Cover of Another History of Art by Koenraad Jonckheere, published by Hannibal Books (2021)