Third Party Funds Group - Overall project
Start date : 01.06.2018
End date : 31.05.2021
Website: https://www.gnm.de/forschung/projekte/luther-bildnisse/
The significance of Martin Luther to religious and cultural history is undisputed. Only few people of the 16th century have been portrayed just as frequently. However, unlike his works the contemporary portraits, which are just as important for the history of Luther's influence, are neither completely collected nor critically analyzed. On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of reformation in 2017, these portraits were disseminated and marketed worldwide via mass media, even though there is some uncertainty about their historical usage context, their dating and their authenticity. Recent examinations have shown that individual key works that were believed to be authentic were in fact produced later than assumed and thus seemed to serve the subsequent iconographic exaggeration of the reformer. In view of this, a critical catalogue of the early Luther portraits (1519–1530) is desirable from a scientific and cultural-political perspective. The interdisciplinary approach of the project, covering the fields of art history, art technology, reformation history and computer science, creates the methodological and content-related prerequisites. The basis for the work is the creation of a catalogue of autonomous Luther portraits from the genres of painting and print, which can be assigned to the period from 1519 to 1530 or are subject of discussion of this period.
Die Bedeutung Martin Luthers für die Religions- und Kulturgeschichte ist unbestritten. Anders als seine Werke sind die für seine Wirkungsgeschichte ebenso wichtigen zeitgenössischen Porträts (Gemälde und Druckgrafik) jedoch weder vollständig gesammelt noch kritisch erschlossen. Das gemeinsame Projekt der FAU, des Germanischen Nationalmuseums Nürnberg und der TH Köln wurde initiiert, um in einem interdisziplinären Ansatz, der die Bereiche Kunstgeschichte, Kirchengeschichte, Kunsttechnologie, und Informatik umfasst, einen kritischen Katalog der Luther-Bildnisse für die Jahre 1519 bis 1530 zu erstellen. Dabei sollen Fragen der Authentizität, der Datierung der Kunstwerke und ihres historischen Verwendungszusammenhangs sowie das Vorliegen eventueller serieller Produktionsweisen untersucht werden.