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.
Quite a number of portraits of Martin Luther - known as media star of 16th century – can be found in today’s museums and libraries. However, how many portraits indeed exist and which of those are contemporary or actually date from a later period? So far unlike his works, however, the variety of contemporary portraits (painting and print) is neither completely collected nor critically analyzed. Thus, a joint project of the FAU, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (GNM) in Nuremberg and the Technology Arts Sciences (TH Köln) was initiated. Goal of the interdisciplinary project covering art history, art technology, reformation history and computer science is the creation of a critical catalogue of Luther portraits (1519-1530). In particular, the issues of authenticity, dating of artworks and its historical usage context as well as the potential existence of serial production processes will be investigated.