"Die Kleine, die Feine, die Reine, die Eine" The small, the fine, the pure, the rare The sculpture of Leonhard Kern (1588--1662).

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Tokumitsu, Miya.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. History of Art.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Art--History.

Art.

History.

0377.

Local Subjects:

0377.

Physical Description:

368 pages

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 73-09A(E).

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

The German miniaturist Leonhard Kern (1588-1662) provides an exceptional opportunity to bridge several concurrent histories of Baroque sculpture often studied in isolation from one another. Although Kern worked during a period long considered one of artistic decline—the German Baroque—he engaged a number of critical changes in the status and reception of sculpture. By working primarily in miniature and in exotic ivory, Kern participated in the collecting culture of the Wunderkammer, or curiosity cabinet, a relatively new venue for amassing and viewing sculpture. While such a specialization seems modern, Kern also employed a number of archaic stylistic modes, including the late Gothic and Italian Mannerism, a practice that seems to undermine traditional conceptions of style as a marker of artistic selfhood. Roughly half of Kern's oeuvre is religious; despite working in a post- Reformation and post-Counter-Reformation Europe torn apart by religious turmoil during the Thirty Years War, Kern found a broad audience for this work among patrons of diverse faiths. The other half of Kern's oeuvre is typically regarded as allegorical, and yet agreement on what many of these figures signify has eluded modern scholars. In The Origin of German Tragic Drama, Walter Benjamin suggested that inherent in allegorical representation during the German Baroque was an irreconcilability between signifier and signified. The present discussion of Kern's allegory examines whether such a rift is indeed characteristic of Kern's secular figures. By approaching Kern thematically, this dissertation locates the artist securely among concurrent trends and contexts of sculpture production and patronage.

Notes:

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-09(E), Section: A.

Adviser: Larry Silver.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 2012.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175.

ISBN:

9781267360021

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.