Destroyed-Disappeared-Lost-Never Were

This book explores the challenges of studying medieval works of art, artifacts, and monuments that have disappeared, been destroyed, or never existed. It combines object histories, anthropology of images, and historiography to understand how people have made sense of the past by examining objects, images, and architectural and urban spaces. The volume will stimulate debate among art historians about the critical practices used to confront destruction, loss, obscurity, and existential uncertainty.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 168 pages
Publication date: 28 June 2022
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press

Exploring the realm of works that defy sensual perception presents a significant challenge for art historians. When faced with the absence of an object, they must push their methodologies to their limits, sometimes even beyond. This concise volume delves into the complexities of studying medieval art, artifacts, and monuments that have vanished, been destroyed, or may never have existed in the first place.

The contributors to this volume are immersed in the vast expanse of what they cannot physically perceive, handle, or comprehend. By intersecting object histories, the anthropology of images, and historiography, they strive to understand how individuals have made sense of the past by examining objects, images, and architectural and urban spaces. A profound reflection upon the theorization of historical analysis and the ways in which the past is inscribed into layers of evidence unfolds throughout these approaches, only becoming revealed in the present tense of the historians.

This volume is highly original and theoretically sophisticated, igniting a robust debate among art historians regarding the critical practices employed to confront the formative presence of destruction, loss, obscurity, and existential uncertainty within the history of art and the study of historical material and visual cultures.

In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include:

Michele Bacci
Claudia Brittenham
Sonja Drimmer
Jaś Elsner
Peter Geimer
Danielle B. Joyner
Kristopher W. Kersey
Lena Liepe
Meekyung MacMurdie
Michelle McCoy

Weight: 227g
Dimension: 216 x 140 x 11 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780271093284