Research Seminar Series "Methodology and Ideology: Critical Perspectives on the Historical Paradigms of Art History" (3rd Research Seminar): Starting from Water. Ecological Reflections in the Mosaics of San Marco

However, ideologically-loaded labels and concepts persist despite radical transformations in contemporary accounts of art historical theories and methods.

This research seminar series intends to encourage a critical and historical analysis of conceptual frameworks such as the relationship between art history and ideology, politics and cultural heritage, collective identities, post-colonialism and national stereotypes, formalism and stylistic categories, visual arguments and teaching practices as well as eco-criticism and the Anthropocene.


3. Research Seminar: Starting from Water. Ecological Reflections in the Mosaics of San Marco

Historical research has since long emphasized how the city republic of Venice, due to its precarious position in a body of water, became an early pioneer of ecological practices and a tacit ecological knowledge. In my paper I will discuss the impact of this framework on the art production in the city’s most prominent sanctuary. Looking at the role of water in the famous mosaics of the ducal church of San Marco, we will discover a specific Venetian version of environmental history that leads back to the creation of the world. While water is crucial for the the visual narrative of the images, the materials and techniques employed for the decoration of the church point also to the aqueous environment of the lagoon. The entire variety of visual, material and spatial aspects makes the mosaics an excellent test case to explore the pathways of ecocritical methods within art history.

David Ganz has been Professor of Medieval Art at the University of Zürich since 2013. After having been a Doctoral Fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, he earned his PhD from the University of Hamburg in 2000. As a Postdoc, Ganz was a member of the Research Group “Cultural history and theology of the Image in Christianity” at the University of Muenster. In 2006 he did his habilitation at the University of Konstanz. Ganz has been a Heisenberg Fellow at the University of Konstanz, a Visiting Fellow at Yale University, and a Senior Fellow at the IKKM in Weimar. Starting with the monumental decoration of Roman churches in the Baroque period (the subject of his first book, Barocke Bilderbauten, 2003), Ganz has researched and published on a broad variety of topics which comprise pictorial models of the representation of visions in the Western Middle Ages (Medien der Offenbarung, 2008) and the particular role of decorated book-covers as “garment” of medieval liturgical books (Buch-Gewänder, 2015). Most recently his research has focused on the ecological dimension of visual arts and on the perspectives of an ecocritical art history.

Zoomlink for online participation: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7475586652
Passcode: 2209

Scientific Organization: Giovanna Targia (Universität Zürich) und Tobias Teutenberg