Prof. em. Dr. Klaus Krüger

Photo: Tanja Michalsky

Curriculum

Klaus Krüger (PhD LMU Munich 1987, Habilitation TU Berlin 1997) is Professor Emeritus of Art History at FU Berlin. 1987-1992 Postdoc and Research Assistant at the Bibliotheca Hertziana (MPI) in Rome, 1992-1999 Research Assistant and Associate Professor at the TU Berlin. 1999-2002 Chair of Art History at the University of Greifswald, 2002-2003 Full Professor of Early Modern Art History at the University of Basel, 2003-2022 Professor of Art History at the FU Berlin, 2022-2025 there afterwards Senior Professor. Fellowships and Visiting Professorships, among others, in Frankfurt (JWG University, 1997-1998), Paris (ÉHÉSS, 1999), New York (Columbia University, 2004-2005 and 2018), Florence (Università degli Studi, 2006), Konstanz (Cluster of Excellence "Cultural Foundations of Integration", 2007-2008), Vienna (IFK, 2011) and Rome (Bibliotheca Hertziana, 2012-2013). Head of numerous research and externally funded projects, including 2012-2020 Head and Co-speaker of the Research group "BildEvidenz. Ästhetik und Geschichte" at the FU Berlin.

Numerous books and essays on the theory and history of the image, in particular on the aesthetics and cultural semantics of the image in the pre-modern era, as well as on its various functional forms and intermedial references (e.g. altarpiece, devotional image, painting and music, image and text, art and politics, etc.). The main focus is on Italian art from the Middle Ages to the Baroque, as well as on contemporary art, the relationship between art and film, and the methods of art history.

Publications (selection)

Figura als Bild. Streiflichter zu Dürer und zum Mediendiskurs in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit, Göttingen: Wallstein 2024.
Giottos Figuren. Mimesis und Imagination, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2023.
Bildpräsenz – Heilspräsenz. Ästhetik der Liminalität, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2018.
Zur Eigensinnlichkeit der Bilder. Acht Beiträge, Paderborn: Fink, 2017 (= Ausgewählte Schriften).
Grazia. Religiöse Erfahrung und ästhetische Evidenz, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2016.
Politik der Evidenz. Öffentliche Bilder als Bilder der Öffentlichkeit, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2015.
Das Bild als Schleier des Unsichtbaren. Ästhetische Illusion in der Kunst der frühen Neuzeit in Italien, München: Fink, 2001.
Der frühe Bildkult des Franziskus in Italien. Gestalt- und Funktionswandel des Tafelbildes im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert, Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1992

**Research project: Research project: konstig en kragtig – artful and powerful. On the aesthetics of overnatuurlijke kracht in Dutch painting**

The two key terms of the project, konstig and kragtig, i.e. artful on the one hand and powerful on the other, describe a polar and at the same time dialectically related configuration in the practice and theory of Dutch art. They both stand for characteristics that make the picture appear alive and almost as if the people depicted were communicating with the beholders, even actively addressing them and speaking directly to them out of the painting (de aanschouwers aan te spreken). But in doing so, they highlight contradictory effects or different modes of this powerful impression. They refer, if you will, to a double texture of the picture, to the aesthetic interweaving and indissoluble layering of deceptive imitation of nature and artistic bravura, of heteronomy and self-reference. In such a way that, on the one hand, the figures portrayed in the picture, as it is said e.g. of Frans Hals, seem to be filled with "such strength and vitality (sulcke forse ende leven)" that they almost naturally "seem to breathe and live (dat de schijnen asem van haer te gheven, ende te leven)", but that, on the other hand, all the animating power of painting represents a power that energetically surpasses nature (overnatuurlijke kracht), namely as the power of art itself. The project aims to focus on this oscillating imaginarium inherent in the aesthetic power of the picture through case studies of Samuel van Hoogstraten, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Jacobus Vrel and others.