Prof. Dr. Frank Fehrenbach

Studies of art history, medieval and modern history and philosophy in Tübingen and Basel.  1992–1995 collaboration at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (research group »Kulturgeschichte der Natur«). 1995 doctorate at the University of Tübingen. 1995–96 postdoctoral fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome. 1996–2001 assistant at the Kunsthistorisches Institut Florence. 2003 habilitation at the University of Basel. 2003–2005 research fellow of the Fritz Thyssen-Stiftung. 2005 offer from the Otto Friedrich-University of Bamberg (senior professorship, rejected). 2005–2013 senior professor at Harvard University. 2013–2018 Director of the research group »Naturbilder/Images of Nature« at Kunstgeschichtlichen Seminar of the University of Hamburg. Since 2019 Co-director of the CAS »Imaginarien der Kraft«. 2020–2022 Speaker of the executive commitee of the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study. - Visiting professorships in Berlin, Jena, Cambridge MA, Florenz, Paris und Shanghai. - Fellowships: 2010–2011 Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin; 2018–2019 DFG-Kolleg-Forschergruppe »BildEvidenz«, FU Berlin; 2024 Italian Academy, Columbia University New York. - Prizes and awards: Hans Janssen-Preis für Europäische Kunstgeschichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften, Göttingen (1996); Preis der Aby Warburg-Stiftung, Hamburg (2004); Humboldt-Professur der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (2013); Hamburger Lehrpreis (2023).

Project-related publications

Monographs:

• (Ed. with Laura Isengard, Gerd Micheluzzi and Cornelia Zumbusch): Wahrnehmungskräfte – Kräfte wahrnehmen. Dynamiken der Sinne in Wissenschaft, Kunst und Literatur, Berlin-Boston 2024.
• Giotto und die Physiker: Dynamiken des Bildes um 1300, München 2023.
• (Ed. with Matthew Vollgraff): Ökologien des Ausdrucks, Berlin-Boston 2022.
• (Ed. with Lutz Hengst, Frederike Middelhoff and Cornelia Zumbusch): Form- und Bewegungskräfte in Kunst, Literatur und Wissenschaft, Berlin-Boston 2022.
• (Ed. with Philipp Ekardt and Cornelia Zumbusch): Politische Emotionen in den Künsten, Berlin-Boston 2021.
• Quasi vivo. Lebendigkeit in der italienischen Kunst der Frühen Neuzeit, Berlin-Boston 2021.
• (Ed. with Joris van Gastel): Nature and the Arts in Early Modern Naples, Berlin-Boston 2020.
• (Ed. with Cornelia Zumbusch): Aby Warburg und die Natur. Epistemik, Ästhetik, Kulturtheorie, Berlin-Boston 2019.
• Leonardo da Vinci. Der Impetus der Bilder, Berlin 2019.
• (Ed. with Robert Felfe and Karin Leonhard): Kraft, Intensität, Energie. Zur Dynamik der Kunst, Berlin-Boston 2018.
• Compendia mundi. Gianlorenzo Berninis ›Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi‹ (1648–51) und Nicola Salvis ›Fontana di Trevi‹ (1732–62), Berlin-München 2008 (= I mandorli, Bd. 7).
• (Ed.): Leonardo da Vinci: Natur im Übergang. Beiträge zu Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik, München 2002.
• Licht und Wasser. Zur Dynamik naturphilosophischer Leitbilder im Werk Leonardo da Vincis, Tübingen 1997.
• Die Goldene Madonna im Essener Münster. Der Körper der Königin, Ostfildern 1996. 

Edited volumes:

• Imaginarien der Kraft (mit Cornelia Zumbusch), Berlin-Boston (De Gruyter)
• DE NATURA, Berlin (Matthes & Seitz)
• Naturbilder (mit Robert Felfe und Iris Wenderholm), Berlin-Boston (De Gruyter)

Articles and Essays:

• Die Erde als Geschoss. Leonardos Phantasmagorien der Kraft (Codex Madrid I fol. 0 recto), in: Julia Saviello / Katharina Bedenbender (eds.), Dramaturgien von Bild und Raum. Festschrift für Hans Aurenhammer, Berlin 2024, pp. 71–79.
• Rilievo schiacciato: Donatello und die Kräfte der Skulptur, in: Neville Rowley (ed.), Donatello. Die Erfindung der Renaissance, exhib.-cat. Gemäldegalerie SMPK Berlin, Leipzig 2022, pp. 59–67. (engl: Rilievo schiacciato. Donatello and the Forces of Sculpture, in: Neville Rowley (ed.), Donatello. Inventor of the Renaissance, Leipzig 2022, pp. 59–67.)
• Leonardo’s Listener (Milan, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana): Power and Weakness of la sorella della pittura, in: Paola Cordera / Rodolfo Maffeis (eds.): Leonardo: Arte come progetto. Studi di storia e critica d'arte in onore di Pietro C. Marani, Mailand 2022, pp. 13–17.
• Trasgressioni, in: Paolo Galluzzi / Alessandro Nova (eds.): Decoding Leonardo's Codices. Compilation, Dispersal, and Reproduction Technologies, Venedig 2022, pp. 35–52.
• "Many children will be mercilessly beaten from the arms of the mothers... and then crushed". Leonardo and the Media of Horror, in: Jürgen Renn et al. (eds.), Leonardo's Intellectual Cosmos, Florence - Milan 2021, pp. 281–285. (German edition also 2021)
• Leonardo: il potere della paura, in: Pietro C. Marani (ed.), L’ultimo Leonardo 1510-1519. Leonardo tra Milano, Roma e Amboise: committenze, progetti, studi fra arte, architettura e scienza, Busto Arsizio 2021, pp. 19–25.
• Die Kräfte der Künste. Zur Einleitung (with Robert Felfe and Karin Leonhard), in: Frank Fehrenbach / Robert Felfe / Karin Leonhard (eds.): Kraft – Intensität – Energie. Zur Dynamik der Kunst, Berlin-Boston 2018, pp. IX–XIX.
• Sfondare. Landschaft als Kraftraum, in: Frank Fehrenbach / Robert Felfe / Karin Leonhard (eds.): Kraft – Intensität – Energie. Zur Dynamik der Kunst, Berlin-Boston 2018, pp. 93-119.
• Rubor/robur. Paris Bordones starke Frauen, in: Sandra Pisot (ed.): Die Poesie der venezianischen Malerei. Paris Bordone, Palma il Vecchio, Lorenzo Lotto, Tizian, exhib.-cat. Hamburger Kunsthalle 2017, München 2017, pp. 58–71.
• Leonardo's Point, in: Alina Payne (ed.): Vision and its Instruments, c. 1350-1750, University Park 2015, pp. 69–98.
• Der Fürst der Sinne. Macht und Ohnmacht des Sehens in der italienischen Renaissance, in: Horst Bredekamp / John M. Krois (eds.): Sehen und Handeln, Berlin 2011, pp. 141–154.
• Much ado about nothing. Leonardo’s Fight for the Standard, in: Philine Helas et al. (eds.): Bild/Geschichte. Festschrift Horst Bredekamp, Berlin 2007, pp. 395–410.
• Compositio corporum. Renaissance der Bio Art, in: Wolfgang Kemp et al. (eds.): Vorträge aus dem Warburg-Haus Bd. 9, Berlin 2006, pp. 131–176.
• „Komposition”, in: Ulrich Pfisterer (ed.): Metzler Lexikon Kunstwissenschaft. Ideen, Methoden, Begriffe, Stuttgart-Weimar 2003, S. 178–183; 2nd. ed. 2011, pp. 225–230.
• Blick der Engel und Lebendige Kraft. Bildzeit, Sprachzeit und Naturzeit bei Leonardo, in: Frank Fehrenbach (ed.): Leonardo da Vinci: Natur im Übergang. Beiträge zu Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik, München, 2002, pp. 169–206.

The Forces of Art in the Early Modern Period

Aesthetic modelings of the forces of nature designate a common denominator of temporally, geographically, and typologically highly diverse forms of visual art, ranging from Neolithic parietal paintings to American Land Art, from Praxiteles' Venus to Duchamps' Large Glass, from Apelles to Beuys, and from Prometheus to Pierre Huyghe.

My planned monograph will attempt to examine systematically the significance of different theories of forces in the visual arts between the late Middle Ages and the late Baroque, i.e. between about 1300 and beyond the “new science” of the 17th century until about 1750. Instead of the sympathetic and magical forces, which have already been studied relatively thoroughly, the main focus will be on physical and physiological interdependencies.

One of the starting hypotheses is that the physical concept of 'impetus' allows us to cast a light on aesthetic experiences that can be described as cause-effect correlations without needing to resort to numinous actors (God, angels, demons, souls). Did this entail an exoneration regarding the aesthetic effects of artworks from the suspicion of idolatry?

The chronological coincidence between late scholastic impetus physics, the reformulation of physical and physiological optics and the emergence of the modern image in the second half of the 13th century serves as a point of departure for this study. In contrast to the Aristotelian theory of “non-natural movement”, impetus physics, which was dominant until the time of Galileo Galilei, claims that the motor leaves an “impression” in the projectile, which gives it a dynamic surplus.

The socio-economic and theological motives of the new physics have been explored to some extent. However, their parallels in the Franciscan theory of perception, which seized on Arabic predecessors and the new conception of the image as a stage for narrative and as a motor for emotional reactions (as a visualization and as a trigger for the effects of force, as a reservoir for a dynamic 'surplus value'), have not been explored yet. Optical transmissions are described by late medieval physics and physiology as dynamic changes of the medium and radiation of images of the surfaces of objects. Species or simulacra irradiate the medium rendered transparent by light and cause effects in the eye as well as the 'inner' senses; these transmutations are conceived as intensities.

Giotto, one of the pioneers of the new image and its effect aimed at physiological impression and psychological affect, features prominently in the most influential of all art histories, Giorgio Vasari's Vite dating from the mid-16th century. According to Vasari, the development of painting since Giotto is based on a continuous increase in forza. Culminating with Michelangelo, this development reaches a maximum increase. The semantics of forza are only rudimentarily researched. If one asks a contemporary artist-scientist such as Leonardo da Vinci, the answer would be that the force causes a dynamic transfer in the resistant object (i.e. the impetus). At the same time, it appears to endow inert objects with life via movement. A similar argument had already been put forward by Nicolaus Cusanus.

Does speaking about force also establish a criterion of comparison between artistic and natural products in the sense of Titian's ambivalent, comparative motto ('Natura potentior ars') or in the sense of Antonfrancesco Doni's resignation of art towards nature that has an infinita potenza at its disposal for the production of every blade of grass? My monograph aims to shed light on the complex semantic framework of forces. On the one hand, the rhetorical tradition must be taken into account, in which the concept of 'pathos' as a mode of overpowering was a model for the conception of physical impetus. On the other hand, the dominance of Aristotelian entelechy needs to be considered, in which the specific effects of forces are defined as actualizations of intrinsic 'capabilities' in the object (vires, facultates). The art-historical proliferation of 'force' since Giotto, as claimed by Vasari, operates within this semantic field.