DOI issue:
Editor's Note
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52521#0011
EDITOR'S NOTE
On May 12, 1919, at 9:00 a.m., the Reverend Dr. Szczęsny Dettloff, the
founder of academic art history in Poznań, gave his first university lecture
entitled "Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael" [Lionardo, Michał Anioł, Rafael],
That date can be considered a symbolic inauguration of the study of art histo-
ry at the University of Poznań, which means that in 2019 we celebrated our
centennial. Such an opportunity made us not only celebrate, but also reflect
on our discipline - its turning points, achievements, institutions, and scholars
who contributed to its condition today. These and other questions we have
been examining in our Institute, where the faculty are always eager to debate
and discuss, almost incessantly but we also make attempts to invite to our
debate and discussions other scholars. Ten years ago, in 2009, on the thirti-
eth anniversary of the journal Artium Quaestiones, published by the Institute
of Art History of Adam Mickiewicz University, its twentieth issue was out,
including a number of programmatic papers by art historians, both women
and men, from various Polish academic institutions, all intended to "provoke
the readers to reflect on the condition of art history and on our scholarly and
professional competence." After ten years, we decided to invite authors not
only from Poland, but also from abroad to debate which dates and events were
of crucial significance for art history, its self-consciousness, and its function-
ing and influence, as well as which historical circumstances had a decisive
impact on the development of our discipline in various European countries.
Doing so, we were inspired by the year 1919 - significant not only because the
Erst university, with an art history department, was founded in Poznań at that
time, but because that particular year brought historic changes in Poland and
other countries. Our intention was, on the one hand, to realize which turning
points in the twentieth-century history of our country and society had the
greatest influence on art history, initiating its radical transformations, open-
ing up new perspectives, and identifying previously unknown problems, and
on the other, possibly symmetrically address similar issues in the neighboring
as well as more distant countries. The turning points considered in the texts
included in the present volume are not always defined literally as such - not
always were they momentary or profound. In some cases, those were rather
On May 12, 1919, at 9:00 a.m., the Reverend Dr. Szczęsny Dettloff, the
founder of academic art history in Poznań, gave his first university lecture
entitled "Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael" [Lionardo, Michał Anioł, Rafael],
That date can be considered a symbolic inauguration of the study of art histo-
ry at the University of Poznań, which means that in 2019 we celebrated our
centennial. Such an opportunity made us not only celebrate, but also reflect
on our discipline - its turning points, achievements, institutions, and scholars
who contributed to its condition today. These and other questions we have
been examining in our Institute, where the faculty are always eager to debate
and discuss, almost incessantly but we also make attempts to invite to our
debate and discussions other scholars. Ten years ago, in 2009, on the thirti-
eth anniversary of the journal Artium Quaestiones, published by the Institute
of Art History of Adam Mickiewicz University, its twentieth issue was out,
including a number of programmatic papers by art historians, both women
and men, from various Polish academic institutions, all intended to "provoke
the readers to reflect on the condition of art history and on our scholarly and
professional competence." After ten years, we decided to invite authors not
only from Poland, but also from abroad to debate which dates and events were
of crucial significance for art history, its self-consciousness, and its function-
ing and influence, as well as which historical circumstances had a decisive
impact on the development of our discipline in various European countries.
Doing so, we were inspired by the year 1919 - significant not only because the
Erst university, with an art history department, was founded in Poznań at that
time, but because that particular year brought historic changes in Poland and
other countries. Our intention was, on the one hand, to realize which turning
points in the twentieth-century history of our country and society had the
greatest influence on art history, initiating its radical transformations, open-
ing up new perspectives, and identifying previously unknown problems, and
on the other, possibly symmetrically address similar issues in the neighboring
as well as more distant countries. The turning points considered in the texts
included in the present volume are not always defined literally as such - not
always were they momentary or profound. In some cases, those were rather