My research focuses on two key areas: Firstly, the intersection of the visual arts and aesthetic philosophy in Germany between the 18th and 20th centuries. Secondly, the proliferation of astral knowledge and its cross-cultural visualizations between the 15th and 20th.
Below are a few examples of my work:
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Adolph Menzel and the Aesthetic Education of Germany is a history of how art helped shape a cultural nation. It examines the complex local and global dynamics at play in the cultural formation of modern Germany, through the life and work of one of the most high-profile yet widely underestimated artists of the 19th century— Adolph von Menzel (1815–1905). The first study to approach Menzel as an intellectual, social, and political figure, it shows how his artwork and star power were repeatedly instrumentalized to support competing conceptions of German identity. The book traces the drama of Menzel’s muchcontested legacy back to the multi-signifying potential of his imagery— a pictorial strategy that reached its apex with his turn toward realism. A wealth of archival evidence brings to light the pedagogical stakes of this realist turn, revealing how Menzel devised an aesthetic model of unity, rooted in multiplicity and difference, that ultimately countered Prussia’s authoritarian push for national uniformity.
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Order and Ornament traces a visual history of astrology between the 15th and 21st centuries. The first study to approach the history of astrology and its cultural significance through imagery, this interdisciplinary project brings the methods of art-historical inquiry to bear on the topic of astrological knowledge. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, the project demonstrates a clear shift in the aims and uses of astrology over time— from prediction to description. Through compelling new readings of artworks both famous and unfamiliar, the project offers fresh insight into this fascinating topic, revealing its transformation from a predictive tool in early-modern medicine to its subsequent use in the 21st century as a method and means for aesthetic and psychological introspection.
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Collaborator/associate member of the research project ZODIAC: Ancient Astral Science in Transformation (ERC) at the FU-Berlin.
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HSAR 411: Art and Aesthetics in Germany, 1750 to the Present
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