The last six months have brought good news to JHNA. In April, Bret Rothstein, Associate Professor of Art History, Indiana University, agreed to serve as an Associate Editor. In June, the Kress Foundation announced its decision to honor JHNA with a grant supporting a first-ever art history article with enhanced digital imaging. The grant will allow us to hire Jennifer Henel, Digital Humanities Developer, to work with Melanie Gifford on publishing her article, “The Fall of Phaeton in the Evolution of Peter Paul Rubens”. This project will involve high-resolution imaging techniques to examine the development of this painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and to demonstrate her discovery of a second campaign of revision by the artist. The authors will use the most innovative technologies to display such aspects as zoomable overlays of the visible light, x-radiograph and IRR images, and an interactive painting sample analysis.. We hope additional grants will enable JHNA to publish such articles more frequently as we continue to explore various digital humanities approaches.
The present issue includes three articles on Netherlandish and German art:
Larry Silver and Rafael Barrientos Martinez, “Metsys’s Musician: A Newly Recognized Early Work” focuses on a major late fifteenth-century portrait, the Portrait of Jacob Obrecht in the Kimbell Art Museum, that has now been attributed as the earliest dated and, arguably, first signed work by Quinten Metsys.
Marta Faust, “’Eyed Awry’: Blind Spots and Memoria in the Zimmern Anamorphosis” explores anamorphosis in a double portrait of the 1530s that intensifies the painting’s themes of loss and restoration by prompting observers to recall hidden imagery.
Marjorie E. Wieseman, “Bernard Lens’s Miniatures for the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough” looks at a number of miniature copies in watercolor and gouache on vellum that the English painter Bernard Lens III executed between about 1708 and 1730. These copies were mostly after seventeenth-century Flemish paintings, many of which were then in the collection of John and Sarah Churchill, first Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. This article takes advantage of newly published information and research to correct some misconceptions that appeared in the version published in the issue dedicated to Walter Liedtke, JHNA 9:1 (Winter 2017).
From time to time JHNA publishes translations of significant essays from the past that appeared only in Dutch. This issue concludes with a translation of Boudewijn Bakker’s introductory essay for Nederland naar ‘t leven: Landschapsprenten uit de Gouden Eeuw, which accompanied an exhibition at the Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, in 1993. We are grateful to Claire C. Whitner for her thoughtful translation. The essay argues that the complex intersection of geographical heritage, newfound political independence and identity, scientific and art theoretical interest in imitation, and a strongly pious understanding of the natural world ultimately led artists to depict their native Netherlands “from life.”
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For the current issue, we once again thank Cindy Edwards who has minded the work of copyediting with such impressive attention to detail. We also acknowledge our managing editor Heidi Eyestone, Visual Resources Librarian of Carleton College. Heidi’s generous aid with images, uploading, and much else connected with this issue, and her long-range planning, technical expertise, and commitment have made her an indispensable colleague. For financial support, we thank Carleton College.
JHNA is archived by Portico, an electronic service initiated by JSTOR and supported by the Mellon Foundation, Ithaka, and the Library of Congress. Preserving scholarship published in electronic form indefinitely, it ensures long-term access to our content. Our membership in CrossRef allows us to register our articles, each with a unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI) that provides a persistent link to its location on the internet. It allows libraries and other organizations as well as readers of on-line journals to find and connect to these articles. All articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
We encourage you to consider JHNA as a venue for your own publications. With your help, JHNA has become one of the premier journals of the early modern art of the Netherlands and its region.
The Journal welcomes submissions at any time. Please consult our Submission Guidelines.
Alison M. Kettering, Carleton College, Editor-in-Chief
Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Queen’s University, Associate Editor
Dagmar Eichberger, Universität Heidelberg, Associate Editor
Bret Rothstein, Indiana University, Associate Editor