We are pleased to present the second issue of JHNA, which, quite coincidentally, includes two articles linking art with melancholia. As you’ll see, the authors approach the subject with quite separate interests, one discussing it in relation to a specific artist’s personality, the other in relation to common botanical imagery. The third of the articles centers on a seventeenth-century Flemish anatomy lesson portrait, which we publish for the first time in a beautiful color reproduction. This issue also contains a translation of an article published previously in Dutch. We plan to include such translations from time to time in order to increase the availability of important scholarship to the larger scholarly community.
As always, we are grateful to the many people who have worked behind the scenes to make this issue possible, among them the scholars who acted as peer reviewers, the student assistants who helped with uploading and correcting, and, not least, our skillful copy editor Cindy Bohn.
Our third issue, June 2010, will likely include a number of articles on eighteenth-century Netherlandish art, but we welcome manuscripts on any subject associated with the art of the Low Countries in the early modern period (c.1400-c.1750). The submission deadline is March 1, 2009.
In future, we are contemplating various themed issues, for example, one on North/South/”porous borders,” that is, exchanges between artists of different regions, and another on Dutch art’s global reach. In the short term, we encourage those giving papers at the HNA conference in Amsterdam (May 2010) to consider JHNA for publication.
An update on indexing and archiving: Since its inaugural issue last June, JHNA has been listed with Portico, an electronic archiving service initiated by JSTOR and supported by the Mellon Foundation, Ithaka, and Library of Congress. We are in the process of acquiring membership in CrossRef which will allow us to register our articles, each with a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), so that libraries and other organizations can find and create links with them. As of summer 2009, we have been partnered with H.W.Wilson Company for indexing; Simiolus, Jong Holland, and the Art Bulletin are among the other journals included in their databases. We are also in the process of signing an agreement with EBSCO Publishing for inclusion of JHNA in their Art and Architecture Complete database. After our third issue, in June 2009, we will apply to ISI Web of Knowledge, a database run by Thompson Reuters. Indexing with the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) had also been our plan, although as of this writing, the BHA’s fate still remains uncertain. We hope that JSTOR itself will soon decide to archive on-line journals.
A note on funding: In order to gain the widest possible audience, JHNA offers the journal free of charge not just to HNA members but to everyone. This open-access policy can continue only if we receive your help. Many of our members responded generously to the fund-raising campaign that allowed us to set up the journal last year, and you’ll find their names here under Contributions (go to Help JHNA). As for ongoing costs, membership dues cover some of them, but we need your individual help as well as your ideas for fundraising opportunities and possibilities.
Most importantly, we urge you to consider JHNA as a venue for your own publications. With your help we can make JHNA one of the premier journals of Netherlandish art. To repeat: The deadline for submission of articles for the next issue (June 2010) is March 1, 2010, although we would appreciate earlier submissions.
Editorial Board
Alison M. Kettering, Editor-in-Chief, William R. Kenan Professor of Art History, Carleton College
Molly Faries, Associate EditorProfessor Emerita, Department of the History of Art,Indiana University
Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Associate EditorKay Fortson Chair in European Art,University of Texas, Austin
Advisory Board
Ann J. Adams, Associate Professor of the History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara
Wayne E. Franits, Professor, Department of Art and Music Histories, Syracuse University