After two exciting and quite different special issues—Vermeer: New Findings from the National Gallery of Art (Summer 2022) and Textile Circulation in the Dutch Global Market (Winter 2023)—the Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art returns to its primary mandate, which is to publish outstanding original articles, from a variety of approaches, on Dutch, Flemish, German, and Franco-Flemish art and material culture from the medieval period through the eighteenth century. We also return to a recent expansion of our mission, which is to commission state-of-the-field essays that range from assessments of the state of research to critical responses to pressing questions. We call these essays JHNA Perspectives.
This issue’s two feature articles treat artistic and cultural encounters between the Netherlands and Southern Europe. Sylvia Alvares-Correa argues that The Passion of Christ in Jerusalem (ca. 1500), traditionally thought to have been made in the Netherlands, was produced in Portugal, where its maker synthesized a range of imagery and artistic traditions to create a unique work that appealed specifically to its audience: Queen Dona Leonor and the Portuguese Poor Clare nuns of the Madre de Deus convent outside of Lisbon. Alison M. Kettering explores the brilliantly immediate colored-chalk portrait drawings of artist friends that Hendrick Goltzius produced primarily in Italy, during the 1590s, to provide insight into his transition from linear expression to full-fledged oil painting in 1600. Both texts demonstrate the far reach of Northern European culture in the early modern period and its unceasing importance to and impact on the visual arts.
Also in this issue, two JHNA Perspectives essays examine recent scholarship in two methodological approaches, each of which has had a transformative impact on the study of Netherlandish art. Andrea Pearson takes stock of recent trends in scholarship on gender and sexuality in early modern Northern art, posits investigative paths for the future, and offers a new and more inclusive model for the practice of agency studies. Focusing on the aftermath of Michael Montias’s groundbreaking and tremendously influential work on the economics of art, Elizabeth Alice Honig, Jessica Stevenson Stewart, and Yanzhang (Tony) Cui survey the economic histories of Netherlandish art and present a historiography of the economic method. Joining a previous state-of-the-field essay about the legacy of slavery in Northern European art, these two perspectives document current trends and reveal future directions for the study of Netherlandish art.
We are enormously grateful to two colleagues who are indispensable to the production of JHNA. As our authors attest, Jessica Skwire Routhier is an unmatched copy editor and a congenial collaborator. Our fabulously engaged and imaginative Managing Editor Jennifer Henel is responsible for many things, above all the transformation of texts and images into our visually stunning, unsurpassed digital journal.
We encourage you to consider publishing in JHNA, with its outstanding digital image capabilities. JHNA offers authors the opportunity to connect their articles to the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus to further contextualize their scholarship and expand readership using a shared lexicon of cross-disciplinary efforts. With your contributions, JHNA will remain one of the leading journals for early modern art of the Netherlands and its region.
The journal welcomes article submissions at any time. We also welcome proposals for JHNA Perspectives state-of-the-field essays and inquiries about special issues. Please consult our Submission Guidelines.
H. Perry Chapman, University of Delaware, Editor in Chief
Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Art Institute of Chicago, Associate Editor
Bret L. Rothstein, Indiana University, Associate Editor
Joanna Woodall, The Courtauld Institute, Associate Editor
Alison M. Kettering, Carleton College, Past Editor in Chief