‘Painting Art History’. Review of: Léa Kuhn, Gemalte Kunstgeschichte. Bildgenealogien in der Malerei um 1800, Paderborn: Fink 2020, ISBN-13: 978-3-7705-6453-8, 333pp., EUR 69,00.

2021/12/07 by Hans Christian Hönes, Hönes, Hans Christian
Arts and Humanities · #Art, Aesthetics, and Perception #Art, Politics, and Modernism #Visual Culture and Art Theory

paper · doi:10.48352/uobxjah.00003492

openalex publication_date 2021/12/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14

Abstract

In her new book “Gemalte Kunstgeschichte” [Painted Art History] Léa Kuhn argues that the late 18th-century saw not only the rise of modern art historiography as a scholarly discipline, but that artists increasingly painted pictures that reflected on their own historicity. Kuhn develops her argument through close-readings of three self-portraits by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, William Dunlap, Marie-Gabrielle Capet. This review discusses her approach and its the insights it offers for the study of art historiography.

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