Books by Mihail Mihnea
This chapter has been made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.
This volume critically investigates how art historians writing about Central and Eastern Europe i... more This volume critically investigates how art historians writing about Central and Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries engaged with periodization. At the heart of much of their writing lay the ideological project of nation-building. Hence discourses around periodization-such as the mythicizing of certain periods, the invention of historical continuity and the assertion of national specificity-contributed strongly to identity construction. Central to the book's approach is a transnational exploration of how the art histories of the region not only interacted with established Western periodizations but also resonated and 'entangled' with each other. In their efforts to develop more sympathetic frameworks that refined, ignored or hybridized Western models, they sought to overcome the centre-periphery paradigm which equated distance from the centre with temporal belatedness and artistic backwardness. The book thus demonstrates that the concept of periodization is far from neutral or strictly descriptive, and that its use in art history needs to be reconsidered. Bringing together a broad range of scholars from different European institutions, the volume offers a unique new perspective on Central and Eastern European art historiography. It will be of interest to scholars working in art history, historiography and European studies.
Deși nu au o temă comună în mod explicit, articolele selectate se concentrează pe probleme de ico... more Deși nu au o temă comună în mod explicit, articolele selectate se concentrează pe probleme de iconografie, înțeleasă într-un sens larg, investigând diversele relații care se pot stabili între imagini și surse textuale și vizuale, sau între imagini și realitate. Capitolele semnate de Bianca Constantin, Simona Drăgan, Georgiana Istrate și Simona Vinitor au o miză metodologică mai accentuată, raportându-se critic la istoriografia bogată și complexă a picturilor de care se ocupă. Oana Turcu și Marta Zamfirescu-Boceanu adaugă bibliografiei existente propriile interpretări, care completează literatura de specialitate fără a o contrazice. Ioana Marinescu și Maria Popescu scriu despre subiecte care nu au fost cercetate aproape deloc până în prezent.
Papers by Mihail Mihnea
Bound to the Column: Antichrist Iconography in the Last Judgment Scenes in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary
New Europe College Yearbook
This study aims to investigate the relationship between visual culture and theological disputes d... more This study aims to investigate the relationship between visual culture and theological disputes during the pre‑Hussite and Hussite eras. By looking at fourteenth‑century Last Judgment scenes from the Hungarian Kingdom that contain an image of a demon bound to the column inside Leviathan’s jaws, I analyze the connections between this figure and the eschatological and Antichrist‑related discourse used by both Church representatives and preachers of the Reformation in Bohemia.
Diagrammatic Devotion and the Defensorium Mariae in the Funerary Chapel of Hărman Parish Church 1
Routledge eBooks, Feb 15, 2022
This volume critically investigates how art historians writing about Central and Eastern Europe i... more This volume critically investigates how art historians writing about Central and Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries engaged with periodization. At the heart of much of their writing lay the ideological project of nation-building. Hence discourses around periodization-such as the mythicizing of certain periods, the invention of historical continuity and the assertion of national specificity-contributed strongly to identity construction. Central to the book's approach is a transnational exploration of how the art histories of the region not only interacted with established Western periodizations but also resonated and 'entangled' with each other. In their efforts to develop more sympathetic frameworks that refined, ignored or hybridized Western models, they sought to overcome the centre-periphery paradigm which equated distance from the centre with temporal belatedness and artistic backwardness. The book thus demonstrates that the concept of periodization is far from neutral or strictly descriptive, and that its use in art history needs to be reconsidered. Bringing together a broad range of scholars from different European institutions, the volume offers a unique new perspective on Central and Eastern European art historiography. It will be of interest to scholars working in art history, historiography and European studies.
Periodization in the Art Historiographies of Central and Eastern Europe
This volume critically investigates how art historians writing about Central and Eastern Europe i... more This volume critically investigates how art historians writing about Central and Eastern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries engaged with periodization. At the heart of much of their writing lay the ideological project of nation-building. Hence discourses around periodization-such as the mythicizing of certain periods, the invention of historical continuity and the assertion of national specificity-contributed strongly to identity construction. Central to the book's approach is a transnational exploration of how the art histories of the region not only interacted with established Western periodizations but also resonated and 'entangled' with each other. In their efforts to develop more sympathetic frameworks that refined, ignored or hybridized Western models, they sought to overcome the centre-periphery paradigm which equated distance from the centre with temporal belatedness and artistic backwardness. The book thus demonstrates that the concept of periodization is far from neutral or strictly descriptive, and that its use in art history needs to be reconsidered. Bringing together a broad range of scholars from different European institutions, the volume offers a unique new perspective on Central and Eastern European art historiography. It will be of interest to scholars working in art history, historiography and European studies.
The Sacra cintola and Christ’s Side Wound: The Representation of St Francis and St Thomas in the 15th-Century Wall Painting in Mediaș, Transylvania
IKON, 2021
Book chapters by Mihail Mihnea
Representations of Saint Anne and the Virgin Mary from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period, 2024
This study concentrates upon a little-known late medieval wall painting depicting the Holy Kinshi... more This study concentrates upon a little-known late medieval wall painting depicting the Holy Kinship. The fresco is located in the parish church in Csaroda, a village in north-eastern Hungary, and was painted in the first decades of the fourteenth century.
Art Historiography and Iconologies. East and West, 2024
This chapter aims to be the first analysis of a specific trait of Romanian art historiogra- phy –... more This chapter aims to be the first analysis of a specific trait of Romanian art historiogra- phy – that the method of iconology has not been employed so far in texts analysing art in Romania. This absence is very much connected to the way in which the art history canon was constructed, and how processes of patrimonialisation evolved.
New Europe College Yearbook. Ștefan Odobleja Program 2021-2022, 2022
This study aims to investigate the relationship between visual culture and theological disputes d... more This study aims to investigate the relationship between visual culture and theological disputes during the pre‐Hussite and Hussite eras. By looking at fourteenth‐century Last Judgment scenes from the Hungarian Kingdom that contain an image of a demon bound to the column inside Leviathan’s jaws, I analyze the connections between this figure and the eschatological and Antichrist‐related discourse used by both Church representatives and preachers of the Reformation in Bohemia.
Marian Devotion in the Late Middle Ages Image and Performance, 2022
By the late Middle Ages, manifestations of Marian devotion had become multifaceted and covered al... more By the late Middle Ages, manifestations of Marian devotion had become multifaceted and covered all aspects of religious, private, and personal life. Mary becomes a universal presence that accompanies the faithful on pilgrimage, in dreams, as holy visions, and as pictorial representations in church space and domestic interiors. The first part of the volume traces the development of Marian iconography in sculpture, panel paintings, and objects, such as seals, with particular emphasis on Italy, Slovenia, and the Hungarian Kingdom. The second section traces the use of Marian devotion in relation to space, be that a country or territory, a monastery or church or personal space, and explores the use of space in shaping new liturgical practices, new Marian feasts and performances, and the bodily performance of ritual objects.
Periodization in the Art Historiographies of Central and Eastern Europe, 2022
The beginnings of art historical periods and styles have always been a concern for the grand narr... more The beginnings of art historical periods and styles have always been a concern for the grand narratives of art history. For Imre Henszlmann, one of the founding fathers of Hungarian art history in the nineteenth century, the advent of Gothic art in the Kingdom of Hungary was closely connected with the year 1241, a landmark in the history of Saint Stephen’s realm. The Mongol invasion of that year represented both a historical and art historical disaster, many of the important monuments built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries being either destroyed or seriously damaged. Nonetheless, the invasion, and the rebuilding of destroyed monuments that followed, offered the perfect opportunity for identifying a renewal of Romanesque architecture with Gothic elements. The interest in finding beginnings and endings seems to echo other nineteenth-century debates, especially in France, regarding the emergence of Romanesque art around the year 1000. A particularly interesting case is the historiography of the Cistercian monastery in Kerz, Transylvania (Cârţa in present-day Romania). Because the building was refashioned with early Gothic elements after the Mongol invasion, scholars were able to connect a major historical date, the year 1241, with the Cistercian monks as heralds of Gothic architecture, and with the emergence of the Gothic style in medieval Transylvania.
Spicilegium. Studii și articole în onoarea Prof. Corina Popa, Vlad Bedros și Marina Sabados (eds.), ed. UNArte, 2015
Călători și călătorii. A privi, a descoperi, Cristina Bogdan și Silvia Marin Barutcieff (coords.), Editura Universității din București, 2016
Time and Culture/Temps et culture. SELECTED PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR CULTURAL HISTORY (ISCH) CONFERENCE ORGANISED IN SEPTEMBER 2015 AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST, 2017
Articles by Mihail Mihnea
Religions, 2025
This research addresses the formula linking between Michael the Archangel and the Holy Virgin in ... more This research addresses the formula linking between Michael the Archangel and the Holy Virgin in the wall paintings from fourteenth-century parish churches in the Hungarian Kingdom. This starts from the murals that join together between the figure of St. Michael in the act of psychostasis, as the weigher of souls, and Mary, with the mantle, represented with her all-embracing cloak, and it investigates the spatial implications between St. Michael and Mary.
Uploads
Books by Mihail Mihnea
Papers by Mihail Mihnea
Book chapters by Mihail Mihnea
Articles by Mihail Mihnea