Hans Belting

Hans Belting (born 7 July 1935 in Andernach, Rhine Province) is a German art historian and theorist of medieval and Renaissance art, as well as contemporary art and image theory. He was born in Andernach, Germany, and studied at the universities of Mainz and Rome, and took his doctorate in art history at the University of Mainz. Subsequently he has held a fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks (Harvard University), Washington, D.C.

Hans Belting

Belting published his first monograph in 1962 (Die Basilica dei Ss. Martiri in Cimitile) and since then has authored more than thirty books, some of them translated into various languages. His essay The End of Art History? attracted considerable attention and Belting expanded it in successive editions.[1]

Belting is known for his contributions to the field of Bildwissenschaft ("image-science"). His account of Bildwissenschaft sought to develop an anthropological theory of the image in order to examines its universal functions that span cultural distinctions, and considered the relationship between the image and the body.[2] Belting examined images used in religious contexts in order to identify the original non-artistic functions of images today considered art objects, and argued that "art" was a unit of analysis had emerged in the 16th century that obstructed corporeal engagements with images.[3] In Likeness and Presence (1990), Belting argued for the necessity of understanding the ways images give meaning to their contexts, rather than gaining meaning from their contexts, in order to understand images as actors with their own agency.[4] Belting argues that art history as a disciplinary formation is outmoded and potentially obsolete,[5] and that a Bildwissenschaft capable of apprehending all kinds of images, the exact scope and methods of which remain uncertain, should be sought.[6]

Belting taught as a professor at the University of Hamburg in 1966.[7] He taught as a professor of art history at the University of Heidelberg, and from 1980 to 1992 as a professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität at Munich.

From 1992 until his retirement in 2002, Belting was professor at the Institute for Art History and Media Theory at the State College of Design in Karlsruhe.[8] From October 2004 until the end of September 2007, Belting served as Director of the Internationalen Forschungszentrums Kulturwissenschaften (International Research Centre for Cultural Studies) in Vienna.[9]

Belting is a member of various scientific academies in Germany and the U.S., including the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, and honorary member of the Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin (since 2006). He is a member of the Order pour le Mérite of Arts and Sciences[10] and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation Vienna (MUMOK). He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992.[11]

In 2016 Belting donated his private library in three parts to the libraries of the institutes of art history at Free University of Berlin, at Danube University Krems (Austria) as well as Center of Early Medieval Studies of Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University.[12] Hence the latter named the new library after him.[13][14]

Belting opening library with his books in Masaryk University, Brno.