Mitchell and Boehm – a Dialogue: Image Science in the European Context

Luca Vargiu

2017-01-01

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Abstract

One of the points on which Gottfried Boehm and Tom Mitchell agreed in their 2009 correspondence does not appear to have lost its significance. In this exchange, they concur that the elaboration of a complete history of the Bildwissenschaft is still premature. Nevertheless, both scholars still wanted to outline a “history in medias res”, or at least to “record [their] respective itineraries through this labyrinth”, as Mitchell stated.2 A few years prior, in Italy, in a somewhat similar situation, the art historian Maria Andaloro stated that, while it was not her intention to draw historical conclusions, she too did not want to “give up on recounting how the general course of this reflection came about”.3 She was discussing the shifts that began in the 1980s in the historical research on icons; however, we may still consider it a valid analogy because we also find an iconic turn in late Antiquity and medieval research, in approximately in the same period.