About the Journal

Journal of the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art

The RIHA Journal was launched in 2010 by The International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art (RIHA). It is a peer-reviewed and open access e-journal devoted to the full range of the history of art and visual culture. The RIHA Journal especially welcomes papers on topics relevant from a supra-local perspective, articles that explore artistic interconnections or cultural exchanges, or engage with important theoretical questions that are apt to animate the discipline. As a collective endeavor, the RIHA Journal seeks to share knowledge and materials issued by scholars of all nationalities, and by doing so, to make a significant contribution to dissolving the boundaries between scholarly communities. Languages of publication are English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish.

Forthcoming:

Architekt:innen-Monographien – Potentiale, Grenzen, Alternativen
A RIHA Journal special issue, guest-edited by Ruth Hanisch (Dortmund), Richard Kurdiovsky (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna), Bernadette Reinhold (University of Applied Arts Vienna) and Antje Senarclens de Grancy (Graz University of Technology)

(English version below)

Architekt:innen-Monographien sind ein für den Wissenschaftsbetrieb der Architekturgeschichte selbstverständliches Publikationsformat. Selten hinterfragt, stellen sie eine spezielle Art der Narration mit konzentriertem Wissensgewinn zu Werk und Leben einer als relevant erachteten Persönlichkeit der Architektur dar. Sie besitzen zudem das Potential kanonbildend zu wirken.

Der Special Issue geht unterschiedlichen Konstruktionen und Motivationen, den Quellen, Medien und Präsentationsformaten sowie der Definition und historischen Entwicklung von Architekt:innen-Monographien in Zentraleuropa nach. Diese werden, so zeigen die Beiträge, durch ihre jeweiligen Autor:innen geformt und entstehen vor jeweils spezifischen soziokulturellen, politischen (ideologisch-nationalistischen), ökonomischen (förderungs- oder marketingtechnischen) und nicht zuletzt wissenschaftskulturellen Hintergründen.

Zentral ist die Frage nach der 'Monographiewürdigkeit', bei der aus Gender, Herkunft oder Religion abgeleitete Hegemonien wirksam werden: Wer erhält eine Monographie, wer wird bevorzugt, wer marginalisiert? Wie konstruieren wir unseren Kanon? Wer schreibt eine Monographie? Wie gehen wir mit den Selbstbildern der dargestellten Personen um? Wie mit der Beziehung zwischen Leben und Werk sowie den 'blinden Flecken', die im aktuellen Wissenschaftsdiskurs besonders relevant sind (etwa sexuelle Orientierung, Krankheit, Antisemitismus, NS-Vergangenheit)?

Und wie kann die Architekturgeschichte vom biographical turn der letzten Jahrzehnte profitieren und dabei das traditionelle 'Heroen-Denken' überwinden? Es gilt also, wirkmächtige, überkommene Narrative der Architekt:innen-Monographie kritisch zu hinterfragen und zugleich neue Potentiale auszuloten.

(Das Themenheft versammelt eine Auswahl von Beiträgen der gleichnamigen Tagung, die am 23. September 2021 an der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien stattfand.)


(English version)

Monographs on architects are a publication format that is taken for granted in the academic world of architectural history. Rarely scrutinised, they represent a special kind of narrative with concentrated knowledge about the work and life of a personality considered significant in architecture. They also have the potential to create a canon.

This special issue explores different motivations for writing such a book, the sources, media and presentation formats as well as the definition and historical development of monographs on architects in Central Europe. These are shaped by their authors and are produced against the backdrop of specific conditions, be they socio-cultural, political (ideological-nationalist), economic (regarding funding or marketing) and, last but not least, scientific-cultural.

The question of who is 'worthy of a monograph', in which hegemonies of gender, origin or religion become effective, is central. Who is made the subject of a monograph, who is favoured, who is marginalised? How do we construct our canon? Who writes a monograph? How do we deal with the self-perceptions of the people portrayed? How do we deal with the relationship between life and work and the 'blind spots' that are particularly relevant in current academic discourse (such as sexual orientation, illness, anti-Semitism, the Nazi past)?

And how can the history of architecture benefit from the 'biographical turn' of recent decades and overcome the traditional 'heroic thinking'? It is therefore important to critically scrutinise the powerful inherited narratives of monographs on architects and at the same time explore new potentials.

(The special issue brings together a selection of contributions from the homonymous conference at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna on 23 September 2021.)

Just published:

RIHA Journal 0324
Augusto Russo: "Giuseppe Pesci: New Findings on a Little-Known Eighteenth-Century Painter and Draughtsman"
DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/riha.2025.1.109016

Giuseppe Pesci and Baldassare Gabbuggiani, anatomical plates, in: Anatomicae tabulae octo quinquaginta figuris ornatae quae inter Eustachianas desiderantur opera et studio Cajetani Petrioli Romani Regis Sardiniae chirurgi, & inter Arcades Erasistrati Coi compositae, Rome: Giovanni Zempel, 1748 (photos: Google Books, copy held by the Biblioteca dell'Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome)

The essay presents new material on the little-known 18th century Roman painter Giuseppe Pesci (or Pesce; b. 1710), almost certainly the son of the more famous Girolamo, who was a pupil of Carlo Maratti and Francesco Trevisani. As from the 1750s, Giuseppe worked in Naples and in 1757 painted a Madonna and Child in wax technique for Raimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero, a work that is now in the Sansevero Chapel Museum. His early activity is almost entirely unknown, with the exception of a few paintings destined for patrons in the Marche region and in particular for San Severino Marche. This study reveals the painter's unexpected expertise in anatomical illustration, as evidenced by the commission from the physician Gaetano Petrioli, who used Pesci's drawings in 1748 and 1750 for his publications dedicated to Bartolomeo Eustachio's famous anatomical plates. In addition, attention is drawn to two autograph drawings by Pesci, now in London, which reveal his skill as a copyist of ancient and modern statues.

15 YEARS RIHA JOURNAL!

On April 14, 2010, the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art, RIHA, launched its online journal

Today, looking back to over 300 essays from all periods, regions, and media of Western art history and contemporary art, we are grateful for the support and the recognition this art history journal has received. Back in 2010, starting an online journal besides the long-established and prestigious print journals seemed to be a rather risky undertaking. However, online publishing possesses undeniable advantages. First and foremost, there is its worldwide accessibility. Furthermore, it offers authors and editors the prospect of unlimited illustrations, the possibility of linking, the appending of research data, etc. Hence, e-journals in art history have moved from a marginal phenomenon to a recognized and sought-after medium.

It was important to RIHA as an international association of – back then – over 20 research institutes in Europe, the U.S., and Australia, to develop the RIHA Journal as a platform that – despite all the necessary specialization in our discipline – offers articles across the entire spectrum and invites readers to look into fields of art history other than their own. Thus, you can find work in the RIHA Journal on Armenian sacred architecture of the 11th century next to a study of the varied artistic circle of a minister to Charles V of Habsburg in Brussels, or an article that investigates the parallel methodologies and critical reception of Le Corbusier and Portuguese contemporary Almada Negreiros. RIHA Journal special issues, on the other hand, have focused on a common theme such as the enlightening "Gottfried Lindauer – Painting New Zealand," which broke new ground in the debate on cultural transfer processes of the 19th century.

Especially in times of growing nationalisms, a broad-ranging international journal like the RIHA Journal offers the opportunity to experience the breadth of visual cultures in their countless manifestations at the highest possible scholarly level.

We would like to thank you, dear readers, for your continued interest and openness!

To mark this 15th anniversary and to stimulate thoughts for the further development of art history in these times of simultaneous globalization and returns to nationalism, we are presenting a paper of the chair of the RIHA association, Éric de Chassey, who asks: „How to Write a More Global, More Inclusive History of Art?“

RIHA Journal 0323
Éric de Chassey: "How to Write a More Global, More Inclusive History of Art? An Ancient Egyptian Sculpture and Its Six Lessons"
DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/riha.2025.1.110070

Unidentified sculptor, Male Head, c. 380–342 BCE (Egypt, 30th Dynasty), red and black granite, 24,1 × 14,6 × 20 cm. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA (photo: author)

Since its beginnings, art history has been torn between a tendency to remain inside local or national boundaries and a more transnational orientation; it has also veered between addressing only the creations of well-recognized white European male solitary artists and assessing the importance of female, anonymous, or collective creators of less highly prized objects-images. The long overdue process of writing art histories that are more global (less European-centered) and more inclusive (less focused on overprized masterpieces) is underway. For professional art historians, the multiplicity of narratives thus offered can be a blessing. For a more general public, though, as well as students and maybe even many professionals it still clashes with an implied master narrative that has been left barely untouched. The necessity for a new master narrative that meets the standards of contemporary scholarly research leads to pressing questions: How do we write it? Who will write it? Is it worth trying?