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Working Group: Visual Representations

The working group examines various types of visual representations. The group deals with different concepts of pictures, images, and visuality in accordance with the participants' manifold objects of interest.

The working group comprehends visual representations as historical documents. The participants examine the functionality of visual representations as carriers of meaning and their mediality. They are researching an extensive range of material deriving from a variety of contexts – the late Middle Ages, the early modern and modern periods. Specifically, this material comprises:

1. Neapolitan aristocratic tombs and chapels,
2. Medieval manuscript illuminations,
3. Early modern seals, coins and etchings,
4. Illustrated broad sheets and modern copperplate engravings,
5. Modern media such as film, photography, advertising posters and information graphics.

The group investigates this material with regard to all participating disciplines. They discuss critical analyses of meanings of visual representations, their relationship to the text, pictural knowledge and its transmission, the constitution of visuality as well as the representation's reception.