Title: Christliches Kunstblatt, 1859-1905
Description: The "Christliches Kunstblatt fr Kirche, Schule und Haus" was an art periodical founded by the Protestant theologian Carl Grneisen, the art historian Karl Schnaase, and the painter Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld to provide education in Christian art to the evangelical Protestant community in Germany. The journal was associated with a Protestant union for religious art called the Verein fr religiöse Kunst in der evangelischen Kirche. Each of the founders brought extraordinary expertise to the project. Grneisen was a leader of the Eisenach Conference of the German Evangelical Church and a famous reformer with great authority in architecture, visual art, and music. Schnaase was a pioneer in art history whose vision of the historical art survey shaped the field for many generations. Schnorr was an artist who spent some of his formative years with the German religious painters group known as the Nazarenes, served Ludwig I of Bavaria as a painter of historicist wall murals, designed stained glass windows for churches around Europe, and created an illustrated Bible. Later editors included the theologians Heinrich von Merz, Johannes von Merz, and David Koch; the painter Carl Gottfried Pfannschmidt; and the archaeologist Oskar Thulin. This collection includes issues of the Christliches Kunstblatt published between 1859 and 1905. Each issue was devoted to one or several key objects of art, architecture, or liturgical practice. An opening article that dealt with the historical, formal, and symbolic elements of a work was followed by book reviews and occasionally calls to the activities of the Verein fr religiöse Kunst. Features included considerations of the monument to Luther in Worms, the Wartburg Castle, and "paramentics," or the art of church decoration. Students of German history, the history of religion, art history, and cultural studies will find this an important and rich primary source.
Subjects: Christianity and the arts, Periodicals, Liturgical objects, Christian art and symbolism, Religious architecture
Places: Germany