Institute of Art History

Pre-Modern Art History

Prof. Dr. Beate Fricke

Acting Director

Pre-Modern Art History

E-Mail: beate.fricke@unibe.ch
Office: 168
Postal Address: Institute of Art History
Mittelstrasse 43
3012 Bern
Consultation Hour: by appointment
ORCID No: orcid.org/0000-0002-8612-7744

Principal Investigator of the research project Global Horizons in Pre-Modern Art, Universität Bern, funded by the European Research Council (ERC Consolidator Grant (2018-2024)
Editor-in-chief of the journal 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und Visuellen Kultur
Principal Investigator of the research project Inheritance of Medieval Looting - From Medieval Treasures to Modern Museums funded by the Swiss National Research Foundation (SNF) (2023-2026) in collaboration with the Bern University of Applied Arts (HKB), the Bernisches Historisches Museum (BHM) and other institutions and collections.

Research Interests

History of sculpture, image theory and the veneration of images in the Middle Ages
Relics, reliquaries, and treasure objects in Early and High Medieval Art
Objects as archives of a history of applied arts, materiality, knowledge transfer and trade in the global "Middle Ages"
Art and Science in the Middle Ages
Manuscript illuminations of Genesis in Medieval Art
Pictorial space and horizon - representation and perception in Medieval Art
Non-Western pre-modern objects in Swiss collections and their provenance

Team

Beate Fricke, Dr., Full Professor
Irina Dudar, Dr., Research assistant
Elena Filliger, Teaching- (Grundkurs) and student research assistant

ERC Projekt Global Horizons (2018-2024)

Aaron Hyman, visiting professor Dezember 2022 - Juli 2023
Carlos Rojas Cocoma Dr., Wiss.-Mitarbeiter
Ivan Foletti, visiting professor April 2023
Anne McClanan, visiting professor June 2023
Finbarr Barry Flood, visiting professor Juli 2023

The Inheritance of Looting: Medieval Trophies to Modern Museums (SNF Project Grant)

Susan Marti, Dr., Research assistant
Sasha Rossman, Dr., Research assistant
Jakob Weber, M.A., PhD Student

21:Inquiries

Katharina Böhmer, M.A., Editor
Alessandra Fedrigo, Student research assistant
Lia Schüpbach, Student research assistant
Joanne Luginbühl, Freelancer
Sophie Grossmann, Freelancer

SNF PRIMA

Manuela Studer-Karlen, Dr., Professor
Lisa Schmid, M.A., Doktorandin

Former members

Adriana Basso Schaub, Teaching assistant (Grundkurs)
Theresa Holler, Dr., Postdoctoral research/lecturer
Zumrad Ilyasova, M.A., Research assistant
Amélie Joller, Student research assistant
Gregor von Kerssenbrock-von Krosigk, Predoctoral research fellow
Meekyung MacMurdie PhD, Postdoctoral research fellow
Mariko Mugwyler, Student research assistant
Saskia C. Quené Dr., Predoctoral research fellow
Stefanie Lenk, Dr., Predoctoral research fellow
Andrew Sears, Dr., Research assistant
Leonie Singer, M.A., Research assistant
Dominique Wyss, Student research assistant

Research Projects

Ongoing Research Projects

Trading Architecture analyses the loci of exchange of merchandise, knowledge and culture in the Mediterranean with the Middle and the Far East in the Middle Ages.
Object Histories. Early Modern Flotsam. For this project she was awarded a collaborative research grant from the American Council of Learned Societies, together with Finbarr Barry Flood.
Global Horizons in Pre-Modern Art.
Inheritance of Medieval Looting - From Medieval Treasures to Modern Museums funded by the Swiss National Research Foundation (SNF) (2023-2026) in collaboration with the Bern University of Applied Arts (HKB), the Bernisches Historisches Museum (BHM) and other institutions and collections.

Publications

https://berkeley.academia.edu/BeateFricke

https://boris.unibe.ch/view/contributors_bern/Fricke=3ABeate=3A=3A.html

21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual

https://global-horizons.ch/publications

Publications

Jump to: 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007

2023

Beate Fricke (Ed.), Holy Smoke. Censers across cultures, Hirmer-Verlag 2023

Beate Fricke and Finbarr Barry Flood, Tales Things Tell: Material Histories of Early Globalisms, Princeton: Princeton University Press 2023
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691215150/tales-things-tell

Beate Fricke, Silk in Stone. The Lonjas in Palma and Valencia, Zürich: Interkom-Verlag, 2023 (under contract)

Fricke, Beate und Katharina Böhmer
Politiken von Open Access : Neugründung eines (diamond/platin) Full Open Access-Journal : 21: inquiries into art, history, and the visual : Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur.
In: Kritische Berichte, Jahrgang 51, 1 (2023), Seite 15-19

Beate Fricke et. al. (Eds). 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur 4(2), arthistoricum.net
https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/xxi/issue/view/6503

Beate Fricke et. al. (Eds). 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur 4(1), arthistoricum.net
https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/xxi/issue/view/6356

Beate Fricke, in: Iconographica 2023: Images in Premodern Societies: A Special Issue of Iconographica, eds. Michele Bacci, Fabrizio Crivello, and Vesna Šćepanović, Firenze: Sismel, pp. 93-100.
https://www.sismelfirenze.it/index.php/riviste/iconographica

2023

Beate Fricke (Ed.), Holy Smoke. Censers across cultures, Hirmer-Verlag 2023

Beate Fricke, Silk in Stone. The Lonjas in Palma and Valencia, Zürich: Interkom-Verlag, 2023 (under contract)

2022

Ed. together with Aden Kumler, Destroyed – Disappeared – Lost – Never Were, Penn State University Press, 2022

Beate Fricke, Thinking in Spheres. The Curvature, the Horizon and Pictorial Space on The Feldbach Altarpiece (ca. 1460), in: Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 79 (2/2022), pp. 1-32.

Beate Fricke & Aden Kumler, Introduction: Destroyed - Disappeared - Lost - Never Were. Penn State University Press 2022
https://boris.unibe.ch/177447/

Beate Fricke & Finbarr Barry Flood (2022) Premodern Globalism in Art History: A Conversation, The Art Bulletin, 104:4, 6-19, DOI: 10.1080/00043079.2022.2070394
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00043079.2022.2070394?tab=permissions&scroll=top

Beate Fricke et. al. (Eds). 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur 3(1), arthistoricum.net
https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/xxi/issue/view/5923

Beate Fricke et. al. (Eds). 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur 3(2), arthistoricum.net
https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/xxi/issue/view/6119

Beate Fricke et. al. (Eds). 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur 3(3), arthistoricum.net
https://journals.ub.uni-he idelberg.de/index.php/xxi/issue/view/6176

Beate Fricke et. al. (Eds). 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur 3(4), arthistoricum.net
https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/xxi/issue/view/6218

Beate Fricke, "Sprechende" Knochen und erzählende Bilder : Anikonismus versus Bilderzählungen auf kleinen Tabernakeln in der spätmittelalterlichen christlichen Kunst. In: im Namen des Bildes, hg. von Axel Langer, Museum Rietberg, Zürich, Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2022, pp. 371-384

Beate Fricke, Speaking bones and narrative pictures : aniconism vs. visual narratives on small tabernacles in late-medieval Christian art., in: In the Name of the Image, ed. by Axel Langer, Zurich: Museum Rietberg, Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2022, 371-384

2021

Beate Fricke, Lottlisa Behling (1909–1989), Die Pflanze in der mittelalterlichen Tafelmalerei, Weimar: Hermann Böhlau Nachfolger, 1957, Kapitel 1: „Die Pflanzenwelt in der Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts“, in: Lee Chichester, Laura Goldenbaum, Brigitte Sölch (Hg.): Kunsthistorikerinnen 1890–1970, 2 Bände, Reimer Verlag 2021, pp. 234-248.

Beate Fricke, "Horizont und Panorama", in: Jerusalem in Scherzligen. 550 Jahre Scherzliger Passionspanorama, Basel: Schwabe, 2021, pp. 73-106.

Ed. together with Aden Kumler, Destroyed – Disappeared – Lost – Never Were, Penn State University Press, 2021

Ed. together with Lucas Burkart, Shifting Horizons. A Line and its Movement in Art, History and Literature, Basel: Schwabe 2021

Fricke, Beate. Doppelte Anfänge in Genesisdarstellungen. Der Beitrag von Sapientia zur Schöpfung im Stammheim-Missale. In: Hofmann, Henriette; Wildgruber, Gerald; Schellewald, Barbara; Schweinfurth, Sophie (Hg.) Enthüllen und Verbergen in der Vormoderne. Eikones (S. 223-245). München/Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink

Beate Fricke et. al. (Eds). 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur 2(1), arthistoricum.net

Beate Fricke et. al. (Eds). 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur 2(2), arthistoricum.net

Beate Fricke et. al. (Eds). 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur 2(3), arthistoricum.net

2020

Fricke, Beate; Frohne, Ursula; Lang, Karen; Leonhard, Karin; Shalem, Avinoam; Zimmermann, Michael F. (Hg.). 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual. Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur, 1(2). arthistoricum.net 10.11588/xxi.2020.2

Fricke, Beate. Hinges as Hints: Heaven and Earth in the Coconut Goblet at the Cathedral of Münster, Part of a Lost Rock Crystal Ensemble (197-209). In: Hahn, Cynthia; Shalem, Avinoam (Hg.) Seeking Transparency. Rock Crystals Across the Medieval Mediterranean. Berlin: Gebr. Mann

Fricke, Beate; Holler, Theresa. Rosenrot. Die Bildwelt von Flora, Fauna und Fons vitae im Godesscalc-Evangelistar als Heilsraum. In: Embach, Michael; Moulin, Claudine; Wolter-von dem Knesebeck, Harald (Hg.) Die Handschriften der Hofschule Kaiser Karls des Großen – individuelle Gestalt und europäisches Kulturerbe (S. 97-128). Trier: Verlag für Geschichte und Kultur

2019

Fricke, Beate. At the Threshold – Albrecht Dürer’s Man of Sorrows. In: Bokody, Peter; Nagel, Alexander (Hg.) Renaissance Meta-Painting. Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art History (S. 209-238). Turnhout: Brepols

Fricke, Beate. Artifex and Opifex – The Medieval Artist. In: Rudolph, Conrad (Hg.) A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe. Blackwell companions to art history (S. 45-70). Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell

2018

Fricke, Beate. Making Marvels, Faking Matter, in: Intersections– volume on Global Republic of Sacred Things, ed. by Christine Göttler and Mia Mochizuki, Leiden: Brill 2018, pp. 342-370.

2017

Fricke, Beate. Ockhams Raziermesser und Oresmes Armillarsphäre. In: Einfachheit und Komplexität (S. 541-572). Stuttgart: Metzler

2016

Fricke, Beate. Früchte des Sehens. In: Elm, Susanna; Vinken, Barbara (Hg.) Braut Christi. Familienformen in Europa im Spiegel der 'sponsa' (S. 75-100). Paderborn: Fink-Verlag

2015

Fricke, Beate. Presence through Absence. Thresholds and Mimesis in Painting. Representations, 130(1), S. 1-27. University of California Press 10.1525/rep.2015.130.1.1

Fricke, Beate. Fallen Idols - Risen Saints. Sainte Foy of Conques and the Revival of Monumental Sculpture in Medieval Art. Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages: Vol. 7. Turnhout: Brepols

Ed. together with Urte Krass, The Public in the Picture. Involving the Beholder in Antique, Islamic, Byzantine, Western Medieval and Renaissance Art, Zürich/Berlin: Diaphanes

Maleremail. Ursprung und Funkensprung zwischen syrischem Emailglas und Lasurmalerei, in: Interdependenzen. Künste und künstlerische Techniken 1430-1550, ed. by Magdalena Bushart and Henrike Haug (Berlin 2015), pp. 137-157

Complicity in Spectatorship. Bystanders and Beholders in the Massacre of Innocents of Giotto and Giovanni Pisano, in: The Public in the Picture. Involving the Beholder in Antique, Islamic, Byzantine and Western Medieval and Renaissance Art, ed. by Beate Fricke and Urte Krass (Zurich/Berlin 2015), pp. 93-111

2014

Tales from Stones, Travels through Time. Narrative and Vision in the Casket from the Vatican, in: W86th. A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 21/2 (2014), pp. 230-250.

2013

A liquid history. Blood and animation in late medieval art, in: Wet/Dry, ed. by Francesco Pellizi and Christopher S. Wood, RES. Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 63/64 (2013), pp. 53-69.

Behemoth and Double Origins in Genesis (PDF, 1.2 MB), in: Synergies: Creating Art in Joined Cultures, Festschrift dedicated to Gerhard Wolf, (Munich: Fink, 2013), pp. 287-299

2012

Mother of pearl. Matter, meaning and the origins of allegory in spheres of things, in: GESTA 51 (2012), pp. 35-53.

Kommentare als Archiv. Relektüren der Genesis von Lucas Cranach und Martin Luther, in: Gewalt der Archive, ed. by Burkhart Wolf and Thomas Weitin, (Konstanz University Press 2012), pp. 315-344

Tracce di sangue e ‚finis corporis’. Intorno alla genesi della vita nel Quattrocento. Riflessioni sull’uomo di dolori di Albrecht Dürer situato a Karlsruhe, in: Estremità e escrescenze del corpo. Extremities and Excrescences of the Body, ed. by Agostino Paravicini-Bagliani, Micrologus 19 (2012), pp. 357-380

2011

Ed. together with Markus Klammer and Stefan Neuner, Bilder und Gemeinschaften. Studien zur Konvergenz von Politik und Ästhetik in Kunst, Literatur und Theorie, München/Paderborn: Fink (Eikones-series)

Jesus Wept! On the History of Anthropophagy in Christianity. A new reading of a miniature in the Gospel book of Otto III, in: RES. Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 59/60 (2011), pp. 192-205.

Reliquien und Reproduktion. Zur Präsentation der Passionsreliquien aus der Sainte-Chapelle (Paris) im Reliquiario del Libretto um 1500 (Florenz), in: Reproduktion, Techniken und Ideen von der Antike bis heute. Eine Einführung, ed. by Jörg Probst, Berlin 2011, pp. 34-55

Zeugen und Bezeugen. Vom Anfangen, Blicken und Enden. Zu Lot und seine Töchter von Joachim Patinir, in: Zeugnis und Zeugenschaft. Perspektiven aus der Vormoderne, ed. by Heike Schlie and Wolfgang Drews, München/Paderborn 2011, pp. 271-297

Absenz und Präsenz oder die Spur der Ameisen bei Joan Rosató. Überlegungen zum Beitrag von Paulus zur Genese christlicher Bildkultur, in: Bilder und Gemeinschaften, ed. by Beate Fricke, Markus Klammer and Stefan Neuner, Paderborn 2011, pp. 43-77

2010

Zur Genealogie von Blutspuren. Blut als Metapher der Transformation auf dem Feldbacher Altar (ca. 1450) (PDF, 1.8 MB), in: L'Homme. Europäische Zeitschrift für Feministische Geschichtswissenschaft, 21, 2 (2010), pp. 11-32.

Artificium divinum und cultus imaginum – Dürers Schmerzensmann und die Geschichte eines Arguments von Johannes Damaszenus, in: „Intellektualisierung und Mystifizierung mittelalterlicher Kunst : “Kultbild”: Revision eines Begriffs, ed. by Rebecca Müller and Martin Büchsel, Berlin 2010, pp. 183-206

2009

Fingerzeig und Augenblick. Galileo Galileis Finger zwischen Fetisch und Tabu, in: Kommentieren, ed. by Philip Arjouri, Jost Philipp Klenner und Cornelia Vismann, Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte III (2009), pp. 80-94.

Fallen idols and risen saints: Western Attitudes towards the Worship of Images and the ‘Cultura Veterum Deorum’, in: The Negated Image – Case studies of past iconoclasms, ed. by Anne McClanan and Jeffrey Johnson, Ashgate 2005, pp. 67-59 (Chinese translation: Jiangsu Fine Arts Publishing House, PRC, 2009, pp. 93-136).

Schatzgestalten. Diebesgut, Liebespfand und Fesselkünstler am Werk, in: Schatzkulturen im Mittelalter. Diskurs, Praxis, Vorstellung, ed. by Lucas Burkart, Philippe Cordez, Pierre Alain Mariaux, in: Micrologus library 17 (2009), pp. 265-282

Schaumgeburten. Zur Topologie der creatio ex nihilo bei Albrecht Dürer und ihre Vorgeschichte, in: Medio Mare. Zu einer Ikonologie des Meeres, ed. by Hannah Baader and Gerhard Wolf, Zürich 2009, pp. 33-58

Visages démasqués – un nouveau type de reliquaire chez les Anjou, in: Le portrait individuel. Réflexions autour d’une forme de représentation du XIII^eau XV^esiècle, E.H.E.S.S. Paris, ed. by Dominic Olariu, Bern 2009, pp. 35-63

2008

Spiegelwelten. Verrat und Verschwörung in L'année dernière à Marienbad von Alain Resnais, in: Topologien der Bilder, ed. by Inge Hinterwaldner, Carsten Juwig, Tanja Klemm and Roland Meyer, Paderborn 2008, pp. 323-348

zusammen mit Tanja Klemm: „Conceptio – perceptio. Das Weimarer Blatt von Leonardo da Vinci“, in: Modernisierung des Sehens, hg. von Kai-Uwe Hemken und Matthias Bruhns, Weimar 2008, pp. 82-99

2007

Ecce fides. Die Statue in Conques, Götzendienst und Bildkultur im Westen, Paderborn 2007

Entlarvende Gesichter – Gedanken zur Genese der Kopfreliquiare in Italien, in: Fragment und Integrität, ed. by Jeanette Kohl and Rebecca Müller, Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag 2007, pp. 133-152

Curriculum Vitae

Curriculum vitae 2023 (PDF, 159KB)

Since 2017	Professor of Medieval Art, University of Bern
2009-2016	Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor of Medieval Art and Architecture, Department of History of Art, University of California, Berkeley
2008-2009, 2011	Swiss National Science Foundation Research Fellow, University of Zurich
2004-2008	Wissenschaftliche Assistentin, University of Zurich
1999-2005	Doctoral dissertation „Götzendienst und Bildkultur. Die Statue der Hl. Fides von Conques, University of Trier, published in German: Ecce Fides. Die Statue von Conques, Götzendienst und Bildkultur im Westen, München 2007, in English: Fallen Idols, Risen Saints. The Statue of Conques and the Revival of Monumental Sculpture in Medieval Art, Turnhout 2015.
1994-1999	Student, University of Karlsruhe