A thematic compilation of 3200 German, Swiss and Central-European artworks

Thanks to Internet, the WEB and the on-going digitizing of many documents, the compilation of  large thematic catalogues becomes more feasible than ever before. The endless information about a specific theme is indeed always scattered among a multitude of monographs and ‘catalogues raisonnés’ of artists, museum and exhibition catalogues, sales catalogues, notary and death inventories, myriads of bibliographical references, and thus requires a considerable effort to explore. The digital turn allows for better opportunities and less travelling to libraries in different countries.

One way of compiling is through categorization of the artworks into ‘topics’, the subject of this post (1).

One must take into account that such compilations (or surveys) represent necessarily limited samples of the indefinite number of artworks depicting a given theme by an unknown number of artists. The samples cannot be random or representative samples in statistical terminology, i.e. all works of the 'population' would have an equal chance to get an entry in the catalogue. They are always biased by the information sources available to the compiler and many artworks have never been described or catalogued and are now lost. They are so-called 'convenient' samples. Would a large size of the samples counterbalance the bias?  Can a 'convenient' sampling be 'representative' enough to estimate or to detect certain trends and relationships within the whole 'population'? These are interesting questions for art historians (2).

This compilation is extracted from my database or ‘Digital Thematic Research Collection’. It is Volume 4.1 in the series of Topical Catalogues of the Iconography of Venus from the Middle Ages to Modern Times and follows the same methodology as the earlier Volumes (3). It describes 3198sculptures, reliefs, paintings, frescoes, drawings, prints and illustrations of 1506identified artists of Germany, Switzerland and Central-Europe. Anonymous artists, often described as 'School of...' or 'follower' or 'manner of...'  do not get an entry in the Catalogue but get 'Comments' in related entries. The publication counts 302 pp. including an Index of Artists, a Directory of Owners and an extensive Bibliography. A fully searchable PDF (12,3 MB) is free available in attachment of the web page for this Volume. A paperback book ($20.00)  or  hard cover book (€34,12) with Previews are also available.

All artworks are categorized in 18 main topics, mutually exclusive and exhaustive: each artwork belongs to only one topic and there are no artworks left out. Within a topic, subtopic or subdivision of the subtopic, artworks are listed chronologically. The description of each artwork follows the information sources and is given without discussion, but comments from the information sources may be added. It does not exclude more accurate information from other sources not yet consulted.  A 'Guideline to the Topical Catalogue' with examples of the entries explains the applied methodology. 

See further details on my web page Topical Catalogues.  

These Topical Catalogues are a unique resource for further studies. One objective is the quantitative analysis, i.e. ‘counting’ artworks and artists who depicted 'Aphrodite/Venus' and exploring their time distribution, the frequencies and popularity of topics (4). 

Artists who created artworks depicting 'Aphrodite/Venus'

Simple arithmetic tells that the average number of artworks depicting 'Aphrodite/Venus' by the German, Swiss and Central-European artists is 2,1 (=3198/1506), but in fact 67,8 % of all those artists created only once such an artwork. This percentage is very close to the overall percentage 66,9 % calculated for the artists of Italy, France and the Low Countries (see Research Paper 5, Table 9). Only 14 % created two artworks, 6 % created three artworks, etc...less than 8 % created more than three works. This finding has to do with the success of the artist in painting this motive and confirms once more the applicability of Lotka's law of scientific productivity to artistic productivity.

Another preliminary analysis allows for the ranking of the artists according to the number of their works depicting and entitled 'Aphrodite/Venus', compared to their colleagues of Italy, France and the Low Countries. Predictable is the highest ranking for Lucas CRANACH (I), with 84 artworks (6), but somewhat surprising is the third rank for the Swiss-born woman artist: Angelica KAUFFMAN. She also remains among the top ten artists of the four regions analysed, a remarkable fact given the low percentage of women artists who depicted 'Aphrodite/Venus' (7). More about this aspect in my forthcoming post.

Germany, France, the Low Countries and Switzerland
A highlight is the close match in this ranking between CRANACH (I) and his 100 year younger famous Flemish colleague RUBENS: their female figures, ornamented in both examples shown below, cannot be more strikingly different. Similar extreme differences can be found in the multiples 'Judgement of Paris' (22 works by CRANACH (I) in this compilation and 13 works of this topic by RUBENS in Volume 3.1).

c1527 L CRANACH (I): Venus HAUM, Braunschweig

c1638 P P RUBENS: Helena Fourment ("Das Pelzchen")     Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien

1528 L CRANACH (I): The Judgement of Paris Kunstsammlung Basel

1632-5 P P RUBENS: The Judgement of Paris National Gallery, London

c1530 L CRANACH(I):Venus und Amor Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Among the other compositions of CRANACH depicting Venus, 46 artworks depict 'Venus with Cupid' (Venus always standing to the right and none with more than one Cupid).
A  majority (29 works) show 'Cupid the honey thief complaining to Venus', a very popular theme in the first half of the 16th century in Germany and almost absent in the other Catalogues.

1531 L CRANACH (I): Venus and Cupid complaining KMSK-MRBA, Brussel-Bruxelles

According to this compilation the unique compositions of CRANACH were seemingly not often replicated by other artists and few engravings of his paintings are extant or known.

The topic 'Venus and Cupid', very popular in all regions till the 19th century, had almost disappeared in the art of the 20th century (see Fig.9 in Research Paper 5).  But suddenly PICASSO created several replications of one of CRANACH's  'Venus and Cupid' paintings: another example of a 'meme'or'information pattern'in a cybernetic approach (5).

c1949 P PICASSO: Vénus et l'Amour d'après Cranach Centre Pompidou, Paris

More about the Data Analysis, and specifically about the time-distribution and popularity of topics, will be published in a forthcoming Research Paper 6.

To end this post, a quote I like to remember whenever I look at art...or so-called art, by the great German literary artist and art critic Bertolt Brecht:

(1) This post can be considered as a sequel to my posts of September 24, 2012 'What is needed in the digital world of art history : an old kind of scholarship' and June 12, 2011 'What are Topical Catalogues ?'

(2) Convenience or opportunity sampling is defined as a non-probability sampling method where some elements of the 'population' have no chance of selection (these are sometimes referred to as 'out of coverage'/'undercovered' like many artworks in private collections or lost artworks which were never described). Considerations for researchers (art historians) using convenience samples include (see Sampling):

* Is there good reason to believe that a particular convenience sample would or should respond  differently than a random sample from the same population?
* Is the question being asked by the research one that can adequately be answered using a convenience sample?

(3) At  present four Topical Catalogues of artists from Italy, France, the Low Countries and from Germany, Switzerland and Central-Europe have been published. They describe in detail 1840 works of 649 Italian artists, 2997 works of 997 French artists, 2636 works of 728 artists of the Low Countries and 3198 works of 1506 artist of Germany, Switzerland and Central-Europe, totalling  10671 works from 3880 artists over a period of more than 500 years. The publication of the Topical  Catalogue Vol. 5 'The Pan-European Venus of Eastern-, Southern-, Western- and Northern-European Regions'  is scheduled for 2013.

(4) On my web page Data Analysis : a series of Research Papers presents the results of this type of analysis. All Research Papers are available in in pdf and can be downloaded. The web page introduces also a remarkable finding about the applicability of the so-called Lotka's law of scientific productivity to artistic productivity.

(5) See my post of August 3, 2012 'Cybernetics and art history: an odd relation?'

(6) A general issue is the authentication of works: the level of authentication is given in the Catalogues.  In particular, many of CRANACH's works are attributed to him or his workshop or might have been created by his sons Lucas CRANACH (II) (1515-1586) or Hans or Johann Lucas CRANACH (1513-1537). Also many recorded works have not been illustrated. More about CRANACH and attributions in the Cranach Digital Archive an initiative of nine major museums in Europe and the United States. The Archive shows presently only 13 paintings depicting or entitled 'Venus' (12 'withCupid' and one 'Judgement of Paris').

(7) See my post of  August 6, 2011 'Women Artists who depicted Aphrodite/Venus'