Synagonism: Theory and Practice in Early Modern Art

Yannis Hadjinicolaou, PD Dr (2023), University of Hamburg, is Akademischer Rat a.Z at the Institute of Art History, University of Bonn. He has published the monograph Thinking Bodies – Shaping Hands, Handeling in Art and Theory of the Late Rembrandtists (2019) as well as five edited volumes and articles on art and art theory of the early modern period, the political iconography of falconry and the theory and history of art history. His forthcoming book is entitled The Art of Medieval Falconry (2024). Joris van Gastel, PD Dr (2022), University of Zurich, is assistant professor at the Institute of Art History in Zurich. He has published widely on early modern art, with a particular focus on Roman baroque sculpture and the art of Southern Italy, and is co-editor of the collected works of Heinrich Wölfflin. His book on materiality and identity in baroque Naples is forthcoming. Markus Rath, PhD (2016), Humboldt-University of Berlin, Assistant Professor of Art and Knowledge in the Early Modern Period at the University of Trier. He was previously a research assistant at the HU Berlin, at the German Centre for Art History in Paris and at the University of Basel. His dissertation examined movable sculpture (Die Gliederpuppe. Kult – Kunst – Konzept, Berlin/Boston 2016). Current research focuses on abstraction and expressivity in the early modern period as well as metaphorology, materiality and mediality in pre-modern art and science.

List of Figures

Notes on Contributors



Synagonism: An Introduction

 Yannis Hadjinicolaou, Joris van Gastel, and Markus Rath



PART 1: Theory and Practice



1 El Greco’s Synagonism

 Yannis Hadjinicolaou

2 Touch and Trace: Clay in the Hands of the Baroque Sculptor

 Joris van Gastel

3 Raphael’s Mond Crucifixion and the Lesson of Santa Maria Novella

 Franz Engel



PART 2: Collaborations



4 Normatively Conditioned Synagonism: Competition and Collaboration, Specialization and Quality Enhancement in the Context of Guild Monopolies on Painting

 Danica Brenner

5 A Soul for a Bridge: On the History of Architectural Collaborations with the Devil

 Jasmin Mersmann

6 The Burden of Success in Quattrocento Sculpture: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Mino da Fiesole, Donatello

 Fabian Jonietz



PART 3: Intermedialities



7 Sound Spaces: Visualizations of Religious Music in Caravaggio

 Isabella Augart

8 Beyond the Paragone: Andrea del Sarto’s Color-Reduced Fresco Cycle in the Chiostro Dello Scalzo in Florence Considered as a Case Study of Synagonism

 Helen Boeßenecker

9 Medial Diffference and Medial Synthesis in the Winged Altarpiece: The Oscillating Play of Artforms and the Range of Human Vision

 Sandra Hindriks



PART 4: Nature and Art



10 Hands at Work: The Stone Cutter and the Artist

 Maurice Saß

11 Renaissance Architectural Culture and Geological Inquiry

 Elizabeth Petcu

12 Synagonism in Stone

 Markus Rath



Index