The Wall Painting Cycle on the Sciences and Arts in the Brandenburg Cathedral Cloister. Art Production and Organisation of Knowledge around 1450.

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Ulrike Heinrichs
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: from 2017 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 346774044

Discovered and uncovered only in 2001/2005, the wall paintings at the "White Canons' in Brandenburg" in the former library of the late medieval cloister at the Brandenburg Cathedral had been known up to then primarily from a contemporary description, handed down in texts by the humanist Hartmann Schedel. Since then, thorough research on this outstanding object with the methods of Art History has been lacking. This project will fill the gap and provide a systematic study of this complex of ornamental and figurative wall painting within its spatial surroundings and spiritual context. It will be the project's goal to reveal and map out the outstanding features of this in many ways unique complex: its exemplary position in art history of the March of Brandenburg, with its European frame of reference in the hitherto little researched period of the mid-15th century, an innovative programme of pictorial development of "practice" in art as both a universal and quintessential field of knowledge in the arts and sciences and its manifold function as a prestigious library room of the White Canons, at the same time the chapter of Brandenburg Cathedral, placed between the priorities of competition and alliances. Our project will cooperate with the scientific conservation project titled "The Wall Painting Cycle on the Sciences and Arts in the Brandenburg Cathedral Cloister. A conservation science approach to substance and content" conducted by Dr. Nicole Riedl-Siedow, Certified Conservator and Professor at the Hildesheim University of Applied Sciences and Art (HAWK-HHG), to intensify, especially in the field of medieval wall paintings, urgently needed interdisciplinary teamwork between art history and restoration.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Dr. Dietmar Haubfleisch; Professorin Dr. Gudrun Oevel