Dedicated to the Baroque in Central Europe, the 55th volume of the "Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte"
gathers a large number of art historians, whose contributions explore the given topic from various perspectives.
The term "Central Europe", always differing in its meanings when used in a particular geographic, historic or
political context, has been pickted delierately, as this publication is to view 17th and 18th century art and ist highly
complex linkages within the given culture-historic framework irrespectively of todays borderlines; a rewarding
aim, as especially in the Baroque period both the prestige-thinking of learned commissioners of artworks and the
artists growing interest in study tours, together with the large number of newly published print works, made the
transport and supra-regional exchange of ideas, forms and motifs gain in momentum.
The contributions to this volume were written by authors from, and concern topics of, Austria, Czechia, Germany,
Hungary, Italy, Poland and Switzerland. The case studies aim at detailed analysis of the works and phenomena,
using different methods according to the contexts into which forms are set. The studies unveil, and question,
existing connections and dependencies within regions in Central Europe, and they deal with the local particularities
of the individual objects. The articles in this volume cover all genres of visual arts at that time, with the emphasis
lying on architecture.