The Chicago School of Media Theory > Members > Hans Belting




Hans Belting

email: h-belting@northwestern.edu
homepage: http://www.arthistory.northwestern.edu/faculty/belting.htm

Professor Belting (Ph.D. 1959, University of Mainz; Mary Jane Crowe Professor), is an historian of Medieval and early modern European art, as well as contemporary art and theory. From 1970-80, he was Professor of Art History at the University of Heidelberg, and from 1980-93, Professor of Art History at the University of Munich, occupying the chair formerly held by Heinrich Wolfflin and Hans Sedlmayr. In 1993 he left Munich to build a Ph.D. program called Kunstwissenschaft and Medientheorie at the newly founded School for New Media (Hochschule fuer Gestaltung) at Karlsruhe which cooperates with the Center for Art and Media Technologies (ZKM) in the same city. In October 2000, he initiated a research programme entitled "Bildanthropologie. Image-Media-Body. In November 2002, he retired from the Hochschule fur Gestaltung but continued activities as a speaker in the program for another year. In 2002-03, he held the European Chair at the College de France.

Professor Belting has also held visiting appointments at Harvard and Columbia Universities. He is a member of the Medieval Academy of America, the American Academy for Arts and Sciences, the Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin and the "Orden pour le merite fuer Wissenschaften und Kuenste" (an originally Prussian order for 36 German and 36 International members). He served as the Getty visiting Professor at Buenos Aires, Honorarprofessor (Honorary Chair) at the University of Heidelberg. Belting is a Member of the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften and of the Academia Europaea, and received an Honorary Degree (D.lit.) from the Courtauld Institute, University of London, 2003.

His many books include Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the Era of Art (1984), The End of the History of Art (1987), The Germans and Their Art: A Troublesome Relationship (1998), The Invisible Masterpiece: The Modern Myths of Art (2001), Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights (2002) and Art History After Modernism (forthcoming).