English summary
Patronage in 17th century Rome
Arnold Witte has published widely on Italian art, especially Baroque art in Rome. His particular attention goes to iconography and patronage of Counter Reformation painting, in conjunction with institutional networks of both the Catholic Church and secular authorities. This approach is exemplified in his book on the Palazzetto Farnese (The Artful Hermitage, L'Erma di Bretschneider, Rome 2008) and the article on Domenichino's decoration at the Cappella dei Santi Fondatori in Grottaferrata, where the motives of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese (1573-1626) to commission art both for his own palace in Rome as well as for other locations were explained not as a result of artistic tastes or preferences, but by means ofFarnese's ecclesiastical position and obligations within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. An institutional approach makes clear that manyof theworks of art he commissioned from AnnibaleCarracci, Domenichino and Lanfranco reflect his attempts to adopt himself to the shifting expectations of the Vatican authorities towards cardinal protectors. An ongoing project Witte is working on concerns the church of San Martino ai Monti in Rome, which was decorated by Gaspar Dughet between 1648 and 1651.
Artful Hermitage on Google Books
Corporate Patronage of the Arts
This institutional approach to patronage and the meaning of art was also applied by Witte to other fields, in particular to twentieth-century corporate art commissioning and collecting. In his book on the Dutch Post offices and their policy to commission graphic artists and industrial designers (Design is geen vrijblijvende zaak, 2006), he has argued that not the persons shaping this tradition are the key to understand these developments, buttheirrespective positions in the state company itself and in other functions within society. From this perspecive, the closing down of the arts and design department of the PTT in 2002 can be explained as a result of institutional and organizational changes leading to amore professional attitude towards the arts and design. These opposed and ultimately obstructed the ideologically charged goals and aims of the artistic patronage of the arts & design department.
With respect to the phenomenon of corporate art collecting in present-day Netherlands, the increasing professionalisation with respect to arts and business is also expressed in the varying functions that art collections serve within companies, and in the wider context of the Dutch art world. The recent book Bedrijfscollecties in Nederland / Corporate Art Collections in the Netherlands, (Rotterdam: VBCN/NAi 2010) analyses the ongoing discussions on the Stuyvesant and the ABN-AMRO collections, for example, which precisely reflect the different expectations that several parties in this field have with respect to corporate art collections.
Dutch Corporate Art Collections (NAi Publishers)
Historiography of the Italian Baroque
Thirdly, Witte is conducting research in the field of art historiography, in particular the way the Italian Baroque has been studiedin the first half of the twentieth century. One of the key figures inthisrespect isAlois Riegl, whose seminal lectures on the subject were published only partially after his death in 1908 in Die Entstehung der Barockkunst in Rom (The Origins of the Baroque in Rome). With the translation of this book into English (in cooperation with Andrew Hopkins of the Università dell'Aquila) and introductions on its publication and the history of its academic reception (by Alina Payne, Andrew Hopkins and Arnold Witte), the aim is to understand how Riegl's attempt to throw a new light on this subject isa result of, and in turn exerted influence on, scholars in the Viennese, German and international academic contexts.It also shows how Riegl did not restrict himself methodologically to formalist discussions of works of art, but had a much broader perspective on the matter. In fact, the term 'Kunstwollen', which is often seen as quintessence of his thinking, played a minor role in this book, indicating that he shifted away from it towards a much more historical approach of seventeenth-century art. This project was published in 2010 by the Getty Research Institute.
Apart from this book, Witte was also guest-editor for the international journal for Italian Studies, Incontri, for a part on the Dutch and Flemish study of Italian Seicento art in the last century.
TOC and Introduction to Riegl's Roman Baroque
Reviews
Arnold Witte is a regular reviewer of art historical publications, both on seventeenth-century Italian art as on modern and contemporary collections, for Boekman, Incontri, Simiolus, Sixteenth-century Journal and H-Arthist amongst others. His most recent review can be read on the H-Arthist network, and is on Loredana Lorizzo's book on the seventeenth-century Roman art dealer Pellegrino Peri.
Review Lorizzo
Academic positions
Arnold Witte is assistant professor in Cultural Policy, coordinator of the MA programme of Dutch Art in European Context, and he is also Head of Studies of the department Art, Religion and Cultural Studies of the University of Amsterdam. Apart from that, he is also a lecturer in the history of art at University College Amsterdam.
Since 2005 he is also honorary secretary (and former webmaster) of the Dutch Society for Italian Studies (Werkgroep Italiestudies), and he is a member of the international advisory board of Explorations in Renaissance Culture.
Dutch Society for Italian Studies
MA programme Dutch Art
Explorations in Renaissance Culture