About the project

Global visual interculturation—the circulation of motifs, techniques, ideas, and images across cultures and through time—has been going on for a very long while, but specializations in art historical scholarship have slowed the kind of integrated cross-cultural comparison required to apprehend these complex processes of exchange.

All around the world, these long histories still resonate, both in surviving traces of the past, and in the artistic production of the present day.  In remapping Dutch art in this more global perspective, this project aims to reach beyond the Eurocentric constraints of traditional Western art history, to link early modern and contemporary histories, direct our awareness to the powerful role of visual culture within global interactions, and ultimately, through inviting broad interaction on the internet, to bring a multiplicity of perspectives to the inquiry.

The initial research for this project was funded by a Burkhardt Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, with further support from a Faculty Scholar Award and an Arts and Humanities Initiative from the University of Iowa. The photographs and video footage were shot on-site in a series of travels by Professor Hochstrasser between 2003 and 2008 that also included a circumnavigation of the globe. The development of the proof-of-concept website was funded by grants from the University of Iowa Digital Libraries and Digital Arts and Humanities Initiatives.