Senior Lecturer
- About
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- Email Address
- hans.hones@abdn.ac.uk
- School/Department
- School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History
Biography
Hans C. Hones is Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Aberdeen, as well as Undergraduate Programme Coordinator for the MA in Art History. Prior to joining UoA in 2020, he worked as a lecturer at the Courtauld Institute and has held teaching and research positions at The Warburg Institute and UCL, among other. He gained his PhD from LMU Munich in 2013.
Hans is a leading researcher in the field of art historiography and art theory. He has published monographs on seminal figures such as Heinrich Wölfflin and Aby Warburg, on the search for the 'origins of art' in eighteenth-century historiography, and on (self-) translation and migration in art history.
Much of his work addresses the history of humanities more broadly. He has a keen interest in the formation of art history as an academic discipline, and its intersections with neighbouring areas of study, such as Classics and antiquarianism, prehistoric archaeology, and theology.
To date, Hans has published three single-authored monographs, seven edited collections, special issues, and exhibition catalogues, and c. 40 essays. His work has been supported by the Herzog-August-Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel and the Paul Mellon Centre London.
Prizes and Awards
Paul Mellon Centre Research Collections Fellowship 2021/22
- Research
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Research Areas
Accepting PhDs
I am currently accepting PhDs in Art History.
Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your research ideas further.
Art History
Accepting PhDsCurrent Research
Hans is a leading expert in the history of art historiography. He has published extensively on art historiography since the eighteenth century, and has written and edited books on: Heinrich Wölfflin (Wölfflins Bild-Körper, 2011), eighteenth-century antiquarianism (Kunst am Ursprung, 2014), and art history and migration (Migrating Histories of Art, co-ed. 2019), among others. His third monograph Tangled Paths. A Life of Aby Warburg has been published by Reaktion Books in spring 2024. Much of his work focuses on the intersections of art history with neighbouring fields of knowledge: Classics, Archaeology, Theology among them. His work is driven by a love for archives, and for unearthing ideas and debates that help to rethink the canonical narrative of art history and its place in modern academia.
Art History in Britain
Much of Hans’ recent work has been focused on the history of art history in Britain. He aims to reassess the history of art history in Britain by focusing on the institutional debates on the place of the discipline in the country’s education system. The project argues that the marginal status of art history in British academia is best understood not as an intellectual problem, but as the result of institutional power struggles: the remit of art history was contested by more established professions such as academic artists, historians, or classicists who considered the historical study of artworks (e.g. medieval manuscripts and Greek sculpture) as their domain. Hans is interested in how art historians professionalised themselves and eventually carved out a niche for their subject, amidst a changing landscape of higher education.
For some preliminary results, see the articles in British Art Studies 2022; Kunstchronik 2022; Zeitschrift fuer Kunstgeschichte 2021, and in the edited volume Migrating Histories of Art. Self-Translations of a Disciplin, 2019.
Art and Environment in the nineteenth-century
He also has a keen interest on the role of environmental discourses for Neoclassical and Romantic art and art theory. He is particularly interested in the reception of Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s climate theory in 18th and 19th-century art and archaeology, and its consequences for neoclassical geographies of art, culture, and the “Greek ideal” (see articles on Joseph Gandy, Architectural History 2021; on Humber de Superville, kritische berichte 2021; and in the volume Winckelmann und die Schweiz, 2018).
- Teaching
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- Publications
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Tangled Paths: A Life of Aby Warburg
Reaktion Books. 288 pagesBooks and Reports: BooksFlat Iconology: Metamorphoses of a Method in British Exile
Art Historiography and Iconologies Between West and East. Bałus, W., Kunińska, M. (eds.). Routledge, 12 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters (Peer-Reviewed)- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003137528-7
Wölfflin’s North:: The Burden of Belonging
Journal of the Northern Renaissance, vol. 14Contributions to Journals: ArticlesThe Rise and Fall of the ‘clerks’”: British Art History, 1950-1970.
British Art Studies, no. 24Contributions to Journals: ArticlesBritish Art and British Art History
Kunstchronik, vol. 75, no. 7, pp. 343-347Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/kc.2022.7
Out of the Shadows? Discovering Mary Warburg: Review of: Hedinger, Bärbel; Diers, Michael (Eds.): Mary Warburg. Porträt einer Künstlerin. Leben, Werk, München: Hirmer Verlag 2020 ISBN-13: 978-3-7774-3614-2, 535 S., EUR 68.00
Journal of Art Historiography, vol. 25, 25/HCH1Contributions to Journals: Literature ReviewsPainting Art History: Review of Lea Kuhn, Gemalte Kunstgeschichte, 2020
Journal of Art Historiography, vol. 25Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.48352/uobxjah.00003492
Gandy's Arkaiology: The Deluge and Romantic Climatologies of Architecture
Architectural History, vol. 64, pp. 321-346Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/arh.2021.13
Vor der Flut: Humbert de Superville und die Abgründe der Vorzeit
kritische berichte, no. 2, pp. 24-34Contributions to Journals: ArticlesUntranslatable: Gottfried Kinkel, ‘Kulturgeschichte’ and British Art Historiography
Zeitschrift fuer Kunstgeschichte, vol. 84, no. 2, pp. 248-268Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ZKG-2021-2005
Winckelmann im Sammlungsraum: Armut macht Geschichte
Schöne Wissenschaften: Sammeln, Ordnen und Präsentieren im Josephinischen Wien. Fischer, N., Mader-Kratky, A. (eds.). 1 edition. Austrian Academy of Science, pp. 127-142, 16 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters (Peer-Reviewed)- [ONLINE] https://www.austriaca.at/0xc1aa5576_0x003c74af.pdf
- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1553/978OEAW86427
Hedinger, Bärbel; Diers, Michael: Mary Warburg. Porträt einer Künstlerin
ArtHist.net, no. Apr 18 2021Contributions to Journals: Reviews of Books, Films and ArticlesModern Lives – Modern Legends: Artist Anecdotes since the 18th century
Journal of Art Historiography, vol. 23Contributions to Journals: ArticlesA Match Not Made in Heaven: Artist Anecdotes and the ‘Dialogues of the Dead’
Journal of Art Historiography, vol. 23, 23/HCH1Contributions to Journals: ArticlesKlassizismus, Weltkunst und die Verführungen des Bildvergleiches
Sehen als Vergleichen: Praktiken des Vergleichens von Bildern, Kunstwerken und Artefakten. Grave, J., Hochkirchen, B., Heyder, J. C. (eds.). Bielefeld University Press, pp. 51-80, 30 pagesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters (Peer-Reviewed)Norm und System. Winckelmann und die Royal Academy
Marburger Jahrbuch fur Kunstwissenschaft, vol. 46Contributions to Journals: ArticlesVorsicht Tiefsinn!: Review of Kurt Forster, Aby Warburgs Kulturwissenschaft, 2018
Kunstchronik, vol. 73, no. 1, pp. 2-6Contributions to Journals: Literature Reviews’A very specialised subject’: Art History in Britain
Insiders/Outsiders.: Refugees from Nazi Europe and their Contribution to British Visual Culture. Bohm-Duchen, M. (ed.). Lund HumphriesChapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersEmbodied Formalism: Knowledge beyond Thought: Review of Zeynep Celik Alexander, Kinaesthetic Knowing, 2017
Art History, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 402-405Contributions to Journals: Literature Reviews- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.12434
Migrating Histories of Art: Self-translations of a discipline
Books and Reports: AnthologiesSeductive Foreignness. Gottfried Kinkel at University College London
Migrating Histories of Art. Self-Translations of a Discipline. Hönes, H., Costa, M. T. (eds.). de Gruyter, pp. 149-164, 218-22Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersSpielraum der Rationalität.: Warburg und die Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung
Aby Warburg und die Natur. Fehrenbach, F., Zumbusch, C. (eds.). de Gruyter, pp. 33-48Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110583410
Warburg’s Positivism: Confessions of a Truffle Pig
Oxford Art Journal, vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 361-379Contributions to Journals: Articles- [ONLINE] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxartj/kcy019
Kunst in der Dachrinne: Friedrich Oliviers introspektives Gemälde Noahs Einzug in die Arche
Bilderfahrzeuge: Aby Warburgs Vermaechtnis und die Zukunft der Ikonologie. Beyer, A. (ed.). Wagenbach, pp. 202-211Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: ChaptersAgainst "vulgar and shallow interdisciplinarity": Review of Matthew Rampley, The Seductions of Darwin, 2018
Kunstchronik, vol. 71, no. 3, pp. 130-134Contributions to Journals: Literature Reviews