Jessica Korschanowski, M.A.

Vita

• 03/2015 Forschungsaufenthalt an der Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia
• 08/2013-10/2013 Forschungsaufenthalt im RKD, Den Haag
• 04/2012-03/2015 Stipendiatin des Graduiertenkollegs "Expertenkulturen des 12. bis 18. Jahrhunderts" der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
• seit 05/2011 freie Mitarbeit in der Kunstsammlung der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
• 09/2010-02/2011 Praktika am Rijksmuseum Amsterdam und in der Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen Berlin
• 05/2006-05/2009 Studentische Hilfskraft am Althistorischen Seminar bei Prof. em. Dr. Gustav Adolf Lehmann
• 10/2002-05/2010 Studium der Kunstgeschichte, der Alten sowie Mittleren und Neueren Geschichte an der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

Dissertationsprojekt

The alchemist is a popular figure of seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish genre painting. Well known are the stereotypes of the fraudulent, mercenary alchemist and the foolish gold seeker, who impoverishes his entire family by spending his last coin on a futile quest. These motifs were mainly created in humanist satiric literature and its illustrations and were adopted as moralizing and yet amusing subjects of Dutch and Flemish genre painting - at least since engravings after Pieter Brueghel the Elder's famous Alchemist were widely disseminated. Lesser acknowledged is the fact that a lot of Northern and Southern Netherlandish seventeenth-century paintings depicting alchemists also refer to many other aspects in the development of early modern alchemy. Alchemical knowledge and practice played an important role in early modern culture, at least until the end of the seventeenth century. But since an institutionalized authority on alchemy did not yet exist in the scientific field, alchemists as well as proponents and opponents of the theory of transmutation argued polemically about legitimacy, spirit and purpose of the distillatory art. Humanist scholars, natural philosophers, theologians, pharmacists, physicians, metallurgists, and smelters etc. - they all fought about the exclusive power of interpretation competing for courtly patronage and for creating value from the economic and social resources of alchemical technology. The vivid discourse on alchemy is reflected in the paintings: they do not merely show the ignorant fortune-hunter, or the alchemist as charlatan, but also the crafted and experienced distiller as well as the philosophical scholar who conflates book study with experimental laboratory work. In addition, the emergence and academic establishment of iatrochemistry at the medical faculty of many European universities seem to have inspired a new iconographic type by combining elements from the themes: "he alchemist at work in his laboratory", "A visit to the doctor" an "An apothecary's shop".
The project focuses on cataloguing 17th-century Netherlandish genre paintings of the alchemist in his workplace and discusses his different images in relation to the contemporary socio-cultural context. It will be shown that the paintings comment on the ambiguous valuation of alchemy and its advocates. They can be regarded as an integral part of forming public opinions on alchemy and thereby also contributed to the development of modern chemistry.

Publikationen

• "Tradition, Innovation und künstlerischer Austausch: Die Genese einer holländischen Genreszene auf dem Höhepunkt des Goldenen Jahrhunderts", in: Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Neue Folge, 12.03.2015, S. 1-79. [URL: res doctae-Server].
• "Rezension von Sven Dupré/Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk/Beat Wismer (Hrsg.), Kunst und Alchemie: Das Geheimnis der Verwandlung", in: Journal für Kunstgeschichte 18 (2014), Nr. 4, S. 328-335.
• "»Vereenigingh van Apelles en Apollo«: Pictorial Narrative in Jan Steen's Genre Painting 'Quack on the Village Fair' (c. 1673-1675)", in: Kayo Hirakawa (Hrsg.), Aspects of Narrative in Art History, Kyoto 2014, S. 85-98.
• "»Mundus vult decipi«: Die Inszenierung des Quacksalbers in der nordniederländischen Genremalerei des 17. Jahrhunderts", in: Tina Asmussen/Hole Rößler (Hrsg.), Scharlatan!: Eine Figur der Relegation in der frühneuzeitlichen Gelehrtenkultur (Zeitsprünge: Forschungen zur Frühen Neuzeit, Bd. 17, 2/3), Frankfurt a. M. 2013, S. 245-282.
• "Wirklichkeit als Schöpfung der Kunst: Exemplarische Untersuchung von Jan Miense Molenaers 'Bauernküche (Ungleiche Liebe)'", in: Carsten Jöhnk/Annette Kanzenbach (Hrsg.), Schein oder Wirklichkeit? Realismus in der Niederländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Ausst.-Kat. Ostfriesisches Landesmuseum, Emden 2010 (Veröffentlichungen des Ostfriesischen Landesmuseums Emden, Bd. 31), Bremen 2010, S. 48-53.

Vorträge

• "Zwischen Narrheit und Gelehrtheit: Der Alchemist als Thema der nord- und südniederländischen Genremalerei des 17. Jahrhunderts", Vortrag im Workshop Aspekte des Erzählens in Kunst und Kunstgeschichte, organisiert von Prof. Dr. Nils Büttner (Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart) und Prof. Dr. Dr. Andreas Tacke (Universität Trier), Ludwigshafen-Bodman (Bodensee), 10. Juli 2014.
• "Between Folly and Erudition: The Image of the Alchemist in Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Genre Painting", Vortrag in der Reihe RKD Lecture II, Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Dokumentatie, Den Haag, 22. Mai 2014.
• "»Vereenigingh van Apelles en Apollo«: Pictorial Narrative in Jan Steen's Genre Painting 'Quack on the Village Fair' (c. 1673-1675)", Vortrag im Workshop Aspects of Narrative in Art History, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, 3. Dezember 2013.