[Visual cultures of death in Central Europe: contemplation and commemoration in early modern Poland-Lithuania]

ENFor some time scientific studies of the baroque era, conducted regardless of discipline, and at the same time interdisciplinary, stress and focus on its complexity and multidimensionality; the pluralist presentation announced in the title of Aleksandra Koutny-Jones’s book—the subject of visual cultures of death in Central Europe—is consistent with that stream. Aleksandra Koutny-Jones is an art historian preoccupied with the characteristics of the art and architecture of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; her particular academic interest focuses on the visual cultures of death in baroque art in the Kingdom of Poland, to which she dedicated her doctoral thesis and a few publications in scientific journals (including “A Noble Death: The Seventeenth-Century Oleśnicki Funerary Chapel in Tarłów,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 72 [2009]: 169–205). Thus, the book in question is a continuation of her scholarly activities and constitutes a synthetic study of the complex memento mori culture and profound preoccupation with death in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the early modern period, with particular stress on conspicuous contemplation and extravagant commemoration. The theme of mortality was grounded firmly within social life and the public sphere, which is frequently highlighted by the author. She also notes that the visual cultures of death were primarily played out in a public forum. The content and construction of the work and its manner of reasoning show that the book is addressed to international readers who desire to deepen their knowledge of art and, in a wider sense, the baroque era, and look into the specifics of a significant aspect of the culture of the era that occurred within the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. [p. 131].