A Cat the Mandarin and Stars

A Cat, the Mandarin, and Stars: What Questions to Ask of Images

Eva Bendová – Stanislava Fedrová – Michal Šroněk (eds.)

Sixty-one short studies across eight thematic sections present the history of art and visual culture as a field of precisely posed questions and the search for connections across media, epochs, and interpretive frameworks. They are united by a shared interest in the image as a site where detail meets meaning, symbolic form, cultural memory, and historical experience. The thematic scope of the book ranges from iconography and iconology through emblematics and the culture of the Rudolfine court to modern art, 20th-century visual culture, the relationships between image and text, art theory, and historiography. The individual essays offer new perspectives on well-known works and themes, highlight previously overlooked details, and open up broader cultural contexts.

This milestone birthday of art historian Lubomír Konečný—a researcher and educator who significantly influenced his colleagues, students, and the broader academic field—served as an opportunity to bring together authors of various generations. Despite the diversity of their topics, they are united by a similar approach to asking questions. Scholars from Czech and international universities and research institutions build both upon his areas of expertise and the methodological and historiographical emphases of his work: a focus on detail, iconological interpretation, a broad cultural-historical horizon, an interest in the image within a network of textual, symbolic, and media connections, and an openness to interdisciplinary approaches.

First edition in Czech and in English, 430 pages, colour illustrations, Prague: Artefactum 2026

ISBN 978-80-53018-27-2