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236 I Thomas Coomans
Final Consideration
Visual culture is often defined as postmodern by essence and associated with all
the aspects of image (re)production, virtual reality, and visual technology.78
Such definitions would exclude the built environment as well as the different
stages of the 'pre-postmodern' pasts. Should we therefore conclude that visual
culture is an unappropriated approach to medieval architecture? Medievalists,
however, have developed "ambitious cross-disciplinary explorations and en-
gagements with contemporary theory" regarding visual culture by "interrelated
interest in patronage, word-image relationships, reception theory, gender stud-
ies, close virtual and textual analysis, and performance criticism",79 but seem
reluctant to include architecture to the objects of the research. A possible reason
could be the exclusion of architecture from the traditional iconological analysis
of art, which remains one of the main suckles of art historical methodology.
This essay on architectural iconology and visual culture of four medieval
monasteries in the thirteenth-century Duchy of Brabant is indebted to Günter
Bandmann's theory from the early 1950s, as well as to Aart Mekking who pro-
moted it to the Low Countries from the mid-1980s.80 The innovative architec-
tural forms of the Westbau of Villers, the apse of the Dominicans of Leuven, the
paradigm shift of the two Franciscan churches of Maastricht, and the rectangu-
lar church of the Beguines of Leuven, contributed to new visual expressions of
monastic communities. Each of these architectural innovations expresses a spe-
cific political and social transformation as well as the adaptation of monastic
communities to changing contexts.
78 Nicholas Mirzoeff, What is Visual Culture, in: The Visual Culture Reader (as in note 18),
pp. 3-13.
79 Elina GERTSMAN/Jill Stevenson, Limning the Field, in: Thresholds of Medieval Visual Cul-
ture. Liminal Spaces, ed. by Elina GERTSMAN/Jill Stevenson (Boydell Studies in Medieval
Art and Architecture 4), Woolbridge 2012, pp. 1-7 (quote, p. 2).
80 Thomas CooMANs/Jeroen Westerman, ['architecture medievale aux Pays-Bas: vingt-cinq
annees de recherches et de problematiques, in: Perspective 2 (2011) pp. 783-791. Available
online at: https://doi.org/10.4000/perspective.776 (last accessed on 25.10.2019).
Final Consideration
Visual culture is often defined as postmodern by essence and associated with all
the aspects of image (re)production, virtual reality, and visual technology.78
Such definitions would exclude the built environment as well as the different
stages of the 'pre-postmodern' pasts. Should we therefore conclude that visual
culture is an unappropriated approach to medieval architecture? Medievalists,
however, have developed "ambitious cross-disciplinary explorations and en-
gagements with contemporary theory" regarding visual culture by "interrelated
interest in patronage, word-image relationships, reception theory, gender stud-
ies, close virtual and textual analysis, and performance criticism",79 but seem
reluctant to include architecture to the objects of the research. A possible reason
could be the exclusion of architecture from the traditional iconological analysis
of art, which remains one of the main suckles of art historical methodology.
This essay on architectural iconology and visual culture of four medieval
monasteries in the thirteenth-century Duchy of Brabant is indebted to Günter
Bandmann's theory from the early 1950s, as well as to Aart Mekking who pro-
moted it to the Low Countries from the mid-1980s.80 The innovative architec-
tural forms of the Westbau of Villers, the apse of the Dominicans of Leuven, the
paradigm shift of the two Franciscan churches of Maastricht, and the rectangu-
lar church of the Beguines of Leuven, contributed to new visual expressions of
monastic communities. Each of these architectural innovations expresses a spe-
cific political and social transformation as well as the adaptation of monastic
communities to changing contexts.
78 Nicholas Mirzoeff, What is Visual Culture, in: The Visual Culture Reader (as in note 18),
pp. 3-13.
79 Elina GERTSMAN/Jill Stevenson, Limning the Field, in: Thresholds of Medieval Visual Cul-
ture. Liminal Spaces, ed. by Elina GERTSMAN/Jill Stevenson (Boydell Studies in Medieval
Art and Architecture 4), Woolbridge 2012, pp. 1-7 (quote, p. 2).
80 Thomas CooMANs/Jeroen Westerman, ['architecture medievale aux Pays-Bas: vingt-cinq
annees de recherches et de problematiques, in: Perspective 2 (2011) pp. 783-791. Available
online at: https://doi.org/10.4000/perspective.776 (last accessed on 25.10.2019).