The invention of depicting figures participating in an event nameless bystanders, beholders, and onlookers marks an important change in the ways artists addressed the beholder of the artworks themselves. This shift speaks to a significant transformation of the relationship between images and their audience. The public in the picture acts as mediator between times, persons, and contents. The contributions of this volume describe this moment from a diachronic and transcultural perspective, while each of them focuses on a specific group of works revealing a new moment in this history. They explore the cultural contexts of the political and religious public, and relate the rise of the public in the picture to the rise of perspectival representation (Panofskys space-box and Kemps Chronotopos).

Urte Krass ist Wissenschaftliche Assistentin am Institut für Kunstgeschichte der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Ihre Forschungen widmen sich dem Heiligenbild von der Ikone bis zur Fotografie, der frühen Kunsttheorie in italienischen Novellen des 14. Jahrhunderts sowie aktuell dem politischen Bildgebrauch im portugiesischen Kolonialreich in der Frühen Neuzeit.

Leseprobe