Global Early Modern Art in Seven Objects

Globality has remarkably dominated art historical discourse and practice in the past three decades. Within early modern studies, the global turn has highlighted the possibility of and the need for broader, more connected histories. This push has provided us with a range of multivalent conceptual tools, such as mobility, connectivity, entanglement, and interconnectedness. Departing from a single object, each essay in this special issue considers the promising potential and the limitations of globalizing perspectives, and suggests how this line of research may move forward. How global is early modern art? How global are our histories of early modern art? What are the ethical and methodological issues ingrained in our stories of connections and encounters? As art historians, how do we grapple with tensions between universalism and cultural relativism? How can we strike a balance between local and global expressions of materials, space, and lived experience? In this moment of new wars, shifting borders, migrations, and natural and social disasters, we also consider what lessons art historians can draw from the forms of domination, oppression, violence, and conflict inherent in early globalization.