#6 Special Issue in Journal of Art History: Multisensory Materiality in Art

We are proud to present the special issue of Konsthistorisk tidskrift / Journal of Art History:
Multisensory Materiality in Art: From Theoretical Perspectives to Practice.

Guest Editor:Viveka Kjellmer

How might art history expand when we move beyond the primacy of vision and attend to sound, touch, smell, movement, atmosphere, and embodied experience?

This special issue gathers international scholars working across art history, scenography, sensory studies, curatorial practice, and environmental aesthetics to explore multisensory approaches to art and visual culture. Through perspectives ranging from nineteenth-century Parisian studios and the archives of Leonor Fini to exhibition scenography, Renaissance gardens, environmental art, and imperial festival books, the issue investigates how sensory engagement shapes artistic meaning, memory, spatial experience, and cultural knowledge.

The issue approaches multisensory materiality as a way of rethinking how artworks are encountered, staged, remembered, and made meaningful. Several contributions also resonate strongly with contemporary scenographic thinking and practice through their focus on atmosphere, embodiment, spatial dramaturgies, sound, environmental experience, and curatorial design.

Konsthistorisk tidskrift / Journal of Art History
Special Issue Vol. 94 (3–4), 2025
Multisensory Materiality in Art: From Theoretical Perspectives to Practice 

Open access editorial:
"Expanding the Sensorial Boundaries of Art History"

CONTENTS

Viveka Kjellmer: "Editorial: Expanding the Sensorial Boundaries of Art History" DOI: 10.1080/00233609.2026.2617509

I. Embodied histories and sensory knowledge

Érika Wicky: "Warming up la Bohème: Thermoception and Artists' Lives in Nineteenth-Century Paris" DOI: 10.1080/00233609.2025.2570833

Hélène Ohlsson: "Artefacts, Afterlives, and the Material Traces of Emilie Högqvist (1812–1846), a Swedish Icon of Romanticism" DOI: 10.1080/00233609.2025.2554103

Andrea Kollnitz: "Close Encounters: Making Sense of Leonor Fini" DOI: 10.1080/00233609.2025.2567452

II. Curating multisensory experience

Yi Zhang: "Integrating Sound in Exhibition Narratives and Design: A Scenographer's Approach in Musica ex Machina" DOI: 10.1080/00233609.2025.2542800

III. Multisensory synthesis and total works of art

Marina Lupishko: "Gesamtkunstwerk as a Lifelong Project: On Mikhail Matiushin's Synthesis of the Arts and the Musical Origins of His Colour Charts" DOI: 10.1080/00233609.2025.2545337

Yung-Fang Hsu: "A Multisensory Festival Book: Analysing Magnificent Record of Longevity for Emperor Kangxi's Sixtieth Birthday" DOI: 10.1080/00233609.2025.2549063

IV. Sensory environments and spatial experience

Michael Barg: "Sensing the Italian Renaissance Garden: Design, Experience, and Afterlife"

Yi-Ting Wang: "Environmental Art in France, 1970–1990" DOI: 10.1080/00233609.2025.2538512