Journal ARS 40 (2007) 2

Ivan GERÁT

Úvod

The majority of articles in this number of Ars are based on the papers presented at the international conference “The Borders in the Art History of Central Europe/ Die Grenzen in der Kunstgeschichte Mitteleuropas”, held in Bratislava on February 15 and 16, 2007. The conference was organized by the Institute of Art History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava and supported by the International Visegrad Fund, the City Gallery Bratislava, the Goethe Institute Bratislava and the Cultural Institute of the Hungarian Republic in Bratislava. In the name of the institute, I would like to warmly thank our sponsors for supporting the conference.

A comparison of this issue with the papers presented at the conference shows, that while some authors have rewritten their papers into larger scholarly articles, others have submitted their text with only minor changes. In spite of certain incoherence, caused by this situation, we are publishing the articles in thematic groups, which reflect the structure of the conference. There are two other changes in comparison with the conference – since the papers by Milan Pelc and László Beke have not been submitted for this publication, their place in the structure was taken by articles by Sergiusz Michalski and Tomáš Štrauss. The plurality of individual approaches was one of the most interesting experiences of the conference, as far as it reflected and manifested one more important aspect of the influence of borders on our art historical constructions. Since we wish to present the fascinating differences in art historical thinking to the readers of our journal, the editing of the texts in this volume has been minimized and limited to some formal aspects of the language and the style of the journal. The productive communication over the borders requires tolerance and understanding of the differences, which might be understood not only negatively as tolerating a different opinion in spite of the negative emotions it produces, but also positively as an opportunity for the delectation of the cultural richness, typical of Central Europe. Let us hope that this publication might be understood as a modest step on the long and difficult way leading to an enjoyable cultural communication among states, nations, regions and individuals in our part of the world.