The book addresses the scientific debates on Rembrandt, Metsu, Vermeer, and Hoogstraten that are currently taking place in art history and cultural studies. These focus mainly on the representation of gender difference, the relationship between text and image, and the emotional discourse. They are also an appeal for art history as a form of cultural studies that analyses the semantic potential of art within discursive and social contemporary practices. Dutch painting of the seventeenth century reflects its relationship to visible reality. It deals with ambiguities and contradictions. As an avant-garde artistic media, it also contributes to the emergence of a subjectivity towards the modern "bourgeois". It discards subject matter from its traditional fixation with iconology and evokes different imaginations and semantizations - aspects that have not been sufficiently taken into account in previous research. The book is to be understood as an appeal for art history as a form of cultural science that analyses the semantic potential of art within discursive and social contemporary practices, and, at the same time, demonstrates its relevance today. Works by Rembrandt, Metsu, Vermeer, Hoogstraten, and others serve as exemplary case studies for addressing current debates in art history and cultural studies, such as representation of gender difference, relationship between text and image, and emotional discourse.

Built and designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1928-1930, the Tugendhat House in Brno / Czech Republic is one of the most significant buildings of European modernism. In 2001, UNESCO added the house to the List of World Cultural Heritage Sites. In this third, updated edition, the authors give personal and historic insights relating to the house; also documenting aspects pertaining to art history and conservation-science studies. The comprehensive description and in-depth discussion of the materials used is a special feature in this field of research. The appeal of this monograph lies in the publication of photographs from the family archive which, for the first time, show the house in its lived-in condition. The experimental artistic color photographs by Fritz Tugendhat are among the pioneering achievements of amateur photography.

Das Haus Tugendhat im tschechischen Brunn wurde 1928 1930 von Mies van der Rohe geplant und gebaut. 2001 von der UNESCO zum Weltkulturerbe erklart, gilt der Bau als einer der Hohepunkte seines Schaffens. Aufbauend auf der Monografie von 1998 beschreiben die Autoren die private, historische, kunsthistorische, architekturtheoretische und restaurierungswissenschaftliche Dimension des Hauses. Die Neuauflage bietet bisher unveroffentlichtes Bildmaterial aus dem Besitz der Familie sowie eine CD zur konservierungswissenschaftlichen Untersuchung.