Brandeis University Art History professor Joachim Gaehde passed away three years ago. I had not thought about him for years and learned about his death from an online obituary:
http://www.brandeis.edu/now/2013/November/joachim-gaehde.html
May I be permitted a few words about the professor and his course?
“Gem” is a good word for Prof. Gaehde. He was very dedicated and serious in class, but you could tell that he was a very warm person.
I learned things from his obituary that I never knew and about which, when taking his course years ago, I had no clue:
that he was a Jewish refugee from Germany;
that he had two children who survived him;
that his wife, Christa Gaehde (nee Christa Maria Schelcher), “was renowned in the field of conservation and restoration of art on paper, and worked for many of the top American museums.”
I took two courses with Professor Gaehde: one on early medieval art and one on the art of the high Middle Ages.
I loved the courses; they complemented the ones I was taking with Professor Norman F. Cantor on medieval history.
I barely passed. I got a C in one of the two semesters and a C- in the other semester.
Art history was never my strong point. I am especially bad at architecture (e.g., church architecture). I still can’t for the life of me tell what a flying buttress is.
But Professor Gaehde was a dedicated, enthusiastic teacher and a fine lecturer. He introduced us to much fine, rich, and beautiful art — particularly illuminated manuscripts, many of which are at the Morgan Library in New York City.
He would note that this or that illuminated book was at the Morgan Library, and I would be saying to myself, “that’s funny, wouldn’t they be in a MUSEUM rather than a LIBRARY?”
Professor Gaehde was not an easy grader, but I liked him and his course and got a lot from it, despite my subpar performance. It shows that grades can be a misleading indicator (sometimes) of the value of educational experience.
What I most enjoyed was the illuminated manuscripts that we learned about – mainly, the Carolingian, Gothic, and Romanesque manuscripts and the complex, fascinating Irish art, the former including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the latter the Book of Kells.
I rarely missed a lecture.
— Roger W. Smith
June 2016