'That special touch'

The Netherlandish Yearbook for History of Art 39 is centred around an unusual theme that is not exactly art historical in nature and is difficult to describe with a single term. This theme covers an area included in 'ordinary' art history: arts and crafts, applied art and industrial design on the one hand, as opposed to objects that lie somewhere in the twilight area of art history and are often described in terms of 'mass culture' or 'trivial art'. The collection of articles as a whole provides insight into the state of affairs related to the study of design and industrial design, and the role of art history as a discipline within this study.