DOCSLIB.ORG

Hans Sedlmayr, the Architecture of Borromini, Second Edition, Translated and Edited by Karl Johns

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Hans Sedlmayr, the Architecture of Borromini, Second Edition, Translated and Edited by Karl Johns Hans Sedlmayr, The Architecture of Borromini Introduced, edited and translated by Karl Johns Introductory remarks on Sedlmayr’s Borromini Die Architektur Borrominis is probably the most ambitious publication from the period in Sedlmayr’s career before he achieved his greatest ambition of acceding to the chair at the University of Vienna. It deserves attention since it more tangibly illustrates what he had been calling for in some of his more abstract proposals.1 As with much that he published during this period and even later, he saw it as a provisional contribution constantly referring to aspects ‘yet to be analyzed’ ‘studied in sufficient detail’ or calling for ‘further analysis’. Indeed, he later referred back to this book as an ‘Anfängerarbeit’. It was originally intended to be followed by a second volume. Much of his publications seem ‘experimental’ and written in the form of manifestoes. A mode of analyzing architecture was not easily adaptable to paintings or sculpture. Some of his terms are intended to be more precise than what was then current but are quite vague in their own way. Some of the fundamental proposals can lead to circular arguments such as the necessity of the ‘proper disposition’. The cardinal features of his consistent approach to art as including the ‘proper disposition’ and the discovery of the ‘centre’ which allows the only complete ‘understanding’ of an individual art work or procedure of an individual artist occurs here also in his part 1 chapter 1, part 2, chapter three and section 46. Hans Sedlmayr had many facets. In a time when formal education taught foreign languages only for reading purposes he spoke the western European languages relatively easily and kept up with the poetry being published then, particularly in English, and also kept abreast of the theoretical publications in the sciences and the other arts such as music. The problems with some of his conclusions and his often confrontational character should not divert us from many of the insights he provided, some of which can be read clearly in selected essays published throughout his career. These 1 A list of his publications is available in Friedrich Piel, Hans Sedlmayr 1896-1984 Verzeichnis seiner Schriften, Salzburg, 1996. Cogent appraisals have been published by Eva Frodl-Kraft, Hans Sedlmayr (1896 - 1984), Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, 44, 1991, 7-46 and Hanns H. Aurenhammer, Hans Sedlmayr und die Kunstgeschichet an der Universitat Wien 1938- 1945, Kunstgeschichte an den Universitaten im Nazionalsozialismus, Kunst und Politik Jahrbuch der Guernica-Gesellschaft, 5, 2002, pp. 161-194. Journal of Art Historiography Number 14 June 2016 Hans Sedlmayr The Architecture of Borromini include his essays about the first medieval architectural system, five Roman baroque facades, the façade of the Karlskirche in Vienna and the skin colour in the paintings of Peter Paul Rubens.2 Throughout his career, Sedlmayr was typically cryptic in his references to other publications. In both editions of The Architecture of Borromini, he mentions Jacob Burckhardt and Wilhelm Lübke in passing, the latter referring to Die Kunst der Barockzeit und des Rokoko, Grundriss der Kunstgeschichte 4, printed in many revised editions. ‘Brinckmann’ presumably means Albert Erich Brinckmann, Die Baukunst des 17 und 18 Jahrhunderts in den romanischen Ländern, Handbuch der Kunst- wissenschaft 26, Potsdam: Athenaion published in numerous editions. ‘Frankl’ presumably refers to Die Entwicklungsphasen der neueren Baukunst, Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner 1914 and Berlin: Gebrüder Mann 1999, which has been published in an English translation as The Four Phases of Architectural Style, Cambridge: MIT Press 1968 and Spanish as Principios fundamentales de la historia de la arquitectura, Barcelona: Gili 1981. His references to Dagobert Frey presumably refer to ‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der römischen Barockarchitektur‘, Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, 3, 1924, 5-113. We follow the first edition but have included the introductory preface and essay from the 1939 edition as an appendix at the end. [The plates to the first edition are available here as a supplementary pdf. The figures have been included in the text at roughly the points where they occur in the original book, not always at the most convenient location for the reader. RW-ed.] Karl Johns completed his doctorate in the history of art at Harvard University, and has worked at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art among others. His publications have centred on the art of the Netherlands in the early modern period and the earlier Viennese art historians. [email protected] 2 ‘Das erste mittelalterliche Architektursystem’, Kunstwissenschaftliche Forschungen, 2, 1933, 25-62 reprinted in Sedlmayr, Epochen und Werke, 1, Vienna: Herold, 1959, 80-139, plates 15-23; ‘Über eine mittelalterliche Art des Abbildens’, La Critica d’Arte, 1, 1935-1936, pp. 261-269 reprinted in Sedlmayr, Epochen und Werke, 1, Vienna: Herold, 1959, 140-154, plates 24-27; ‘Fünf römische Fassaden’, Sedlmayr, Epochen und Werke, 2, Vienna: Herold, 1960, 57-79; ‘Die Schauseite der Karlskirche in Wien’, Kunstgeschichtliche Studien für Hans Kauffmann zum 60. Gcburtstag am 30. März 1956, ed. Wolfgang Braunfels, Berlin: Gebrüder Mann 1956, 262-271, reprinted in Sedlmayr, Epochen und Werke, 2, Vienna: Herold, 1960, 174-197 and in Sedlmayr, Rowohlts deutsche Enzyklopädie 71, Hamburg: Rowohlt 1955, 143-152, Mittenwald: Mäander, 1978, 143-152; ‘Bemerkungen zur Inkarnatfarbe bei Rubens’, Hefte des Kunsthistorischen Seminars der Universität München, Munich: Hueber 1964, pp. 43-71, reprinted in Sedlmayr, Epochen und Werke, 3, Mittenwald: Mäander, 1982, 165-179; ‘Prinzip und Methode der kritischen Formen’, Lajos Vayer ed., Problemi di Metodo: Condizioni di Esistenza di Una Storia dell’Arte, Atti del XXIV Congresso Internazionale di Storia dell’Arte 10, Bologna: Clueb, 1982, 31-38. 2 Hans Sedlmayr The Architecture of Borromini Hans Sedlmayr, The Architecture of Borromini translated and edited by Karl Johns3 PREFACE The present study was begun January 1, 1925 and finally completed in May 1929. Preparations date back to the year 1923. One section from it and another from the preparation of the ‘second approach’ are very closely related to one another and have been published with slight changes in the Journal Belvedere as ‘Gestaltetes Sehen’, 1925 no. 40 and ‘Zum gestalteten Sehen’ 1926 no. 45 [Gestaltetes Sehen, Belvedere, 8, 1925, pp. 65-73 and Zum gestalteten Sehen, Belvedere, 9-10, 1926, pp. 57-62]. Two shorter essays about more general questions with examples from the work of Borromini shall be published elsewhere. The ‘preliminary theoretical remarks’ are fragments from an unpublished theoretical essay ‘toward a rigorous study of art’. Readers interested more in conclusions can omit them. It will undoubtedly later become possible to present the results of this study in a more ‘popular’ form. There would be ‘no sense whatever in attempting to achieve this (popularity) in an initial study where the basic principles must be completely correct’. We must instead separate this study from all else, bring it to completion and deal with the public who might call for a wider appeal at a later time when the project is finished’ (Kant). INTRODUCTION 1. The following essay toward a Borromini monograph differs from others also by the fact that the goal is not to provide an image of the art and the personality of the artist as it is usually done either consciously or not, but in approaching the subject, or actually the many subjects very vaguely associated with the name of Borromini with certain very distinct questions and provide verifiable answers. (This is not the place to criticize the idolized conception of ‘plasticity’ in historiography 3 [Published as Die Architektur Borrominis, Munich: Piper 1930.] 3 Hans Sedlmayr The Architecture of Borromini which looks for correspondences on surface rather than illuminating the structure of an object). I believe that this is the surest way to avoid straying into literary forms and with the spirit of ‘literature’ which is a persistent danger for scholarly monographs about artists and often eludes strict verifiability. To provide an image is very indistinct, but to pose and answer meaningful questions is a task sufficiently defined. Of the many possible questions surrounding Borromini we mention four which taken together would provide the core of a Borromini monograph. 1. What was the function of Borromini’s architecture in history? 2. What do the works of Borromini tell us about the structure of his personality? What of its ‘development’? 3. What do the works of Borromini tell us about the ‘spirit’ of the culture from which they emerged? What of the development of this spirit? They all presuppose an answer to the preliminary question: which works are by Borromini and what is their chronology? For now that has been answered in an excellent way in the book by Eberhard Hempel [Eberhard Hempel, Francesco Borromini, Römische Forschungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Graz, Vienna: Schroll, 1924 hereafter as ‘Hempel’]. On the other hand our question 1 has not been resolved or even posed by Hempel. Several valuable references have been made for the questions 2 and 3 by Max Dvořák, Dagobert Frey, Kurt Cassirer and Erwin Panofsky but no answers found. All three questions use the works of Borromini to recognize something else through them:
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Journal of Art Historiography, No. 1 (December 2009)
    Journal of Art Historiography, No. 1 (December 2009) Richard Woodfield ToC: Journal of Art Historiography Number 1 December 2009 Editor's introduction Vienna School: Agnes Blaha, 'Fritz Novotny and the new Vienna school of art history - an ambiguous relation' Abstract: Fritz Novotny was repeatedly described as a member of the New Vienna School. In my paper I argue that Novotny's relation to this group is rather ambiguous because Novotny, in spite of all similarities in the descriptions of formal qualities, had a very different attitude towards the role of the individual artwork than Sedlmayr and Pächt. Instead of aiming at a definite decision whether or not to include Novotny in the New Vienna School, the article demonstrates that opinions on this question can be interpreted as the result of different academic traditions in the Anglo-American and the German-speaking scientific communities. Jonathan Blower, 'Max Dvorak and Austrian Denkmalpflege at War' Abstract: As was often the case with Vienna School art historians, Max Dvo?ák (1874-1921) contributed a significant amount to the theory and practice of monument preservation. This paper considers his reactions to the precarious situation of artistic heritage during and after the first world war, which he conceived as a conflict between spiritual and material values. In writings that betray a less than objective patriotism, Italy emerges as Dvo?ák's principal antagonist, whilst critical voices in Austria - that of Karl Kraus in particular - undermined his position by calling for an end to the so-called monument cult. Ricardo di Mambro Santos, 'The concentric critique. Schlosser's Kunstliteratur and the paradigm of style in Croce and Vossler' Abstract: The essay analyzes the philosophical and methodological premises of Julius von Schlosser's most important contribution in the field of art historiography: Die Kunstliteratur, published in Vienna in 1924.
    [Show full text]
  • Guide to the Sources on the Holocaust in Occupied Poland
    Alina Skibińska Guide to the Sources on the Holocaust in Occupied Poland (Translated, revised and updated edition of the original Polish Źródła do badań nad zagładą Żydów na okupowanych ziemiach polskich by Alina Skibińska, Warsaw, 2007) With the cooperation of: Co-authors: Giles Bennett, Marta Janczewska, Dariusz Libionka, Witold Mędykowski, Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk, Jakub Petelewicz, Monika Polit Translator: Jessica Taylor-Kucia Editorial board: Giles Bennett, Michał Czajka, Dieter Pohl, Pascal Trees, Veerle Vanden Daelen European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) 2014 2 Table of contents List of abbreviations 5 Preface 11 I Archives and Institutions 15 1. Archives managed by the Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwów Polskich (Head Office of the State Archives) 17 2. The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute 57 3. Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu (Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation) 73 4. The Archives of Memorial Museums 89 5. Other museums, libraries, institutions and organizations in Poland, private collections, and Church files 107 6. The Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, and the Polish Underground Movement Study Trust in London; the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, California, USA 119 7. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C., USA 133 8. Archives and institutions in Israel (Witold Mędykowski) 145 9. Sources for Research into the Extermination of the Jews in Poland in German Archives (Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk, updated by Giles Bennett) 177 II. Sources 191 1. German administrative authorities and police 191 2. Judenrat files 203 3. The Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto (ARG), the Ringelblum Archive (Ring.
    [Show full text]
  • Glasgow Colloquium
    Glasgow Colloquium Abstracts for Viennese Art Historiography Colloquium in Glasgow 2nd and 3rd October 2009 Location: Department of the History of Art, The University of Glasgow Contact: [email protected] Max Dvořák, Wilhelm Worringer and the History of Medieval Art Hans Aurenhammer (Frankfurt) The intellectual development of Max Dvořák (1874-1921), one of the chief protagonists of the so- called ‘Vienna School of Art History’, was characterized by a constant process of methodological revision, self-criticism and adaptation to the current tendencies of modern art. With regard to the study of medieval art this process is known above all by his two main published texts on this subject: The Enigma of the Art of the Van Eyck Brothers (1904), strongly influenced by the evolutionist thinking of Wickhoff and Riegl and by an ‘impressionistic’ view of modernity, and Idealism and Naturalism in Gothic Sculpture and Painting (1918), one of the most important essays of Dvořák’s late, ‘expressionistic’, period. Knowing only these two texts, the decisive turn undertaken by Dvořák around 1920 could be interpreted as a sudden change of paradigm. This view has to be corrected, however, after having read and analyzed Dvořák’s lectures on Western European Art in the Middle Ages which were held at the University of Vienna four times from 1906 to 1918. In my paper I will present Dvořák’s changing views on Medieval Art contained in the ca. 4400 pages of these hitherto unpublished manuscripts. Their topic is not Late Gothic art as in the above mentioned published texts but the long transition from Late Antique to Early Medieval Art and the prehistory of the Gothic architectural system from the 9th to the early 12th centuries.
    [Show full text]
  • The Influence of the Vienna School of Art History Before and After 1918 Programme
    Conference The Influence of the Vienna School of Art History before and after 1918 Pächt Alterswert 3–5 April 2019 Böhm Stilgeschichte Dvořák Geistesgeschichte Sedlmayr Kunstwissenschaft Schlosser Sprachgeschichte Eitelberger Strukturanalyse Strzygowski Denkmalpflege Wickhoff Kunstwollen Thausing Stimmung Morelli Form Programme Riegl Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences, Husova 4, Prague www.udu.cas.cz 3 April 2019 09.00–10.00 Academic Conference Center (AKC), Husova 4a 9.00–9.40 Registration 9.40–9.50 Tomáš Winter Director of the Institute of Art History Opening of the Conference 10.00–12.00 Session 1 Academic Conference Center (AKC), Husova 4a Chair: Petra Hečková University of West Bohemia, Pilsen 10.00–10.25 Wojciech Balus Jagiellonian University, Institute of Art History The Place of the Vienna School of Art History in the Polish Art Historiography of the Interwar Period 10.25–10.50 Magdalena Kunińska Jagiellonian University, Cracow and senior researcher at Art Historiographies in Central and Eastern Europe, New Europe College, Bucharest The identity built on myth. „Cracow school of Art History” and its relations to Vienna: facts and legends in the discourse of the History of Art History 10.50–11.15 Tomáš Kowalski The Monuments Board of the Slovak Republic, Bratislava Close to Vienna? Reception of the Vienna School of Art History in the Beginnings of Slovak Art Historiography. 11.15–11.40 Marta Filipová Department of the History of Art, Masaryk University, Brno The Vienna School and the Small People 11.40–12.00 Panel Discussion 12.00–14.00 Lunch break morning 09.00–10.00 9.50–9.55 Tomáš Hlobil and Tomáš Murár Department for Historiography and Theory of Art History, Institute of Art History Remarks by the Organizers of the Conference 10.00–12.00 Session 2 Institute of Art History, Husova 4, First Floor, room n.
    [Show full text]
  • Hans Sedlmayr's Art History*
    Hans Sedlmayr’s art history* Review of: Maria Männig, Hans Sedlmayrs Kunstgeschichte: Eine kritische Studie, Köln–Weimar–Wien, Böhlau Verlag 2017, 309 pp., 45 b/w illus., bibliography, index Tomáš Murár Hans Sedlmayr (1896–1984), along with several other students of Max Dvořák (1874–1921), Julius von Schlosser (1866–1938) and Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941), represents a kind of epilogue to the Vienna School of Art History, which exerted a huge influence on academic research into art and its history in Central Europe from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. In many cases the politically engaged Viennese art historians acquired reputations as important researchers whose methods were at times difficult to understand. Leaving aside the odd fluctuation, interest in their ideas persisted from the mid-1940s until the mid- 1980s. After this, however, the feeling gradually took hold that this chapter in art history had been closed and interest faded. In 2000, Christopher Wood published selected translated texts by the younger Vienna School of Art History, and these reawakened an interest in the ideas of the entire school.1 These translations, along with Wood’s own extensive introduction, introduced Viennese art history of the first half of the 20th century to a generation of British and American art historians who had not been burdened by memories of the Second World War, as their German and Austrian counterparts had been in the latter half of the 1940s and the 1950s. During the 1930s and 1940s, the undeniable links between several members of the Vienna School and the politics of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP, turned many researchers in German-speaking countries off their legacy.2 The main representative of this compromised group of art historians was Hans Sedlmayr, whose sympathy for Nazism cast a shadow not only over his later research but over almost the entire Vienna School.
    [Show full text]
  • Die Zeitschrift ‚Kunst Dem Volk'. Populärwissenschaftliche Kunstliteratur Im National- Sozialismus Und Ihre Parallelen in Der Akademischen Kunstgeschichtsschreibung
    DISSERTATION Titel der Dissertation „Die Zeitschrift ‚Kunst dem Volk‘. Populärwissenschaftliche Kunstliteratur im National- sozialismus und ihre Parallelen in der akademischen Kunstgeschichtsschreibung“ Verfasserin Mag. phil. Christina Schedlmayer angestrebter akademischer Grad Doktorin der Philosophie (Dr. phil.) Wien, im Mai 2010 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 092 315 Dissertationsgebiet lt. Studienblatt: Kunstgeschichte Betreuer: Ao. Prof. Doz. Dr. Peter Haiko Meinen Eltern Brigitte und Herbert Schedlmayer Inhalt Einleitung .................................................................................................................................................. 1 1. Die Zeitschrift Kunst dem Volk, ihr Herausgeber und ihre Autoren .................................................. 4 1.1. Eckdaten, Blattlinie und Forschungsstand ................................................................................ 4 1.1.1. Die Zeitschrift Kunst dem Volk (1939 bis 1944) .................................................................... 4 1.1.2. Blattlinie ............................................................................................................................. 6 1.1.3. Forschungsstand ............................................................................................................... 10 1.2. Der Herausgeber: Heinrich Hoffmann............................................................................................ 12 1.2.1. Biografie ..............................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Baroque Modernity Austria V. 4
    University of Birmingham From Potemkin City to the estrangement of vision Rampley, Matthew DOI: 10.1017/S0067237816000126 License: None: All rights reserved Document Version Peer reviewed version Citation for published version (Harvard): Rampley, M 2016, 'From Potemkin City to the estrangement of vision: baroque modernity in Austria, before and after 1918', Austrian History Yearbook, vol. 47, pp. 167-187. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0067237816000126 Link to publication on Research at Birmingham portal Publisher Rights Statement: (c) Cambridge University Press 2016 Final Version of Record available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0067237816000126 General rights Unless a licence is specified above, all rights (including copyright and moral rights) in this document are retained by the authors and/or the copyright holders. The express permission of the copyright holder must be obtained for any use of this material other than for purposes permitted by law. •Users may freely distribute the URL that is used to identify this publication. •Users may download and/or print one copy of the publication from the University of Birmingham research portal for the purpose of private study or non-commercial research. •User may use extracts from the document in line with the concept of ‘fair dealing’ under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (?) •Users may not further distribute the material nor use it for the purposes of commercial gain. Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
    [Show full text]
  • Wiener Schule KUNSTGESCHICHTE MIT KONSEQUENZEN: HANS SEDLMAYR
    Wiener Schule KUNSTGESCHICHTE MIT KONSEQUENZEN: HANS SEDLMAYR MARIA MÄNNIG WARUM SOLL MAN ÜBER SEDLMAYR SCHREIBEN? Eine Person, die das Label ‚Wiener Schule’ ganz selbstverständlich für sich beansprucht hat, ist Hans Sedlmayr. Nur während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus inszeniert sich der Österreicher als Schüler Wilhelm Pinders und sucht damit im doppelten Wortsinn Anschluss an einen der prominentesten Vertreter der „reichsdeutschen“ Kunstgeschichte. Vor und nach seinem Münchner Intermezzo allerdings, fundiert Sedlmayr seine wissenschaftliche Karriere auf der Autorität Max Dvořàks. Diesen hatte er allerdings nur ein Semester lang erlebt. Daran zeigt sich, wie fragil derartige Traditionskonstruktionen im Kern tatsächlich sind. Von seinem eigentlichen Lehrer, Julius von Schlosser, wird Sedlmayr als vielversprechender Repräsentant einer neuen Generation in die fast schon dynastisch anmutende Traditionslinie der Wiener Schule eingeschrieben.1 Ihr wie auch der gesamten Kunstgeschichte hat Hans Sedlmayr jedoch ein schwieriges Erbe hinterlassen, deren polarisierende Kraft bis heute wirkt. Beispielhaft lässt sich die Problematik an folgender Aussage Derridas illustrieren: „Wenn die Lesbarkeit eines Vermächtnisses einfach gegeben wäre, natürlich, transparent, eindeutig, wenn sie nicht nach Interpretation verlangen und diese gleichzeitig herausfordern würde, dann gäbe es niemals etwas zu erben.“2 Im Falle Sedlmayrs liegen die Interpretationsschwierigkeiten hauptsächlich in der Verschränkung von Modernität und reaktionärem Weltbild. Der Nachlass
    [Show full text]
  • Sedlmayr's Borromini
    Sedlmayr’s Borromini Ian Verstegen The work that announces the methodology of the new Vienna school is Hans Sedlmayr’s Die Architektur Borrominis of 1930.1 A brilliant and difficult book, it has had scattered influence but, like all of Sedlmayr’s work, is tainted by its author. Martin Raspe, who attempted a similar syncretic view of the architect and move beyond the standard catalogue was at pains to distance himself from Sedlmayr’s example, which loomed so long in his own German-language tradition.2 Indeed, language has been a barrier to fairly assessing Sedlmayr, as was his own notorious characterological interpretation of Borromini. But the book advances a remarkable analysis of Borromini’s work, which is worth the effort to understand. The model of Sedlmayr’s self-reflexivity that I have sketched elsewhere can be confirmed in the book on Borromini.3 Indeed, if the author gets ahead of himself with his later speculations on Borromini’s personality, the overall aim of the book is reasonable – to give a phenomenological account of Borromini’s architecture. This is the propadeutic use of phenomenology as a basis for any critical discipline, in line with the appropriation of Kurt Lewin’s idea of a proper vergleichende Wissenschaftstheorie. If Sedlmayr’s approach is self-conscious about its own contribution, then we have to regard it not only according to its stated aim but the discipline of architectural history at the time. With his lens of Gestalt psychology, Sedlmayr actually achieves a remarkable deal of self-reflexivity in his discussion of Borromini. After expanding the idea of Sedlmayr’s method, I will pass on to a full exposition of his analysis.
    [Show full text]
  • Fritz Novotny and the New Vienna School of Art History – an Ambiguous Relation
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Directory of Open Access Journals Fritz Novotny and the new Vienna school of art history – an ambiguous relation Agnes Blaha When Christopher Wood compiled his Vienna School Reader with the aim of introducing the Viennese scholarly tradition to the Anglo-American public, he not only included works by the most famous exponents, Alois Riegl, Otto Pächt and Hans Sedlmayr, but also an excerpt from Fritz Novotny’s postdoctoral thesis, Cézanne und das Ende der wissenschaftlichen Perspektive,1 published in 1938. In his introduction, Wood described Novotny as the member of the New Vienna School least strange to a contemporary reader,2 especially in comparison with publications by Hans Sedlmayr, because Novotny’s texts seem to be free of ideological positions. Additionally, Wood saw Cézanne und das Ende der wissenschaftlichen Perspektive as the purest example of structural analysis, the only criterion he used to judge about a scholar’s belonging to the New Vienna School. Since then, other authors dealing with the historiography of this period also suggested that Novotny had been a member of this scholarly tradition.3 In my paper, I will attempt to show that, in opposition to the opinion expressed in these texts, Novotny’s position in relation to the Vienna School of art history is not so clear. Furthermore, I will argue that the scholarly traditions in which Novotny’s texts are analyzed play a decisive role in answering the question whether or not he can be addressed as a member of this group.
    [Show full text]
  • 'Wien Oder Salzburg?': Late Sedlmayr As a Symptom and Cure*
    ‘Wien oder Salzburg?’: late Sedlmayr as a symptom and cure* Stepan Vaneyan Abbruch und Annäherung als zwei Seiten eines Prozesses. Wieder das Thema von Verlust und Gewinn1 Werner Hofmann. Late texts of any scholar – do they merely take stock of what one has achieved or do they attempt to reconsider one's contribution to scholarship? This question is especially pertinent if such a contribution resulted in all sorts of ruins… This article proposes to look at the work of Hans Sedlmayr through his own eyes. On the one hand, this gives an opportunity to see a similarity of his work to the work of an artist. On the other hand, it allows the author to use a hermeneutic approach, or iconology in the broader sense of the word. This will imply not only re- constructing the meaning of the scholar’s work but also actively constructing it. In Sedlmayr’s case, such an approach promises some interesting and enlightening results if one applies his method of structural analysis of ‘critical forms’ to his own work. These need to be ‘critical forms’ not of art and culture, which Sedlmayr analysed2, but rather those of his own texts and of their implications, both cognitive and ethical. The author has had the opportunity to observe the ‘patient’ (Sedlmayr) for a long time.3 However, this article is limited to preliminary impressions and provisional considerations regarding his texts as whole entities rather than text * Paper presented at the conference ‘The Influence of the Vienna School of Art History before and after 1918‘, organised by the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences in cooperation with the Department of Aesthetics of the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University and in partnership with the Austrian Cultural Forum and the National Gallery in Prague 3–5 April 2019.
    [Show full text]
  • Oskar Pollak Reconsidered: a Bildungsroman in Miniature of Late Austrian Culture and Politics1
    Oskar Pollak reconsidered: a Bildungsroman in miniature of late Austrian culture and politics1 Michael Young For Joseph Connors Figure 1 Oskar Pollak, photograph from Matura (gymnasium graduation), 1901 Institut für Kunstgeschichte der Universität Wien https://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/institutsarchiv/pollak-oskar/ All but forgotten today, the art historian Oskar Pollak (fig. 1), who died in 1915, has three claims on our attention. The first is his pioneering documentary research: his exhaustive compilations of documents related to artistic patronage in Rome under 1 I am grateful to Suzanne Marchand, Margaret Olin and Nancy Wingfield for reading the unrevised text of the talk on which this article is based. They saved me from committing some embarrassing errors, although of course none of them is responsible for any errors or imperfections that remain in this version. I am heavily indebted to the kindness and generous assistance of the following archivists: Friedrich Polleroß at the Art History Institute of the Universität Wien, Florian König at the Istituto Storico Austriaco a Roma, Andreas Titton at the Archive of the Museum für angewandte Kunst, Wien, Jan Chodějovský at the Masaryk Institute and Archive of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague and Barbara Pospichal, Thomas Maisel and Luka Rucigaj at the Archiv der Universität Wien. I am also grateful to Jiří Koukal for sharing archivalia and information with me. Nicholas Sawicki was an erudite, intelligent and sympathetic referee whose suggestions vastly improved my text and uncovered many blunders. I am deeply greatful to him. Journal of Art Historiography Number 22 June 2020 Michael Young Oskar Pollak reconsidered: a Bildungsroman in miniature of late Austrian culture and politics three seventeenth-century popes, and his study of guidebooks to Rome from the same period.
    [Show full text]