DOCSLIB.ORG

Looking for the Professor and Defining Estonian 166 Academic Art History

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Looking for the Professor and Defining Estonian 166 Academic Art History Eero KANGOR Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn LOOKING FOR THE PROFESSOR AND DEFINING ESTONIAN 166 ACADEMIC ART HISTORY Key words: Estonian art historiography, academic art history, nation-building, Tor Helge Kjellin, Josef Strzygowski, Johnny Roosval, Adolph Goldschmidt, Heinrich Wölfflin. This article revises a passage in the narrative of the established in it, were the important locus for (re) history of Estonian academic art history1 hoping generation of art historical knowledge, as Donald that by introducing archival materials that has not Preziosi has described it.3 It is generally believed ALIJOS, METODOLOGIJOS been used or considered in earlier writings it is pos- that these institutions were established in the 19th sible to deconstruct the narrative. Neglecting of the century, mostly by German scholars.4 The aca- archival material was caused by practical but also demic art history was considered a national acti- discursive reasons due to censorship in Soviet times vity throughout Europe in conjunction with the when the first articles on this topic were published. protection of heritage and art museums.5 On the Based upon archival research I propose an alterna- other hand, the discipline is essentially internatio- tive conceptual viewpoint and suggest that the elec- nal, especially if we consider how much the map of tion process of the Professor of Art History at the Europe has changed (e.g. in the last century). After E: RAIDA, PERSON E: RAIDA, University of Tartu during the years 1919–1921 is the First World War, in the newly established states a way to define Estonian academic art history. The in Europe, art and its history were valuable means word “define” is used here in a broad sense. By defi- for the nation-building process and essential for the ning, a certain set of objects, ideas and tenets are construction of national discourse. Art history had encircled and at the same time the others are left been taught at the the Czarist University of Tartu outside. However, the “inhabitants” of the imme- in the 19th century up until 1918. But a specialized diate borderland keep transgressing and liquefying chair for Art History was only founded in 1919.6 In the solid core of a definition and open up a dialogue. the 1920s, the person, holding the chair of Art His- I conceive the ideas and visions of the founders of tory at the University of Tartu, acquired an impor- the Estonian National University as the solid core tant role in shaping the perception of this discipline of the definition. By introducing the candidates and for the whole Estonian society. their background I aspire to open up the context The interest for the questions of art historiography and show the possible alternatives and the ways they has been increasing in Estonia since the 1970s.7 Sten could have opened. Finally I ask how these possi- Karling, a professor in Tartu in 1933–1941, publis- ble choices and the final choice made in the election hed an article for the international community in could have affected the understanding of Estonian 1988 where he gave an overview of art historical academic art history and Estonian art. The whole research in Estonia from the end of the 19th century process shows the symptoms of changing vision, untill the 1980s.8 The knowledge of Estonian art his- values and habits of the community.2 toriography has been shaped by publications written MENOTYRA VIDURIO IR RYTŲ EUROPOS ŠALYS EUROPOS MENOTYRA IR RYTŲ VIDURIO The university and the institutions of art history, on the jubilees of the “first” Estonian art historians Voldemar Vaga (1899–1999), Sten Karling (1906– yet M. Eller as well as another Estonian art histo- 1987), Armin Tuulse (1907–1977) and Villem Raam rian, Juta Keevallik,20 have both made a distinction (1910–1996).9 Estonian art historian Krista Kodres between art history and academic art history (Kuns- has been especially productive and published seve- twissenschaft). To be exact, it was classical archae- ral articles. She has also written an analysis of the ology that was taught at the Czarist University of theoretical influences on the research of Sten Kar- Tartu in the 19th century up until 1918. What is the 167 ling.10 The 1920s have not received similar attention difference between art history at the beginning and since the 1980s.11 Currently three graduate students at the end of the 19th century? How did this change at the Estonian Academy of Arts and the Institute of happen? One of the best studies on these issues EUR AND EAST IN THE MIDDLE HISTORY ART History of Tallinn University are writing their doc- regarding art historians Wilhelm Vöge and Adolph toral theses on Estonian art historiography of the Goldschmidt is written by Kathryn Brush.21 19th-20th century under Krista Kodres’s and Kersti Markus’s supervision respectively.12 PROTO-PARADIGMATIC, BALTIC GERMAN OR PRE-REPUBLICAN ART HISTORY? The starting point for this article is a passage from a 1980 article of the Estonian art historian Mart Eller13: Donald Preziosi says fluently that “the institutional “a year after Estonia declared independence on the space cleared for itself by academic art history [at 24th February 1918 it was decided that a National the end of the 19th century] both in Europe and University should be established on the foundations America was no tabula rasa, but an already densely of the former Czarist University of Tartu that was textured philosophical, epistemological and ideolo- liquidated in July 1918. The plan for the chairs of gical landscape.”22 The same can be said about Esto- the university also included a chair for “aesthetics nia where art history became an academic discipline and general art history.”14 At this time no suitable at the University of Tartu in 1922. The practice of art professor could be found in Estonia, so he had to history in the 19th century in Estonia lacked epis- be looked for abroad. As a result two years later an temological coherence. The fact that art history in election was held. M. Eller mentions Gerstenberg, Estonia in the 19th century was Baltic German cle- Knapp, Waldhaus15, Josef Strzygowski and W. Wor- arly correlates with their dominance in the society OPE: PROCESS, PERSONALITIES, METHODOLOGIES PROCESS,OPE: PERSONALITIES, ringer as candidates from German universities and and culture as a whole. As Baltic Germans were an a professor from Sweden Tor Helge Kjellin. M. Eller ethnic minority a change had to happen after Esto- concludes that J. Strzygowski has won the election, nians declared their independence and constituted but did not come to Estonia, leaving the opportu- a Republic in 1918. The conflicting ideologies of the nity for the runner up in the election. H. Kjellin Baltic German minority and Estonian nation-buil- started to lecture in January 1922 as a professor of ders were following after a common philosophical “art history”.16 I wanted to develop further from pattern. Both sides recognized the importance of art this short list by asking simple questions. Who were historical knowledge as a tool of ideological power. these other candidates besides the already known The university is an essential locus for the genera- J. Strzygowski, W. Worringer and H. Kjellin? Why tion, distribution and recycling of knowledge and J. Strzygowski chose not to come to Estonia? Lars ideologies. In Estonia the University of Tartu had Berggren, who has written about J. Strzygowski’s already been established in 1632 by the Swedish 17 connection with Åbo Akademi in Turku, Finland, king Gustav II Adolf, which initiated the expan- encouraged me to find out more about the elections sion of the Swedish Empire and the Golden Age and to my surprise I could find some other famous of Sweden.23 It functioned until 1710 and attempts names among the involved: Erwin Panofsky, Hein- to re-open the university during the 18th century 18 rich Wölfflin and Adolph Goldschmidt. M. Eller under Russian rule could not be realized.24 In 1802 discussed the reasons why a suitable professor for the University of Tartu was re-established following art history could not be found in Estonia. Art his- the edict of Russian Czar Alexander I (1777–1825). 19 tory had been taught at the university before 1919, The next year the chair for “eloquence, classical philology, aesthetics and the history of literature and art” was occupied by Johann Karl Simon Mor- genstern (1770–1852).25 The title of the chair indi- cates an interdisciplinary approach to the history of art and reflects the wide range of interests of profes- 168 sor Morgenstern. Generally in the 19th century the history of art was taught in Tartu as classical archa- eology, a discipline established by the famous Ger- man art historian and archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768). Parallel to the re-establishment of the University of Tartu in the whole of Europe the growth of natio- nal tendencies and the ascendance of the bourge- oisie proceeded.26 These circumstances prepared the ground for a modern discipline – art history (or academic art history) – which was laid in German- speaking universities starting from the 1860s–70s.27 In 1860 the first chair for art history with Anton Portrait of the professor Helge Kjellin ALIJOS, METODOLOGIJOS Springer as the professor was founded at the Uni- versity of Bonn. In 1873 the first international con- gress of art history in Vienna stated, that art history the First World War, Russian Revolutions and the should become an integral part of university edu- resulting Wars of Independence.33 cation and specialized
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Complete Issue
    Center for Open Access in Science Open Journal for Studies in History 2020 ● Volume 3 ● Number 1 https://doi.org/10.32591/coas.ojsh.0301 ISSN (Online) 2620-066X OPEN JOURNAL FOR STUDIES IN HISTORY (OJSH) ISSN (Online) 2620-066X www.centerprode.com/ojsh.html [email protected] Publisher: Center for Open Access in Science (COAS) Belgrade, SERBIA www.centerprode.com [email protected] Editorial Board: Spyridon Sfetas (PhD) Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Faculty of Letters, GREECE Ilya Evgenyevich Andronov (PhD) Moscow State Lomonosov University, Faculty of History, RUSSIAN FEDERATION Mirela-Luminita Murgescu (PhD) University of Bucharest, Faculty of History, ROMANIA Kostadin Rabadjiev (PhD) Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Faculty of History, BULGARIA Snezhana Dimitrova (PhD) South-West University “Neofit Rilski”, Department of History, Blagoevgrad, BULGARIA Nikola Zhezhov (PhD) Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, Faculty of Philosophy, NORTH MACEDONIA Vojislav Sarakinski (PhD) Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, Faculty of Philosophy, NORTH MACEDONIA Amalia Avramidou (PhD) Democritus University of Thrace, Faculty of Classics and Humanities Studies, Komotini, GREECE Eleftheria Zei (PhD) University of Crete, Department of History and Archeology, Rethymno, GREECE Boyan Youliev Dumanov (PhD) New Bulgarian University, School of Graduate Studies, Sofia, BULGARIA Boryana Nikolaeva Miteva (PhD) Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Faculty of History, Sofia, BULGARIA Florian Bichir (PhD) University of Piteşti, Faculty of Theology, Literature, History and Arts, ROMANIA Executive Editor: Goran Pešić Center for Open Access in Science, Belgrade Open Journal for Studies in History, 2020, 3(1), 1-24. ISSN (Online) 2620-066X __________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS 1 The Impact of 1918 on Bulgaria George Ungureanu 11 Influences of the East on Early Christian Iconography Maria Chumak Open Journal for Studies in History, 2020, 3(1), 1-24.
    [Show full text]
  • Das Archiv Des Instituts Für Kunstgeschichte Der Universität Wien
    Das Archiv des Instituts für Kunstgeschichte der Universität Wien Friedrich Polleroß, Institut für Kunstgeschichte der Universität Wien Das älteste Kunsthistorische Institut Österreichs und der Anteil an politischer Einflussnahme immer größer. eines der bedeutendsten Europas verfügt über ein be- Die Diskriminierung und Verfolgung von jüdischen merkenswertes Archiv. Dieses „Archiv“ bzw. die „Nach- Studierenden und Wissenschaftler*innen manifestierte lass-Sammlung“ setzt sich aus drei Bestandsgruppen zu- sich in eigenen „Studienregelungen für Juden“ sowie einer sammen : „Liste der Bücher im Judenkasten“. Neben Hinweisen auf die Konfiskationen von Kunstwerken (Stift St. Florian, I. Akten des Institutsarchives Stift Melk) sowie den zunehmenden Kriegseinwirkungen gab es auch fachspezifische Schwerpunkte wie die Ein- Dieser Bestand beginnt 1882 und umfasst zunächst Korre- richtung einer „Ostabteilung“, die Konzeption einer „Zeit- spondenzen der Lehrkanzeln Moritz Thaussing und Franz schrift für die Kunstgeschichte Südosteuropas“ oder einer Wickhoff mit dem Dekan, dem Ministerium und der Nie- Schriftenreihe für den „Kriegseinsatz der Geisteswissen- derösterreichischen Statthalterei, wobei es vorwiegend um schaften“. Der „totale Kriegseinsatz“ begann mit Luft- Finanzangelegenheiten und Anschaffungen geht. Hervor- schutzdiensten der Studierenden sowie einer Verordnung gehoben sei eine Bitte um ein Gutachten von Wickhoff zum zu Sitzplätzen für Kriegsversehrte und endete 1944/45 mit Statutenentwurf des geplanten kunsthistorischen Seminars Kriegsbergungen
    [Show full text]
  • Art History and the Founding of the Modern Turkish State
    ART HISTORY AND THE FOUNDING OF THE MODERN TURKISH STATE Burcu Dogramaci Translated by Charlotte Schoell-Glass The Origins of Art History in Turkey “The true leader in life is knowledge”: with this sentence the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, defined one of the principles of his reformist politics. The building of a landscape of universities was one of the political leadership’s main concerns after the proclamation of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Its aim was the modernization of a country that had been dominated for centuries in all areas of society, its culture and the sciences, by Islam. Religious schooling institutions (‘Darülfünun’) were secularized immediately, and institutes and universities after the Western European model were founded in quick succession. The establishment of art history as a discipline in Turkey was achieved in the 1940s. At that time, Turkish ministries tried to bring foreign scholars to the country to press ahead with the establishment of art history. The foundations for the development of the field had been laid early on by the Vienna art historian Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941). He had been in close contact with Istanbul already in the 1920s and 1930s.1 In search of their own Turkish identity outside of the Ottoman culture, republican schol- ars in Turkey were fascinated by Strzygowski’s ideas and ideologies. In his writings and lectures the art historian emphasized the importance of nation and ‘race’ for the production of culture. These arguments, founded on ethnicity, were in accordance with the Kemalists’ sense of nationhood and their concern with superseding Islamic cultural history.2 Strzygowski also emphasized the necessity of re-evaluating those cultures in Asia that 1 Strzygowski was invited in 1932 to speak at the First Turkish History Conference under Atatürk’s patronage.
    [Show full text]
  • Byzantine Town Planning – Does It Exist? (With Plates 8–21)
    57 H ANS B UC H WALD Byzantine Town Planning – Does it Exist? (with plates 8–21) For Eduard Sekler There are many equally valid, parallel approaches to the study of Byzantine cities. My approach is that of a practicing town planner and an architectural historian. Town planning today is concerned with physical properties of cities such as their topography, circulation patterns, pedestrian spaces, buildings, and urban accents; however, town planning is, and probably always was, equally concerned with urban functions, with the creation of new urban forms, with urban meanings, and with adjustments, in the course of time, to new requirements. As in all town planning, the results of the present investigation need to be complemented by those of other disciplines, for instance, (in this case) historians, economists, sociologists, and archaeologists. Hundreds of cities that existed in the Byzantine region are known by name, and at times by their ar- chaeological or contemporary remains. Generally, two distinct phases in the history of these Byzantine cities have been determined: the earlier period, which begins with the era of Constantine and, depending upon local circumstances, ends between the 5th and the 8th century, and the later period, which ends with the end of Byzantine occupation at each site. The possibility of continuity between the two phases remains an open, much discussed question, and some observations concerning one phase may also be relevant to the other. For summaries, for instance, D. CLAUDE, Die byzantinische Stadt im 6. Jahrhundert. Munich 969, –; A. H. M. JONES, The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian. Oxford 939, 85–94.
    [Show full text]
  • Building Churches in Armenia: Art at the Borders of Empire and the Edge of the Canon
    The Art Bulletin ISSN: 0004-3079 (Print) 1559-6478 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcab20 Building Churches in Armenia: Art at the Borders of Empire and the Edge of the Canon Christina Maranci To cite this article: Christina Maranci (2006) Building Churches in Armenia: Art at the Borders of Empire and the Edge of the Canon, The Art Bulletin, 88:4, 656-675, DOI: 10.1080/00043079.2006.10786313 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00043079.2006.10786313 Published online: 03 Apr 2014. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 74 Citing articles: 3 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rcab20 Building Churches in Armenia: Art at the Borders of Empire and the Edge of the Canon Christina Maranci Between the index entries for “Arles” and “arms and armor” ence of multiple and distinct voices within a single voice or in most general studies of medieval art is a thin rectangle of language) and ambiguity became shrewd diplomatic devices. white space. For those seeking “Armenia,” this interval is as The Armenian structures thus can generate an alternative familiar as it is bleak, for the cultures of the Transcaucasus picture of the early medieval Christian East, one in which typically occupy a marginal position, if any, within the study military conflict activated, rather than dulled, the visual and of the Middle Ages. One might blame realities of geography verbal response. and language: a stony tableland wedged between Byzantium These churches present the additional benefit of furnish- and the Sasanian and Islamic Near East, home to a tongue ing architectural evidence from an era often considered vir- unintelligible to Greek or Latin ears, Armenia could be per- tually bereft of monuments.
    [Show full text]
  • D—Architecture Et Peinture
    d—Architecture et peinture THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF ARMENIAN ARCHITECTURE: JOSEF STRZYGOWSKI, AUSTRIA, AND ARMENIA1 by CHRISTINA MARANCI University of Wisconsin Milwaukee U.S.A. In 1918, Josef Strzygowski wrote the foundational work on the history of Armenian architecture, Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa. Draw- ing from the records of Armenian architect T‘oros T‘oramanyan, Strzy- gowski formulated a monumental comparative study in which he defined Armenia's position within the architectural developments of Byzantium, Iran, and Western Europe. As many scholars have noted, Strzygowski's thesis is problematic, mainly because of his inventive attitude towards chronology and his overtly racist interpretation of architecture2. What has received less attention, however, is the reason for Strzy- gowski's particular attraction to Armenia. Why should this prominent scholar, then Chair of the prestigious Kunsthistorisches Institut in 1 The present article is based on a chapter from my doctoral dissertation, Medieval Armenian Architecture in Historiography: Josef Strzygowski and his Legacy (MARANCI, 1998a), now published as Medieval Armenian Architecture: Constructions of Race and Nation (Leuven: Peeters, 2001). Many of the issues addressed here grew out of discus- sions with Professor Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann during a Mellon Dissertation Seminar at Princeton University in 1997. I thank Professor Kaufmann, my supervisor, Professor Slo- bodan Curcic, and Professors Nina Garsoïan, Peter Brown, John Pinto, James Russell, Suzanne Marchand, and Bert Vaux for their suggestions and comments. Much of the data analyzed herein was gathered during a research trip to the major archives of Vienna: the Hof-, Haus-, und Landesarchiv, the Universitätsarchiv, the Archiv der Republik, the Kriegsarchiv, the Archiv der Widerstand, as well as the Mekhi- tarist Monastery of Vienna.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction: the Vienna School Beyond Vienna. Art History in Central Europe
    Introduction: The Vienna School beyond Vienna. Art history in Central Europe Matthew Rampley In his study Inventing Eastern Europe the historian Larry Wolff examines the way that the idea of ‘Eastern Europe’ was constructed in Enlightenment France as part of a process of cultural mapping in which the position of Paris as the centre of civilisation was confirmed and strengthened by virtue of its opposition to the backward semi-barbaric eastern ‘fringes’ of Europe.1 This division, which has long impressed itself on the political and cultural imaginary in Europe, shaped the course of art history. As recently as 1998 Steven Mansbach’s award-winning book Modern Art in Eastern Europe uncritically employed the notion of an ‘eastern’ European art, which he analysed in terms of its relation to the modernism of ‘western’ Europe.2 Nowhere has this divide between ‘east’ and ‘west’ had a more distorting effect than in the study of Austria-Hungary. A complex political, social and cultural space that occupied both eastern and western Europe, the Habsburg Empire has not fared well at the hands of commentators, who have frequently produced limited studies of individual parts, in particular, its capital city, at the expense of considering that complex network of relations that bound the imperial possessions together. The Vienna School of Art History has been no exception to this pattern. Studies of the work of its leading representatives, most notably Alois Riegl and Max Dvořák, have tended to place them the firmly within the tradition of German language scholarship. In one sense this is entirely appropriate and correct, but it risks producing a partial picture of the Vienna School.
    [Show full text]
  • 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]
  • The Study of the Early Byzantine Architecture of Chersonesos in the Crimea: Progress Or Dead End?* Liudmila G
    The Study of the Early Byzantine Architecture of ChersonesOs in the Crimea: Progress or Dead End?* Liudmila G. Khrushkova UDC: 726.591(477.75) L. G. Khrushkova 72.033.2(477.75) Lomonosov Moscow State University Original scientific paper Lomonosovsky Prospekt 27-4 Manuscript received: 10. 11. 2016. Moscow 119992, Russia Revised manuscript accepted: 28. 11. 2016. [email protected] DOI: 10.1484/J.HAM.5.113768 e Early Christian basilicas of Chersonesos in the Crimea have been studied for over a century and a half. ere are about 20 monuments known today; almost all of them were discovered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite this, they remain poorly studied. Anatolij L. Yakobson’s book “Early Medieval Chersonesos” (1959) remains the only generalizing work in which the architecture, the mosaic and marble décor of the churches are examined together and in the context of the history of the city. is outcome is due largely to the way in which Chersones has been studied. During the last decades of the 19th century and the rst decades of the 20th century, the main role was played by the St Petersburg Archaeological Commission. Unfortunately, it never succeeded in assigning professional archaeologists and architects to the works in Chersonesos. Because of this, we don’t have exact information regarding the current location of many of the nds; also absent is a precise documentation (plans, sections, elevations, details) for the greater part of the architectural monuments of Chersonesos. It reveals that in the post-Soviet era, the “item-centric” approach has prevailed: the fragments of ceramics and the coins were analyzed rather than the architecture.
    [Show full text]
  • Josef Strzygowski
    Lecture Two: ‘The History of Art’1 Josef Strzygowski What I undertake here is approximately the opposite of Erich Rothacker in his Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften, Tübingen: Mohr [Introduction to the Humanities] of 1920. He set out to summarize the methods brought forth in the various subjects during the nineteenth century, but I by contrast, proceed from personal experience in a single field, and hope on this basis to discover what is lacking in this area, and presumably in others as well. Since Rothacker also included ‘the history of art’ (‘Kunstgeschichte’) among his considerations (p. 151), I might start with his conclusions. This outsider seems to consider ‘the history of art’ rather marginal in comparison to the other disciplines, ‘without a stabile centre leading to further ideas, and held together by something like a simple gap in the system of the sciences which might possibly yield a flow of new approaches but hardly an original development.’ ‘Energies streamed into the history of art no less randomly (than the history of literature) from aesthetics, connoisseurship, architecture, philology, archaeology, history and criticism; although the core of a scholarly tradition had formed here already earlier. We can reasonably answer the question of whether Karl Schnaase, Franz Kugler, Jacob Burckhardt, Anton Springer, Carl Justi or finally Franz Wickhoff and Alois Riegl were the first scholarly protagonists of their subject by saying that it was Schnaase. It is still essential today for art to be shown within the overall culture of a nation. Kugler is said to have been the first to introduce exclusively artistic aspects into the history of art.
    [Show full text]
  • Orient Oder Rom - a Historiographical Myth (Brno, 7-9 Feb 17)
    Orient oder Rom - a historiographical myth (Brno, 7-9 Feb 17) Centre for Early Medieval Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Feb 7–09, 2017 Deadline: Sep 9, 2016 Francesco Lovino Orient oder Rom? Prehistory, history and reception of a historiographical myth (1880-1930) Organizers: Ivan Foletti, Universities of Brno and Lausanne; Francesco Lovino, Institute of Art His- tory, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Today the question "Orient oder Rom?" is no longer a topical issue in medieval art history, although a persuasive answer has never been formulated. One of the reasons for this oblivion deals with the controversial figure of Josef Strzygowski, who in 1901 published about the ques- tion his pivotal volume and nowadays discredited for its racial and proto-nazi judgement. Howev- er, the question "Orient oder Rom?" concerns not only with Josef Strzygowski: the prodromes of this critical concepts goes back to the nineteenth century, when the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires fought to control contested territories, and humanities studies mirrored these conflicts. The conference aims to distance from the sole Strzygowski's perspective and to comprehend and rewrite the story of a pivotal concept for both art historiography and cultural identity. The goal of such reflection deals with three different moments: (I) the prehistory of the question "Orient oder Rom?" according to the nineteenth-century studies in the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and even in the Ottoman empires, where art history coincided with political aspiration; (II) the Vienna experi- ence and the dialectical clash between Alois Riegl's and Franz Wickhoff's school against Josef Strzygowski, and its repercussions worldwide; (III) the longue durée, or how the lumbering figure of Strzygowski determined the critical misfortune of the question during the 1920s and the 1930s, until the postwar period.
    [Show full text]
  • Fig. 1. Josef Strzygowski, 1927. © Archiv Der Universität Wien. Georg Vasold Riegl, Strzygowski and the Development of Art
    Fig. 1. Josef Strzygowski, 1927. © Archiv der Universität Wien. GeoRG VAsold RIegl, STRzygowskI And the Development of ART The viennese art historian Josef Strzygowski ostracized scholar was subjected to compre- (1862–1941) has recently attracted conspicu- hensive discussion.5 ous scholarly attention. (Fig. 1.) This is re- Two factors can be cited to explain the re- markable given that, until recently, his reputa- cent interest in Strzygowski. First, it must be tion has been that of a thinker blinded by ide- stressed that his thinking shattered geographi- ology, a crude and at times openly racist ideo- cal boundaries. Today, in an era of increasingly logue, and a willing servant of the National global cultural awareness, Strzygowski’s rest- Socialist regime.1 For this reason, it would be less explorations of the frontiers of art history, all too easy to renounce any consideration of including his travels to remote areas and his this thinker, and to relegate his work to where exploration of works largely unknown outside it belongs, in the dark corridors of a dusty ar- of Europe, must be regarded as progressive. In chive, never to see the light of day.2 this respect he is cited in many recent studies For a few years, however, there have been as a pioneer of “global art history,” as for exam- more and more voices calling for a fresh ap- ple an explorer who stressed the limitations of praisal of Strzygowski. Strzygowski’s writings, Europe’s eurocentric views on art and science.6 these voices insist, should not be rejected in Secondly, the critical revision of his work their totality, particularly given the consider- can also be attributed to an academic stance in able farsightedness of his early work.
    [Show full text]