The Idea of Cultural Heritage and the Canon of Art

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Hubert Locher

This contribution aims at a basic re-evaluation of the idea of a national cultural heritage in contrast to the concept of world heritage: a corpus of artefacts said to belong not to one nation but to humanity as a whole. Starting from the premise that the history of art is often motivated by the feeling of loss or deprivation, I will proceed to demonstrate how historians contribute to compensate for this loss, attempting to intellectually and ideologically regain, appropriate and even consecrate works of art as national monuments. My argument is that such appropriation is connected to ranking these national monuments within a larger body of works of art deemed to be important for all of humanity. Developing my argument systematically as well as historically, I will discuss the points of view and the choices of topics and objects of some German and one Swiss author with regard to their specific understandings of heritage and their conceptions of national identity.

‘Heritage’ has been a common term in cultural studies in general, and in cultural politics, for quite some time. So, one would expect that the term is used and the issue is discussed in art history as well. But, as a matter of fact, neither the term ‘heritage’ nor the problems connected with it have been discussed very much in art history until recently. Nevertheless, it seems obvious that art history has played a large role in defining what cultural heritage means today. As I want to argue, art history is deeply in- volved in the definition of works of art as cultural assets, objects that represent and symbolise the identity of a distinct social body, such as a nation or a state, within a system of values shared by humanity as a whole.

Debating ‘heritage’

Today, the discussion of heritage or cultural heritage seems to be not only a transnational, but also a transdisciplinary enterprise, in which art history plays but a small role. Looking for recent contributions to the topic, one quickly comes across ‘heritage studies’, invented about two decades ago as a scholarly discipline. In 1994 the The Idea of Cultural Heritage and the Canon of Art 21

International Journal of Heritage Studies was inaugurated, and it has been published since then by Taylor & Francis in London. In the introductory essay to the first issue, Peter Howard, one of the founding editors of the journal, tentatively defined what ‘the heritage discipline’ was going to be about. Here, we learn that heritage studies are not just about things or phenomena, but are intended to integrate contributions by practitioners of those older disciplines that are traditionally concerned with identifying and evaluating cultural or natural objects as objects of heritage. Among these disciplines are biology, geography, architecture, archaeology and the history of art.1 While all of the mentioned disciplines are concerned with describing and evaluating phenomena, only some of them are historically oriented: which, of course, is crucial for art history. ‘Heritage studies’ do not seem to be much interested in historical analysis. They neither aim at historical narrative nor do they focus on the reconstruction and interpretation of cultural artefacts, but rather they centre on the critical analysis of cultural processes and conditions involving cultural goods, as well as on the critical discussion and reflection of the management of cultural monuments, sites, museums, etc. in contemporary practice. A comprehensive research programme of heritage studies is offered in the Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity. The volume was edited by Brian Graham, a professor (now emeritus) of human geography at the University of Ulster, and by the above-mentioned Peter Howard, who is also a cultural geographer. The book contains a range of contributions by authors from different fields discussing heritage, mostly in connection with ‘identity’. There are more and less interesting contributions concerned with special regions and phenomena, but the intention of the book is mainly to give exemplary analytical accounts of basic issues in the new field of research. Of fundamental importance to the new ‘heritage studies’ is, as David C. Harvey writes in the first chapter of the book, that ‘heritage itself is not a thing and does not exist by itself, nor does it imply a movement or project. Rather, heritage is about the process by which people use the past – a ‘discursive construction’ with material consequences,’ which obviously has a historical dimension.2 It is interesting that both mentioned publications quote hardly any scholarly literature in languages other than English. This is surprising, considering the fact that ‘heritage’ obviously – and also according to the authors mentioned so far – has much to do with collective, and especially national identity. In fact, there are interesting scholarly discussions of cultural heritage outside the Anglophone world, particularly in Germany and in France. A key figure in the recent heritage debate in France is the historian Pierre Nora. As the editor of the multi-volume series Les Lieux de mémoire, he initiated a new kind of writing on the history of a social body, in his case the French nation, focusing less on facts and actions than on symbolic places and concepts. From 1984 to 1992 seven volumes were published. The first was dedicated to France as a republic; the second, appearing in three sub-volumes, dealt

1 P. Howard, The Heritage Discipline. – International Journal of Heritage Studies 1994, vol. 1 (1), pp. 3–5. 2 D. C. Harvey, The History of Heritage. – The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity. Eds. B. Graham, P. Howard. Aldershot, Burlington: Ashgate, 2008, p. 19. The quoted definition is explained with reference to Laurajane Smith (L. Smith, The Uses of Heritage. London, New York: Routledge, 2006). hubert locher 22

with France as a nation; and the third volume, again in three even more voluminous parts, was entitled Les Frances, France in the plural.3 The issue of heritage is explicitly addressed in the first part of the second volume of Nora’s opus, the term héritage appearing as a subheading to a section dealing with techniques, institutions and processes of passing on traditions. In the second part of the second volume a different, but closely related term appears as the first subheading: patrimoine – perhaps this is the term we are looking for. Whereas héritage is more concerned with l’immatériel, the term patrimoine designates not so much the process as the goods that are to be inherited, le materiel.4 This new topic is in- troduced in a fundamental essay written by the famous art historian André Chastel. Based on several earlier articles, this essay from 1986 discusses not a practice but the history of the concept of patrimoine as developed in France since the end of the eighteenth century. Thus, the notion patrimoine itself is understood as a lieu de mémoire in its own right.5 Nora and Chastel prepared the ground for a lively historical debate on the culture of patrimoine in France. Their approach was developed at an international conference in 1994, the acts of which were edited by Pierre Nora in 1997, under the title Science et conscience du patrimoine, as the first volume of a new series dedicated to discussing patrimoine.6 Since then, several volumes have been published, and edited by such renowned historians as François Furet, Jacques Le Goff, Régis Debray and Henry Rousso.7 Several books of special or general interest on the institutions of patrimoine have been published during the last two decades, among them studies by Dominque Poulot8 and Jean-Michel Leniaud9. As concerns the discussion of heritage in Germany, the situation is remarkably different from those in France or the Anglophone world. In Germany, it is also very much a discourse within national borders, but the situation is distinct insofar as there was a rather strict division between different discursive traditions in Eastern and Western Germany before the unification of 1989. It is astonishing that until

3 Les Lieux de mémoire. 3 vols. Ed. P. Nora. Paris: Gallimard, 1984–1992. Vol. 1, titled La République (1984), in collaboration with Charles Robert Ageron. Vol. 2: La Nation (1986), 2.1 in collaboration with Colette Beaune, 2.2 with François Bercé, 2.3 with Jean-Pierre Babelon. Vol. 3: Les Frances (1992), 3.1 subtitled as Conflits et partages in collaboration with Maurice Agulhon, 3.2 subtitled Traditions in collaboration with Philippe Boutry, and 3.3 subtitled De l’archive à l’embleme in collaboration with Maurice Agulhon. Only part of this series has been translated into English (Realms of Memory. 3 vols. Trans. A. Goldhammer. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996–1998). Later, a larger selection was published (Rethinking France: Les Lieux de Mémoire. 4 vols. Trans. D. P. Jordan et al. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001–2010). There is a German translation of a selection in one volume (Erinnerungsorte Frankreichs. Trans. M. Bayer. Munich: Beck, 2005) with a preface by Etienne François. The project has also been adapted for Germany (Deutsche Erinnerungsorte. 3 vols. Eds. E. François, H. Schulze. Munich: Beck, 2001). 4 See on this, P. Nora, Présentation. – Les Lieux de mémoire, 2.1, p. xi: Si l’ont voulait cependant en justifier la division [des trois volumes], on en trouverait aisément la logique. Chacun d’eux pourrait avoir pour sous-titre: l’immatériel, le matériel et l’idéel. Les trois thèmes qui composent le premier volume ne renvoient en effet qu’à des réalités au second degré...: Héritage, Historiographie, Paysages. 5 A. Chastel, La Notion de patrimoine. – Les Lieux de mémoire, 2.2, pp. 405–450. 6 Science et conscience du patrimoine (Théâtre national de Chaillot. Paris, 28, 29 et 30 novembre 1994). Ed. P. Nora. (Actes des Entretiens du Patrimoine.) Paris: Fayard, 1997. 7 E.g. Le Regard de l’histoire. L’émergence et l’évolution de la notion de patrimoine au cours du XXe siècle en France (Cirque d’Hiver. Paris, 26, 27 et 28 novembre 2001). Ed. H. Rousso. (Actes des Entretiens du Patrimoine.) Paris: Fayard, Patrimoine-Monum, 2003. 8 D. Poulot, Musée, nation, patrimoine, 1789–1815. Paris: Gallimard, 1997. 9 J.-M. Leniaud, Les Archipels du passé. Le patrimoine et son histoire. Paris: Fayard, 2002. The Idea of Cultural Heritage and the Canon of Art 23 the 1990s the terms Erbe or Kulturerbe – literally translated, ‘heritage’ and ‘cultural heritage’ – were rare in the scholarly discussion of art and culture in the Federal Republic of Germany, whereas in the German Democratic Republic (DDR) the word Kulturerbe became common at least in the 1960s, and it was even a key notion of cultural politics.10 There is a valid definition of the term Kulturerbe in the most important encyclopedia for art history of the DDR, the five-volume Lexikon der Kunst (1968–1976). Kulturerbe is, according to this dictionary, ‘A notion of Marxist-Leninist cultural theory designating the entirety of cultural products, relations and values of the past, all of which still have certain functions in contributing to the development and progress of a socialist culture.’11 It was only after German reunification that the term appeared here and there, occasionally with reference to a cultural obligation to actively cope with a ‘difficult’ past, e.g. in Hans Belting’s booklet Die Deutschen und ihre Kunst. Ein schwieriges Erbe.12 Two decades later, the term kulturelles Erbe can be used in an ideologically neutral way, but within art history its use is clearly common only in a specific field: the preservation of monuments.13 These few remarks may be sufficient to indicate how differently today the no- tions of ‘cultural heritage’, patrimoine and kulturelles Erbe are discussed.14 It is by no means a discussion confined to the discipline of art history. Anglophone ‘heritage studies’ almost seem to be able to get along without any contributions by people with an art-historical background, whereas in France and Germany we occasionally find art-historical figures contributing to the debate. But here too, the issues of ‘heritage’ and ‘cultural heritage’ are not so much topics of art history in general,

10 See W. Schlenker, Das ‘kulturelle Erbe’ in der DDR. Gesellschaftliche Entwicklung und Kulturpolitik 1945– 1965. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1977. The terms Erbe and kulturelles Erbe appear quite regularly in titles of art-historical essays and books since the 1960s. The discussion seems to have reached a climax around the celebration of Albrecht Dürer’s five hundredth birthday in 1971 (see P. H. Feist, Die Sozialistische Nationalkultur – Erbe der Kultur und Kunst der frühbürgerlichen Revolution. – Albrecht Dürer. Kunst im Aufbruch. Eds. E. Ullmann et al. Leipzig: Karl-Marx-Universität, 1972, pp. 173–190; E. Ullmann, Das Erbe dem Volk erschließen. Zur Arbeit der Ausstellungsgruppe beim Ministerium für Kultur. – Bildende Kunst 1974, vol. 22 (1), pp. 45–47). Kulturelles Erbe und sozialistische Nationalkultur is one topic of the study course Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Socialist Politics of Art and Culture at the Humboldt University of Berlin. See also Erbe und Tradition in der DDR. Die Diskussion der Historiker. Eds. H. Meier, W. Schmidt. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1988; Zur Kultur- und Kunstpolitik der SED. Ed. C. Ziermann. Berlin: Dietz, 1988. The latter was prepared by a collective of authors at the Institut für Marxistisch-Leninistische Kultur- und Kunstwissenschaft der Akademie für Gesellschaftswissenschaften beim Zentralkomitee der SED. 11 Kulturerbe, Begriff der marxist.-leninist. Kulturtheorie für die Gesamtheit der in der Vergangenheit entstandenen kulturellen Produkte, Beziehungen und Werte, die über den historischen Umkreis ihres Entstehens und zeitgenöss. Wirkens hinaus in der Entwicklung der sozialist. Gesellschaft Funktionen erfüllen, dadurch zum Entstehen, Fortschreiten und zur Festigung der sozialist. Kultur beitragen. (Lexikon der Kunst. Vol. 2. Eds. H. Olbrich et al. Leipzig: Seemann, 1971, p. 759.) 12 H. Belting, Die Deutschen und ihre Kunst. Ein schwieriges Erbe. Munich: Beck, 1992. Considering the date of its publication this booklet is of some importance for the discussion of a ‘national cultural heritage’, even if it is a rather superficial essay. English edition: H. Belting, The Germans and Their Art: A Troublesome Relationship. Trans. S. Kleager. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. 13 See e.g. Architekturgeschichte und kulturelles Erbe – Aspekte der Baudenkmalpflege in Ostmitteleuropa. Ed. B. Störtkuhl. (Mitteleuropa – Osteuropa 8.) Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006. See especially Europäisches Kulturerbe. Bilder, Traditionen, Konfigurationen. Ed. W. Speitkamp. (Arbeitshefte des Landesamtes für Denkmalpflege Hessen 23.) Stuttgart: Theiss, 2013. This important collection of essays gives an excellent overview as to the state of the discussion on cultural heritage in Germany. 14 On the difficult translation of the term (though without considering German) see M. Dormaels, The Concept behind the Word: Translation Issues in Definitions of Heritage. – Understanding Heritage: Perspectives in Heritage Studies. Eds. M.-T. Albert, R. Bernecker, B. Rudolff. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013, pp. 107–115. hubert locher 24

as they are dealt with within the institutionalised discourse of the protection of monuments. Thus, it is not surprising that even in more recent art-historical handbooks or dictionaries, one does not usually find the terms heritage/patrimoine/ Kulturerbe. Obviously, ‘heritage’ is currently not considered a key term for art history, even though nobody would deny that art history is concerned with ‘heritage’.15

Property and politics

The limited use of the term within art history might have to do with the proven- ance of the word resulting in a rather strong connotation. Heritage, as is the case with patrimoine and Erbe, or patrimony, a term less common within art history or when cultural goods are concerned, is clearly a concept of civil law. The Latin word patrimonium designates property that is to be given by a decedent or testator to a le- gitimate or designated successor. Heritage is, primarily and inevitably, about goods, money and power, as well as obligations connected with property. Therefore, it can also be a matter of politics, which, of course, involves questions of identity. It is an old idea, common in many cultures of various kinds, that not only individuals can have property but also corporate bodies. This idea acquired a new meaning with the French Revolution, when the confiscation of the goods of the nobility and the secularisation of the possessions of the Church made it necessary to organise their further use and preservation in the service of a new owner: the people of France. Many measures were taken then – most of them not very successful – to prevent the destruction of buildings that were symbols of the monarchy or the Church, and to make objects of ideal value as works of art accessible in museums. During these years the ‘public’ was officially acknowledged as the owner of these ideal ‘treasures’, deemed useful now for the study of the good and the beautiful, but the word patrimoine or ‘cultural heritage’ seems to have been used only relatively late in such contexts. We can assume that the current understanding of the term ‘heritage’ in connection with cultural goods has been shaped largely by the use of this term in connection with the legal efforts to protect works of art and architecture from destruction, especially in the event of war between several collective owners of these goods, i.e. between peoples and states. A sentence from the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954) clearly indicates that works of art and architecture are collective property: ‘damage to cultural property belonging to any people whatsoever means damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind, since each people makes its contribution to the culture of the world’.16 The

15 Hardly an exception is the essay written not by an art historian, but, again, by the cultural geographer and co-founder of the above-mentioned heritage studies, Brian Graham (B. Graham, European Heritage: Unity in Diversity? – Art History and Visual Studies in Europe: Transnational Discourses and National Frameworks. Eds. M. Rampley, T. Lenain, H. Locher, A. Pinotti, C. Schoell-Glass, K. Zijlmans. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2012, pp. 41–58). 16 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict with Regulations for the Execution of the Convention 1954. The Hague, 14 May 1954, preface. – UNESCO, http://portal.unesco.org/en/ ev.php-URL_ID=13637&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html (accessed 5 May 2014). The Idea of Cultural Heritage and the Canon of Art 25

1. Frontispiece to the third edition of the atlas to accompany Franz Kugler’s Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte and Geschichte der Baukunst. Denkmäler der Kunst zur Übersicht ihres Entwickelungsganges von den ersten künstlerischen Versuchen bis zu den Standpunkten der Gegenwart. Eds. W. Lübke, C. von Lützow. Stuttgart: Neff, 1879. hubert locher 26

2. Cover of Johann Rudolf Rahn’s grand opus on Swiss art history. J. R. Rahn, Geschichte der bildenden Künste in der Schweiz. Zürich: Staub, 1876.

3. Preface of J. R. Rahn, Geschichte der bildenden Künste in der Schweiz. Zürich: Staub, 1876. The Idea of Cultural Heritage and the Canon of Art 27 convention is based on the Landkriegsordnung of the Hague, signed in 1907, where the destruction of ‘historical monuments or works of art’ was banned and which stipulated that these goods, if owned by a public body, be treated and protected like private property.17 In these legal documents ‘peoples’ are mentioned as the owners, as collective subjects – a concept which came into play only towards the end of the eighteenth century. Most interesting in this context is the rationale for the prohibition of the destruction of cultural goods given in the convention of 1954, that ‘damage to cultural property ... means damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind’.18 This sentence stresses the specific aspect ‘cultural’. If different peoples fight against each other, it might be perfectly reasonable to destroy the enemy’s material resources, as well as its symbols of power and identity. The post-war organisation UNESCO has tried to defend those objects which are not only symbols of identity of one people, but symbols of human culture in general, and thus public good, common property: the property of humanity. The convention of 1907 clearly speaks of ‘historic monuments, works of art and science’.19 This convention refers to general ‘cultural property’, but it is clear that only objects of exceptional value are meant, i.e. those appreciated not only by some, but possibly by all peoples, including the parties fighting against each other. According to these conventions, works of universal value – and only these – deserve special protection. This principle of the Hague Convention of the protection and preservation of cultural heritage clearly implies the idea of an exclusive canon of works of art of universal value. There was an earlier explicit verbalisation of this principle on the occasion of a conference held in Brussels in 1915, the Kriegstagung für Denkmalpflege. The participants were from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Among them were Paul Clemen, one of the leading figures in the military art protection service Kunstschutz, the German art historian Cornelius Gurlitt and Ferdinand Vetter from Switzerland. At this conference, these scholars spoke in favour of the idea that only the general acknowledgement by all nations of a list of monuments as property of the ‘cultural world as a whole’, as ‘art treasures of the world’ could really secure their protection. Consequently they proposed to set up a general index (Gesamtkodex) of all possible objects of this ‘world art treasure’. The churches of Verona and Ravenna, the castle of Heidelberg, the Parthenon and the Hagia Sophia were mentioned in this context as representing prime examples of Italian and Christian art, of the secular art of the regions north of the Alps, of Greek antiquity, and an example of

17 Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, and its Annex: Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land. The Hague, 18 October 1907. – International Committee of the Red Cross, http://www.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/385ec082b509e76c41256739003e636d/1d1726425f6955aec125641e0038bfd6 (accessed 20 June 2014). 18 Convention for the Protection..., preface. Italics by H. L. 19 Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws..., art. 56; see also art. 27. hubert locher 28

Byzantine art that was also influential in Islamic architecture.20 To conceive of such a Gesamtkodex obviously meant setting up a modern canon of art, which had to be based on art history.

Differencing the canon

The idea of a transnational list of important works of art, or a Generalcodex of ‘world art’, originated around 1800. It is to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that we owe the expression ‘world-literature’.21 In his autobiography Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe wrote of an idea that he took from Johann Gottfried Herder: that ‘poetry be in every place a gift to the world and all the peoples’.22 Elsewhere, Goethe also wrote that ‘poetry belongs to all of humanity’.23 In the earlier essay Über Restauration von Kunstwerken from 1799, Goethe was even more general, stating that ‘all works of art belong as such to the whole of educated humanity, and the ownership of them is connected with the obligation to preserve them’.24 The crucial point here lies in qualifying an artefact as a ‘work of art’, as an object distinguished among other artefacts by qualities that are not expressed here. Only these objects are of universal value, therefore belonging to humanity, and worth protecting. From this it follows that other artefacts may also have a certain value, but not a universal one. In this sense, the German art historian Franz Kugler – in his important essay Über die Kunst als Gegenstand der Staatsverwaltung – made a clear distinction between monuments of only historical importance, and works of art of a higher and enduring value. The first category consists of works of art that are expired or extinguished (erloschen), no longer alive.25 They still may have some importance as historical monuments, insofar as they are the results and expression of earlier conditions and beliefs.

20 See the report by Paul Schumann (P. Schumann, Kriegstagung für Denkmalpflege in Brüssel. – Kunstchronik 1914/1915, Neue Folge, vol. 26 (44), pp. 561–567). See also Kriegstagung für Denkmalpflege (Brüssel 28. und 29. August 1915). Stenographischer Bericht. Berlin: Ernst, 1915; I. Scheurmann, Denkmalpflege und Kunstschutz 1914 bis 1933. Programme, Profile, Projekte und ihre disziplingeschichtlichen Folgen. – DENKmalWERTE. Beiträge zur Theorie und Aktualität der Denkmalpflege. Eds. H.-R. Meier, I. Scheurmann. Berlin, Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2010, pp. 200–219. Cf. B. Störtkuhl, Art Historiography during World War I: Kunstschutz and Reconstruction in the General Government of Warsaw in this volume. 21 See H. Birus, Goethes Idee der Weltliteratur. Eine historische Vergegenwärtigung. – Weltliteratur heute. Konzepte und Perspektiven. Ed. M. Schmeling. (Saarbrücker Beiträge zur Vergleichenden Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft 1.) Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1995, pp. 5–28. Republished in Goethezeitportal, 19 January 2004, http://www.goethezeitportal.de/db/wiss/goethe/birus_weltliteratur.pdf (accessed 14 July 2014). 22 ...daß die Dichtkunst überhaupt eine Welt- und Völkergabe sei (J. W. Goethe, Sämtliche Werke. Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche. Vol. 14, Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit. Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1986, p. 445). 23 J. P. Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens. – J. W. Goethe, Sämtliche Werke. Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche. Vol. 39. Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1999, p. 224 (conversation from 31 January 1827). 24 Alle Kunstwerke gehören als solche der gesammten gebildeten Menschheit an und der Besitz derselben ist mit der Pflicht verbunden Sorge für ihre Erhaltung zu tragen. (J. W. Goethe, Über Restauration von Kunstwerken. – Propyläen. Eine periodische Schrift. Vol. 2 (1). Ed. J. W. Goethe. Tübingen: Cotta, 1799, pp. 119ff. Cited from the reprographic reprint: Propyläen. Eine periodische Schrift 1798–1800. 3 vols. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1965, pp. 481–482.) 25 F. Kugler, Ueber die Kunst als Gegenstand der Staatsverwaltung. Mit besonderem Bezuge auf die Verhältnisse des preußischen Staates [1847]. – F. Kugler, Kleine Schriften und Studien zur Kunstgeschichte. Vol 3. Stuttgart: Ebner & Seubert, 1854, pp. 578–603. The Idea of Cultural Heritage and the Canon of Art 29

The second category is the ‘great masterworks’ – these are works of art that ‘bear the sign of perfection’. Master-objects are of special value in Kugler’s opinion, de- serving special protection because they can be models for contemporary and future artistic production. Differentiations of this kind are shared by most art historians to this day, and are also understood by many persons engaged in the service of the protection of monuments. However, if Kugler’s distinction is based on the principle of Vollendung or perfection – occasionally he even spoke of beauty – there are other criteria in the valuation of the ‘masterwork’, including the reference to the power of a work of art to truly express and communicate the spirit of an age or people, an idea of truly longue durée which was of great importance in the definition of a specific national contribution to ‘world art’. Let me refer again to Paul Clemen – to a later text, published in 1933 in a collection of essays on the preservation of monuments, specified by the author emphatically as ‘a confession’.26 Here Clemen defined the monument worthy of protection as a work of art. Works of art, i.e. paintings, sculptures and buildings, are not only historical documents, but also symbols. Especially in the form of monumental buildings, works of art are able to address in the most im- mediate way the crowd, the people. Such a ‘monument’ is the ‘most effective em- bodiment of a whole tribe’ (Stamm).27 To Clemen, monuments were therefore ‘sac- red places’ (Weihestätten), ‘sanctuaries’ (Heiligthümer),28 not so much for humanity as for a people – the German people in his case. Considering the special character of the work of art, he says: ‘It is only given to the visual arts among all languages of the superior spiritual life to express in the most restricted formula, and to re- gister in the guise of the symbol the fates of the past and the experiences of great excitements. Here, everything is given in a condensed and exhaustive manner; with one single glance of the eye, which is born for seeing, for watching employed, everything is embraced and absorbed, whereas history, poetry, and music, too, only slowly make visibly appear and reoccur.’29 Clemen’s solemn speech has to be read in the political context of these years: it clearly was in accordance with prevalent nationalistic attitudes. It was in January 1933, the year of the publication of his text, that the National Socialist Party took power in the German Reichstag. Yet Clemen’s conception of a masterwork of art as the genuine expression of the spirit of one people, as a sanctuary of spiritual ex- perience, and as part of a universal world art treasure is much older, rooted in the romantic conception of a work of art as a means of expression of the spirit of a nation and a medium of universal understanding.

26 P. Clemen, Die deutsche Kunst und die Denkmalpflege. Ein Bekenntnis. Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1933. 27 ...überwiegend monumentale Bauten, daneben auch plastische historische Einzeldenkmäler ... die als jedem verständliches Wahrzeichen gewählt werden ... weil in ihnen die auch auf die breiteste Volksmasse am stärksten wirkende sichtbare Verkörperung der Seele eines ganzen Stammes, eines Stadtbildes gegeben ist. (P. Clemen, Die deutsche Kunst...., p. 4.) 28 P. Clemen, Die deutsche Kunst..., p. 15. 29 Unter all den Sprachen des gehobenen Seelenlebens ist es allein der bildenden Kunst verliehen, in der knappsten Formel und im Gewande des Symbols die bestimmenden Schicksale der Vergangenheit wie die Erlebnisse der großen Erregungen festzuhalten. Hier ist alles gedrängt und erschöpfend gegeben; mit einem einzigen Blick des Auges, das zum Sehen geboren, zum Schauen bestellt ist, wird umspannt und aufgenommen, was Geschichte, Dichtung, auch Musik erst langsam erstehen, wiedererstehen lassen müssen. (P. Clemen, Die deutsche Kunst..., pp. 3–4.) hubert locher 30

This conception is elaborated in that famous piece of romantic literature titled Herzensergießungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders, written by Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, published anonymously in 1797, and edited by his friend Ludwig Tieck.30 It is a seminal text for aesthetics, and for art history as well; in terms of our interest, it is just as important as Goethe’s much-quoted hymn Von deutscher Baukunst (1773). Here Wackenroder, just like Goethe in his essay, evokes a national tradition of art. But paradoxically he writes mostly about the art and life of Italian artists. Starting with a description of a universal conception of art by refer- ring to the example of Raphael, Wackenroder proceeds to paraphrase the biography of Leonardo da Vinci based on Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550/1568), a text that was not available in German at that time, with the aim of drawing a picture of the ideal artist, a ‘role model of an ingeni- ous and deeply learned painter’.31 This description of the ideal – in this case Italian – artist has a counterpart in the presentation of a similar, if not equal, German artist, namely Albrecht Dürer, whom Wackenroder addresses in the next chapters as ‘our ancestor’32. Dürer is celebrated as a German artist, but also as a painter appreciated by other nations as well, and particularly by the Italians of Vasari’s time. We have in this parallel of two artists a basic expression of an idea soon to be repeated in many different forms in the art-historical literature: Wackenroder postulates the existence of a specific national artistic tradition of German art, and he defends its status as ‘true art’ by comparing it with established role models, thus integrating German art into a general history of art. Art is understood as a universal spiritual source, a universal language of revelation available to every people in the world, spoken in different dialects. The work of art is inevitably of national origin, and its appearance has to be characteristic. The crucial point in Wackenroder’s conception of world art is the acceptance of difference in its manifestations. In a separate chapter immediately preceding the praise of Dürer, Wackenroder acknowledges difference on the basis of fundamental kinship. The passage is captioned ‘A Few Words on Universality, Tolerance and Love of Humanity in Art’.33 Here, the unity of all art is acknowledged due to its invariably spiritual origin. In every work of art, he says, God will recognise ‘the divine spark’. Every work of art, the ‘gothic temple’ as well as the sanctuary of the Greeks, the ‘war music of the savages’ and the ‘artful chant’ are creations of the same spirit.34 Clearly, Wackenroder’s text was deeply inspired by his Christian faith. But his concept of art and his basic expressions of thought are easily secularised. They re- appear in the formula of ‘unity in diversity’, which not only became the motto of the European Union in the year 2000, but was also the idea on which the development

30 [W. H. Wackenroder, L. Tieck], Herzensergießungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders. Berlin: Unger, 1797. Digitalised version: Deutsches Textarchiv, http://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/view/wackenroder_ herzensergiessungen_1797 (accessed 20 June 2014). English edition: W. H. Wackenroder, L. Tieck, Outpourings of an Art-Loving Friar. Trans. E. Mornin. New York: Ungar, 1975. 31 [W. H. Wackenroder, L. Tieck], Herzensergießungen..., p. 62. 32 [W. H. Wackenroder, L. Tieck], Herzensergießungen..., pp. 109ff. 33 Einige Worte über Allgemeinheit, Toleranz und Menschenliebe in der Kunst ([W. H. Wackenroder, L. Tieck], Herzensergießungen..., pp. 97–108). 34 [W. H. Wackenroder, L. Tieck], Herzensergießungen..., p. 100: den himmlischen Funken. The Idea of Cultural Heritage and the Canon of Art 31 of art history during the nineteenth century was largely based.35 Goethe’s Von deutscher Baukunst and Wackenroder’s Herzensergiesungen... can be read as personal expressions of the feeling of cultural deficiency, or the lack of cultural identity, which was felt strongly in comparison to the cultures of Italy and France. Italy was considered to be the cradle of modern art, as the nation that had provided many role models in literature and art in the past, while France was perceived as the dominant cultural power of the present. In the sphere of literature and art, this lack of national, or rather cultural, identity was articulated towards the end of the eighteenth century with growing intensity. Writers, historians and artists started to look for, or to invent, a national artistic tradition. Thus, the exploration of a specific national tradition in the arts became a central field of research and a determining factor in the gradual institutionalisation of the history of medieval and modern art as a scholarly discipline in Germany. What was aimed at in German art literature and early German art history might now be addressed with an expression coined by the feminist art historian Griselda Pollock: ‘differencing the canon’.36 Not that the established canon of art mainly consisting of works of Italian art was simply rejected, but there was an attempt to crit- ically differentiate, alter and even undermine the basic structure in order to estab- lish new categories and values. The traditional system of values had to be altered, even re-framed in order to articulate the participation of a player that had not been taken into account hitherto. Most important in this process was the gesture itself of deconstructing and differencing the canon as the genuine expression of identity of a new participant in the discussion. Crucial for such a project to be successful was mainly to find objects, works of art of general interest, and to prove their value and specific position in the general picture of the history of art of all nations.

Art history’s construction of national art

The idea of a continuous history of art from the beginning to the present age marked the horizon for any construction of a German national art, or for what later might be called ‘German heritage’. This is especially evident in the art-historical handbooks published by Franz Kugler, the Handbuch der Geschichte der Malerei von Constantin dem Großen bis auf die neuere Zeit37 (1837) and the Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte38 (1842). The Handbuch der Geschichte der Malerei... consists of two volumes, the first of which is dedicated entirely to Italian painting from its beginnings in antiquity to its

35 See W. Speitkamp, Heritage Preservation, Nationalism and the Reconstruction of Historical Monuments in Germany during the Long Nineteenth Century in this volume. 36 G. Pollock, Differencing the Canon: Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art’s Histories. London: Routledge, 1999. 37 F. Kugler, Handbuch der Geschichte der Malerei von Constantin dem Großen bis auf die neuere Zeit. 2 vols. Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1837. 38 F. Kugler, Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte. Stuttgart: Ebner & Seubert, 1842. See also my essay H. Locher, Vorbild und Gegenbild. Franz Kuglers Darstellung von Italien und Frankreich in den Handbüchern der Kunstgeschichte. – Franz Theodor Kugler. Deutscher Kunsthistoriker und Berliner Dichter. Eds. M. Espagne, B. Savoy, C. Trautmann-Waller. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2010, pp. 69–82. hubert locher 32

decline in the eighteenth century, when, as Kugler writes in the last sentence: ‘The arts emigrated to look for a new home elsewhere.’39 The second volume contains the histories of German painting, including the Flemish tradition. Short chapters are dedicated to painting in Spain, France and England. The last section again deals with German painting in a chapter on the more recent activities up to the present time. This discourse was clearly written from the writer’s position as a German author writing a book for his contemporary German audience. Kugler’s aim was to construct a narrative of German painting according to the model of Italian art. The history of Italian painting could be told as a complete narrative starting at some point and ending later with its decline, whereas the history of German painting was not completed yet. Of course, Kugler was hoping that it might be Germany’s turn. Kugler dreamt of German painting coming into full bloom during his lifetime, which could happen, he thought, with the support of the state and the general do- mestic public becoming interested in its own traditions and culture. We find a similar approach in Kugler’s later Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte, in a broader and more systematically developed way. Single national traditions are here displayed in a less biased manner according to an abstract chronological grid, subdivided based on the main genres. The subjects of this narrative are peoples: Völker or nations. These are the agents within the one great history of art. This conception of a historically unfolding ‘unity in diversity’ was aptly illustrated some decades after the first printing of the Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte in the frontispiece of the third edition of the Bildatlas40 published to accompany the textbook (fig. 1). This etching, dated 1879, shows how German art history imagined the ‘construction of art’ at that time, as an allegorical ‘building’, consisting of contributions by several nations, but primarily Italy, France and Germany. In the centre of a monumental façade in the style of the Italian renaissance we find, below a bust of the Greek goddess Athena (Minerva), allegorical statues of the three main branches of art: painting, architecture and sculpture. In the open windows to the left and to the right we see examples of art. On the left side, there is the Limburg cathedral as a German example, below is a view of the pyramids and sphinx of Egypt, on the right is the Amiens cathedral as a French example, and below is the Greek Parthenon of Athens. In the entablature are the portraits of some of the most important masters: from Germany Albrecht Dürer and Peter Vischer the Elder, and from Italy Raphael and Michelangelo. In the basement, on the pedestals of the main columns, are the master builders of this architecture: the heads of Karl Schnaase (1798–1875) and Franz Kugler (1808–1858), both of them authors of large handbooks, and both of them already deceased by then. This is the building of art from a German point of view within a multinational system: Egypt, Greece and Italy represent classical art.

39 Die Künste sind ausgewandert, sich eine neue Heimath zu suchen. (F. Kugler, Handbuch der Geschichte der Malerei... 1, p. 360.) 40 Denkmäler der Kunst zur Übersicht ihres Entwickelungsganges von den ersten künstlerischen Versuchen bis zu den Standpunkten der Gegenwart. 3rd ed. Eds. W. Lübke, C. von Lützow. Stuttgart: Neff, 1879. The Idea of Cultural Heritage and the Canon of Art 33

Germany and France are the two antagonists of the present time, both of them rep- resented by examples of medieval art. The handbooks are efforts to survey the history of art in global terms. They define what art history is about by defining a set of objects and ascribing to each nation a specific position within the development of art in general. This way a frame- work is set up for the more and more specialised art-historical research, focusing on local objects, on regional and national traditions. But after the middle of the century we find more and more often survey histories of the art of a particular nation. An early example in Germany is Ernst Joachim Förster’s five-volume Geschichte der deutschen Kunst (1851–1855).41 A considerable collective achievement was the Geschichte der deutschen Kunst (1885–1891), published in Berlin with the participation of Robert Dohme, Wilhelm von Bode, Jacob von Falke, Hubert Janitschek, and Carl von Lützow.42 In 1890 Wilhem Lübke published his version of the Geschichte der deutschen Kunst in one illustrated volume,43 and after the end of the long nineteenth century, Georg Dehio published his Geschichte der deutschen Kunst in three volumes (1919–1926), the first of which was written during the Great War and dedicated in 1916 to his sons in Krieg und Gefangenschaft.44 These books display and illustrate German art, i.e. art in the German-speaking countries, by describing and ordering chronologically the monuments produced and found in a specific, geographically confined area. Still, they are attempts at narratives of the history of art of a nation, and not just inventories of local artistic productions. Even if confined to the art of one nation, these surveys are still meant to be read within a larger narrative of art history in general, with the specific purpose of assessing in detail the contribution of one nation – or one ‘people’ – to the development of world art. This becomes obvious whenever debated fields are addressed, such as the role of Germany or France in the development of gothic architecture. Thus, to give an example, Wilhelm Lübke was particularly eager to ascribe to his nation if not the invention of the gothic cathedral, at least its ‘consummate perfection’.45 In one way or another, these national art histories are still based on the common romantic belief that art in general is some kind of expression of the nature, or Wesen, of a ‘people’. But with the larger picture of art history as a whole in mind, it became just as important to many authors to simply materially identify and eval- uate the works of art to be found within the boundaries of a state. I would like to mention here as a particularly interesting case Johann Rudolf Rahn’s Geschichte der Kunst in der Schweiz, published in 1876 in one volume of almost nine hundred pages

41 In 1860 already the second edition was published: E. Förster, Geschichte der deutschen Kunst. 5 vols. Leipzig: Weigel, 1860. 42 Geschichte der deutschen Kunst. 5 vols. Berlin: Grote, 1885–1891. The five volumes are: R. Dohme, Geschichte der deutschen Baukunst; W. von Bode, Geschichte der deutschen Plastik (both in two parts, 1885 and 1887); J. von Falke, Geschichte des deutschen Kunstgewerbes (1888); H. Janitschek, Geschichte der deutschen Malerei (1890); C. von Lützow, Geschichte des deutschen Kupferstiches und Holzschnittes (1891). 43 W. Lübke, Geschichte der deutschen Kunst von den frühesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart. Stuttgart: Ebner & Seubert, 1890. 44 G. Dehio, Geschichte der deutschen Kunst. 3 vols. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1919–1926. 45 W. Lübke, Geschichte der deutschen Kunst..., p. 343 hubert locher 34

(fig. 2). It is remarkable because it is an attempt to write the national history of art of Switzerland, even though he thought from the beginning that this approach was fundamentally inappropriate. In his introduction on the ‘position of medieval art in Switzerland and its scientific treatment’, Rahn admits that there can be no talk of a ‘Swiss nationality’ in a strict sense.46 He also concedes that without any national consciousness and the lack of the economic requirements, the most basic preconditions for the development of a specific national art were just not available during the Middle Ages. There were no natural borders, and no dominant or defining aspect in the landscape, or in the economic conditions. There is not one national language in Switzerland, but four. What was worse for an art historian, there were hardly any important works of art: art in Switzerland was, as Rahn mentions in his introductory sentences, ‘poor in works of art of a higher quality’.47 Compared to the ‘stylish’ art of the neighbouring countries, art in Switzerland was ‘miserable’, ‘poor’, and ‘without class’ (ranglos; fig. 3). If, nevertheless, Rahn set out to attempt the historical reconstruction of the history of the visual arts in Switzerland, this happened for patriotic reasons (Vaterlandsliebe). And he wished that one spark of his enthusiasm would continue to glow in the book he had written, in order to in- crease the treasure of universal scholarship and encourage the allegiance to a bet- ter known home country. The purpose of this history was, first, to collect what was there, in order to make an inventory of what his ancestors had left. Here the idea of ‘cultural heritage’ came into play. Rahn himself did not use this term, but he wrote about a Nachlass: a ‘legacy’, a ‘bequest’. It is the task of the historian not to invent this legacy, but to make an inventory of these treasures, then to assess the value of these goods by making ‘recognisable that the sum of our monuments is an integral part of a superior totality’,48 and finally to bring these findings to the knowledge of the rightful heirs.

Conclusion: Canon – heritage/patrimoine – memory

I want to end by drawing together some very provisional statements concerning the role of art history in the definition of a national cultural heritage during the long nineteenth century. Art history in this century of the development of the nation-states in Europe was a thoroughly political enterprise. Very often it was motivated by patriotism and the desire to define a collective identity. In order to overcome the feeling of cultural deficiency or lack of culture, a national cultural heritage was even constructed. The resulting narratives of the history of the art of a nation were based on the assumption that there was a general history of art, a canon of art history. According to the romantic model, this general history of art consisted of the different

46 J. R. Rahn, Geschichte der bildenden Künste in der Schweiz. Von den ältesten Zeiten bis zum Schlusse des Mittelalters. Zürich: Staub, 1876, p. 4. 47 J. R. Rahn, Geschichte der bildenden Künste..., p. v. 48 J. R. Rahn, Geschichte der bildenden Künste..., pp. vi, x. The Idea of Cultural Heritage and the Canon of Art 35 contributions of different nations as collective agents, following one basic conception of the work of art as the genuine expression of the spirit of a people. It is on this general conception of a unified history of human civilisation that the modern idea of a world heritage is based. Art historians in the nineteenth century generally accepted this idea of a ‘world art’, composed of the differing contributions of collective individuals. Nevertheless, very often they were keen on demonstrating the importance and originality of the contribution of their respective nations. As beautiful as this idea of a common heritage of humanity may be at first sight, it remains a fact that humanity is not a legal body and cannot possess things. Nations or states, however, are distinct public bodies, which can define their respective property. Yet, in most cases works of art were originally not the property of such a public body, but of a private person or an institution. Before a thing can become the cultural heritage of a nation, it has to be acquired: not only materially, but also intellectually. Thus, we cannot talk about national or cultural/collective heritage without talking about the process of acquiring or appropriating it. However, it seems questionable as to whether one should talk about heritage if no material goods are at stake. A work of art always has a material side: the material presence of a work of art. This underscores the fact that a work of art has a potential of its own to store information in its material substance, and to attract the production of meaning. It is characteristic for any work of art that it is, from its beginnings, part of a cultural process of making meaning, and a genuine contribution to it. Thus the material object is part of a discursive complex which consists of more than words. Every work of art is somebody’s material property. But as cultural heritage or collective heritage (of a nation or a public body) it cannot be defined before it has been acquired intellectually. These artefacts are part of a cultural process. But still, they have to become part of a collective memory. To quote a sentence from Goethe’s Faust: ‘What from your father you’ve inherited, / You must earn again, to own it straight’.49

49 Was du ererbt von deinen Vätern hast / Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen. (J. W. von Goethe, Faust. Eine Tragödie. Tübingen: Cotta, 1808, p. 50.) English translation: J. W. von Goethe, Faust. Trans. A. S. Kline. – A. S. Kline, Poetry in Translation 2003, http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/FaustIScenesItoIII.htm (accessed 1 October 2014).