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^< / Bulletin Allen Memorial Volume LI Art Museum Numbet 2 Oberlin College 1998 Gf Volume LI I Number 1 1998 'A J •'//, % 2% ps *• im > • 1 •\* * ** # "• »» • — • • Bulletin Allen Memorial Volume LI Art Museum Number 2 Oberlin College 1998 & Volume LI I Number 1 1998 Front Cover: 3 Introduction Rembrandt, Self Portrait Leaning on a Stone Sill, Marjorie E. Wieseman 1639, etching, 8 3A6 x 6 9A6 in. (20.8 x 16.7 cm). Allen Memorial Art 5 Wolfgang Stechow Museum, Gift of Mrs. F. F. Prentiss, 1944.63. and the Art of Iconography David A. Levine & Nicola Courtright Back Cover: Wolfgang Stechow, Oberlin 1963 (photograph by !5 Rembrandt and the Old Testament Arthur E. Princehorn). Wolfgang Stechow 59 The Crisis in Rembrandt Research Wolfgang Stechow 67 Appendix: Table of Contents and Addenda for Stechow's "Gesammelte Aufsatze" Wolfgang Stechow Edited by David A. Levine & Nicola Courtright 79 Acqusitions 1996-1998 93 Loans 1996-1998 95 Museum Staff & Publications Published twice a year by the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberhn College, Oberlin, Ohio. Back issues available from the Museum. Indexed in the Art Index and abstracted by BHA (Bibliography of the History of Art) and ARTbibliographies. Reproduced on University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Printed by Herald Printing. Copyright © Oberlin College, 1998. ISSN: 0002-5739. Introduction Although it has been nearly twenty-five years considerations in the often contentious field of since Wolfgang Stechow's death, his erudition and Rembrandt studies. Finally, the Appendix, personality are still very much in evidence at the containing Stechow's own commentaries written to Allen Memorial Art Museum. The many accompany the reissue of twenty of his previously magnificent artworks on display throughout the published iconographic studies (a project he galleries are silent confirmation of his remarkably was engaged with during the final months of his varied connoisseurship and astute understanding life), shows a fertile and tenacious mind, probing of both the potential and the responsibilities of and re-evaluating his subjects as many as forty an academic museum. Museum files are rife with years after their original investigation. his handwritten notes, ranging from detailed I am immensely grateful to David Levine and investigations of iconographic prototypes and Nicola Courtright for their thoughtful scholarly patient stylistic analyses, to a simple but enthusias­ contributions to this volume, as well as their long tic "groovy!" penned in the margin of an acquisition standing devotion to this project. I would also like proposal. Perhaps Stechow's most important to thank the many colleagues and friends who have Oberlin legacy, however, is the far-flung cadre assisted in the realization of this project, among of devoted students and friends who continue to them Leslie Miller, Pierre Rosenberg, Irina shape the field of art history. Sokolova, Jenny Wilker, and the H. Shickman In a modest way, this volume commemorates Gallery, New York. Finally, I am pleased to dedicate Stechow's significant mark—both direct and this publication to two very special people, who indirect—on the history of art. The first essay have enriched my appreciation of Stechow presents an insightful and much needed analysis the scholar with an understanding of the man: of Wolfgang Stechow's contribution to the study Wolf's widow, Ursula Stechow, who continues to of iconography by two former students, David be a devoted supporter and beloved friend of this Levine and Nicola Courtright. Stechow's previously museum; and Dr. Alfred Bader, who not only unpublished lecture on "Rembrandt and the Old underwrote the cost of this publication, but Testament," delivered in 1974, is a characteristically whose continued generosity to this museum and lucid and synthetic consideration of the significance to the Department of Art is a powerful and of key themes in Rembrandt's art. Although much lasting memorial to the intellect and character of has been published in the field since 1975, when Wolfgang Stechow. Stechow's essay on "The Crisis in Rembrandt Research" originally appeared, the issues he raises about the essential interrelationship of physical, Marjorie E. Wieseman aesthetic, and iconographic factors are still valid Curator of Western Art before 1850 Wolfgang Stechow and the Art of Iconography David A. Levine & Nicola Courtright Today, nearly a quarter century after his death, study of iconography now. Although it may seem Wolfgang Stechow is still remembered by scholars (as one prominent art historian has wryly observed) worldwide for his outstanding connoisseurship and that in recent years iconography has followed her perceptive analysis of form. This is exacdy as it elder sister, stylistic analysis, along with the human­ should be, of course. Stechow's remarkable ability istic ideal itself, into the grave, the origins and to distinguish, characterize, and interpret individual twentieth-century development of iconography artistic styles, to say nothing of his prodigious have lately been the subject of much stimulating scholarly output in these areas, reserves him scholarship.2 Stechow's name has been mysteriously a permanent place in the history of art history.1 omitted from this recent literature.3 A consideration Yet to remember Stechow only as a connoisseur of his writings on iconography is therefore due to both distorts the historical picture and fails to give set the historical record straight. Moreover, full measure to the man. Stechow's wide-ranging Stechow's essays remain highly instructive. Not intellect led him to make landmark contributions to only is their factual information still valuable, but many other branches of art history including, most their underlying premises reveal much about the notably, iconography, the study of subject matter in directions taken by art history during the twentieth art and its meaning. Not only did Stechow produce century. a monograph for a classic series in that field Although they defy easy pigeonholing, {Apollo und Daphne [1932], Studien der Bibliothek Stechow's broad-ranging and varied publications Warburg, vol. 23), he published numerous substan­ on iconographical topics may be classified by their tial articles on iconographic themes throughout objective. Some of them aim primarily to trace his scholarly career. These essays were a matter of continuity and change in the artistic depiction of pride for Stechow, who wished them to be read literary themes and historical events over time. and remembered. Indeed, in the final years of his This first group includes Stechow's "Myth of life he made preliminary arrangements to republish Philemon and Baucis in Art" (1940), "'Shooting in book form about twenty of his most significant at Father's Corpse'" (1942), "Jacob Blessing the articles on iconographic topics, accompanied by Sons of Joseph from Early Christian Times addenda updating his findings. Halted by his death to Rembrandt" (1943), "Heliodorus' Aethiopica in in 1974, the project remains unrealized to this day. Art" (1953), and other works dating mainly from More will be said of Stechow's planned publication the early and middle periods of his career.4 in our introduction to the Appendix below. Other iconographic studies by Stechow Aside from honoring the author's understand­ attempt to identify with new precision the literary able desire for his work to be remembered, there is or historical subject and the figures represented good reason to revisit Stechow's contribution to the in particular pictures, among them "Rembrandt- Democritus" (1944), "Joseph of Arimathea or easily leads to blindness. I agree; but I think it is Nicodemus?" (1968), and "Rembrandt's Woman with appropriate to point out, at least once in a while, the Arrow" (1972). Some of the later studies of this that the reverse is equally true."5 kind identify biblical subject matter in artistic Most decisively here, but also in other published works heretofore assumed to depict undifferentiated and unpublished texts, Stechow reflected critically scenes of "genre." Stechow's "'Lusus Laetitiaeque about his own methodology and declared himself Modus'" of 1972, for example, reinterprets various unmistakably as one of its partisans. Moreover, his "merry company" scenes as portrayals of Christ's writings affirm certain personal credos, above all parable of the Prodigal Son. These essays also call 1) that the study of iconography and the study of attention to what Stechow perceived as the forgot­ style are complementary enterprises, each inform­ ten moral content in works of art. "Jan Steen's ing and activating the other; and 2) that only those Representations of the Marriage in Cana," also who investigate iconography in conjunction with published in 1972, not only properly identifies the stylistic and aesthetic issues stand much chance of subject matter of certain previously misunderstood attaining a deep understanding of art. These pictures by Steen, but also argues that those works kindred tenets seem to have guided Stechow exhibit particular ethical and spiritual properties. throughout his scholarly career.6 A third group of studies focuses more exclusive­ Stechow's conviction regarding the value and ly upon demonstrating the survival and revival of importance of iconographical study, as well as classical themes and forms in post-Medieval art. elements of his methodology, were in large part "'The Love of Antiochus with Faire Stratonica' in products of the young scholar's early training and Art" (1945), "'Lucretiae Statua'"

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