ISBN 978-80-905744-7-2 9 788090 574472 Tomáš Murár (1990) je historik umění, věnuje se historiografii a teorii Tato publikace byla vydána jakou součást výstavy Vojtěch dějin umění. Vedle svého zájmu o vídeňskou školu dějin umění se Birnbaum: Princip umění, kterou uspořádal Archiv výtvarného zabývá evropským a americkým uměním 19. a 20. století a interpretací umění v Centru současného umění DOX v Praze v roce 2017 obrazu z perspektivy intermediality. u příležitosti 140. výročí narození předního českého historika umění Vojtěcha Birnbauma (1877–1934), zakladatele vědeckého Tomáš Murár (1990) is an art historian who specialises in the zkoumání výtvarného umění u nás. Přehledně shrnuje aspekty historiography and theory of art history. He is particularly interested in Birnbaumovy teorie „principu“ a „zákonitosti“ umění, jak je the Vienna School of Art History, 19th- and 20th-century European and sledoval a rozpracoval zejména ve 20. a 30. letech 20. století. American art, and the interpretation of images from the perspective of Zároveň sleduje zakořenění Birnbaumovy teoretické práce intermediality. v širších kruzích dobového evropského uměleckohistorického i filozofického myšlení a dopad jeho formulace uměleckého „vývoje“ na další generace historiků umění. This book was published to coincide with an exhibition titled Vojtěch Birnbaum: The Principle of Art organised by the Archive of Fine Arts at the Centre for Contemporary Art DOX in Prague in 2017, commemorating the 140th anniversary of the birth of art historian Vojtěch Birnbaum (1877–1934), a pioneering figure in the scholarly study of art in the Czech lands. It explores Birnbaum’s concepts of a ‘principle’ and ‘pattern’ in art, which he developed and wrote about in the 1920s and 1930s. The book also traces the roots of Birnbaum’s theoretical work within the broader context of European art-historical and philosophical thinking and describes the impact his concept of ‘development’ in art had on the next generation of art historians, who became formative figures in the evolution of this field. Tomáš Murár Umění jako princip a zákonitost. K dějinám a metodologii umění Umění princip a zákonitost. K dějinám Birnbauma jako a metodologii umění Vojtěcha and Method Birnbaum’s Concept Art as Art of a Principle and Vojtěch Pattern. History Vojtěcha Birnbauma Art as a Principle and Pattern. Vojtěch Birnbaum’s Concept Tomáš Murár Tomáš and Method of Art History Henri Focillon ZÁKONItoST stanovuje establishes Baroka BAROQUE PAttERN Max Dvořák Růžena Vacková PRINCIP Henri Bergson RENESANCE RENAISSANCE PRINCIPLE Oldřich Stefan ZÁKONITÝ BAROKO určuje narušuje iniciuje KONEC Vojtěch Birnbaum BAROQUE determines disrupts initiates baroka Heinrich Wölfflin END OF BAROQUE PRINCIP traNSGRESE Václav Richter PRINCIPLE OF TRANSGRESSION Hans Sedlmayr Alois Riegl PRINCIP baroka Antonín Engel BAROQUE PRINCIPLE iniciuje initiates Antonín Matějček Zdeněk Wirth 1 Tento výstup vznikl v rámci zastřešujícího projektu Krize racionality a moderní myšlení, projektu č. FF/VG/2017/28 s názvem Vojtěch Birnbaum a jeho škola. Výzkum počátků českých moderních dějin a teorie umění 20. století, řešeného na Filozofické fakultě Univerzity Karlovy z prostředků Specifického vysokoškolského výzkumu na rok 2017. This book is the outcome of work on a project titled Rationality Crisis and Modern Thought as subproject no. FF/VG/2017/28 titled Vojtěch Birnbaum and his School. Research of the Beginnings of Czech Modern Art History and Theory in the 20th Century, conducted at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University with the financial support of Specific Academic Research Projects funding in 2017. Text © Tomáš Murár, student Filozofické fakulty Univerzity Karlovy / student at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 2017; Michael Gubser Photo © Masarykův ústav a Archiv AV ČR, v. v. i.; Archiv výtvarného umění, z. s. Design Carton Clan Archiv výtvarného umění, z. s., Kostelec nad Černými lesy, 2017 Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND ISBN 978-80-905744-7-2 2 Umění jako princip a zákonitost. K dějinám a metodologii umění Vojtěcha Birnbauma Art as a Principle and Pattern. Vojtěch Birnbaum’s Concept and Method of Art History Tomáš Murár 3 4 Obsah / Contents Poděkování 7 Předmluva 9 Michael Gubser Úvod 13 Vojtěch Birnbaum mezi Vídní, Římem a Prahou 15 Barokní princip v dějinách architektury 17 Románská renesance koncem středověku 23 Doplněk k vývojovým zákonům? 27 Princip a zákonitost jako východiska uměleckého stylu 29 Závěr 43 Poznámky 55 Obrazová příloha / Illustrations 68 Acknowledgements 79 Foreword 81 Michael Gubser Introduction 85 Vojtěch Birnbaum in Vienna, Rome, and Prague 87 The Baroque Principle in the History of Architecture 89 The Romanesque Renaissance at the End of the Middle Ages 95 A Supplement to the Developmental Laws? 99 The Principle and Pattern of Art as the Concept of a Style 101 Conclusion 117 Notes 129 Výběrová bibliografie / Selected Bibliography 144 Seznam vyobrazení / List of Figures 147 5 Acknowledgements This study was written to accompany an exhibition titled Vojtěch Birnbaum: The Principle of Art held in the Small Tower in the Centre for Contemporary Art DOX in Prague in early 2017, organised to commemorate the 140 anniversary of the birth of art historian Vojtěch Birnbaum (7 January 1877). The idea behind the exhibition was to examine Birnbaum’s ‘principle’ and ‘patterns’ in art, the two concepts explored in this study. Here I would like to thank The Fine Art Archive (Archiv výtvarného umění) for organising and supporting this project, and espe- cially Irena Lehkoživová and Barbora Špičáková, without whose initiative, assis- tance, and support neither the exhibition nor this study could have come about. I would also like to thank Lubomír Konečný and Josef Vojvodík for their valuable advice which uniquely contributed to the advance of work on this topic. I am very grateful to Jaroslav Horáček and Lucie Rohanová for their careful reading of this study. I would also like to thank Mike Gubser for his kind recommenda- tions and congenial approach to this project. My thanks go also to Lucie Krausová for her readiness to help and her great patience, especially at times when I was talking about nothing else but Vojtěch Birnbaum. Finally, I wish also to thank a number of institutions, in particular the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences (Masarykův ústav a Archiv AV ČR, v. v. i.) for provid- ing me with archive materials and for their smooth and pleasant cooperation, and Carton Clan for the book’s graphic design, and, last but not least, the Czech National Fund for Culture (Státní fond kultury ČR) and Faculty of Arts of Charles University (Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy), with whose kind support the publication of this book has been made possible. 79 80 Foreword Michael Gubser The art historian Vojtěch Birnbaum is virtually unknown outside the Czech Re- public. Yet he stands at the head of a Czech art historical lineage that helped to spread the ideas of the Vienna School of Art History beyond the German-speaking world. At the turn of the century, Birnbaum attended classes with Alois Riegl, the Vienna School’s premier representative, and carried his insights back to Prague, where he was appointed full professor of art history in 1927. In that position – and despite a premature death, another trait he shared with Riegl – Birnbaum exercised considerable influence on art history in Bohemia. Tomáš Murár’s small book explains this genealogy to an international audience. He reviews not only Birnbaum’s work, but also that of important disciples such as Růžena Vacková, Oldřich Stefan, and Václav Richter, who endured political persecution in their efforts to preserve a native art historical tradition. Murár does more than simply chronicle a little-known academic lineage. By connecting Birnbaum’s writing with ideas that still stand at the base of Western art historical scholarship, he contributes to the ongoing project of merging the intellectual histories of a continent divided and showing how East European thinkers cultivated and elaborated important schools of thought known only in their West European versions. The Vienna School founded by Riegl, Franz Wick hoff, and Rudolf von Eitelberger was instrumental in establishing art histo- ry as a distinct discipline, separate from both history and archaeology, its nearest disciplinary parents. It did so by breaking with the preoccupations of earlier art historians, especially the Winckelmannian emphasis on the aesthetic evalua- tion of artworks according to classical criteria. The hallmark of Vienna School art history was an insistence that artworks should be analysed in the context of their own age, according to criteria of form and style that changed histori- cally and were therefore unique to each era. The quintessential expression of this commitment was Riegl’s notion of the ‘Kunstwollen’, often translated as ‘the artistic will’. A hermetic concept, it suggested a drive or intentionality internal to art itself – and distinct from an artist’s intention or a culture’s values. In any 81 given artwork, the ‘Kunstwollen’ realised earlier artistic tendencies and pointed toward new formal and visual sensibilities. Art, then, had a temporality of its own, one that drew the artist along with it as a vehicle for the exploration of contemporary visual prospects. It is in this framework that one can understand Birnbaum’s signal contribu- tion to art historiography, the baroque principle, which he advanced in the con- text of his research