The Birth of Late Antiquity: Riegl and Strzygowski in 1901

Abstract

This paper celebrates the anniversary of the publication of Alois Riegl's Spätrömische Kunstindustrie and Josef Strzygowski's Orient oder Rom in 1901. The significance of these two books and the polemic that developed between their authors and their adherents goes to the heart of the development of late‐antique studies in the history of art. But beyond this, it exemplifies what was best in the characteristic scholarship of the ‘Vienna School’– empiricism embedded in idealism – and the dangers of teleological politics to which such Austro‐German art– historical theorizing ran the risk of succumbing, especially by the 1920s and 1930s. Yet the legacy of the Vienna School's methodological intervention in art history through the emphasis on style runs longer still than the middle of the century. The paper explores also some of the effects of Vienna‐style empiricism in the much more recent works of Ernst Kitzinger and Ernst Gombrich.