Abstract
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the Vienna School of Art History and its reorientation inspired by Gestalt Psychology. The Vienna School challenged traditional art historical methods and developed a new theoretical and methodological point of view. The emergence of Strukturforschung addressed the ongoing 'crisis of the sciences' – the need to coordinate the advances of the hard sciences with the subjective reality of culture and lived experience – and aimed to understand the structural formation of individual works of art. Through the analysis of Gestalt theory, it is possible to resist a coupling of holistic notions in art history with irrationalism, fascism, and racism. Arguing strongly that Sedlmayr’s dawning notions of a new methodology should be identified as Iconological and no longer represent the aims he promoted alongside Pächt in their earlier work.
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