German Art Historian Research Articles

Olympian Jupiter. Winckelmann and Quatremère de Quincy on Ancient Polychromy

A number of Western museums may boast of their important collections of Classical Greek and Roman art. Marble statues of deities or heroes from Classical Antiquity, and important works in painting and architecture from different historical epochs, have traditionally made up the canon of Western art. In recent years, critics have claimed that this tradition represents an idealisation of the white, Caucasian body type which excludes other races from the concept of beauty. Although we today know that ancient statues in marble were often painted in vivid colours, they say that art theorists have either been ignorant of, or glossed over, this fact. While the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann has often been regarded as a proponent of our Western predilection for whiteness, the French archaeologist Antoine Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy is by many celebrated as the first to realise the extent and importance of ancient polychromy. In this paper, I will try to show that this is a distorted view, especially where Winckelmann’s theories are concerned. Far from being ignorant about ancient polychromy, Winckelmann was an important source for Quatremère de Quincy. In addition, Winckelmann’s appreciation of the white marble surface was not the result of racial prejudice, but the expression of an aesthetic opinion that he shared with Quatremère de Quincy.

Ghost Stories for Grown-Ups: Pictorial Matters in Times of War and Conflict

This introduction takes as its central armature Karen Barad’s agential realism to provide a framework for understanding the essays brought together in this Special Issue under the rubric of pictures of conflict. The intention is to move the discussion with regard to picture making forward to more fully embrace the pictorial and the physical, the historical and institutional processes within apparatuses of picture-making. The attempt in ‘Ghost stories’ through the concept of a visual apparatus, is to shed new light and thinking on pictures as material objects; how they act and feed into our subjectivities, experiences and realities and to account for their currency, duration, affectivity and authority beyond transparent representation or symbolic meaning. In order to achieve this, Barad’s agential realism is inflected by insights from Malafouris’s (2013) material engagement theory; W.J.T. Mitchell’s (2005) image theory; Jens Eder and Charlotte Klonk’s (2017) image operations; Mondzian’s (2005) understanding of the economy of the image, as well as the ontological concerns of new German art history and image science exemplified in the work of Hans Belting (1996, 2011) and Horst Bredekamp (2017), for example. In this framework, the worlds pictures create, and the subjectivities they produce, are not understood to precede the phenomena they depict. The picture, as the outcome of the apparatus which produces it, makes an ‘observational cut’ that simultaneously excludes and includes certain elements from its frame. As such, it has to be comprehended as party to processes which are both ethical and political. A fact which is particularly important during times of conflict and war.

Duitse’ middeleeuwse kunst in Brussel in 1949 tentoongesteld. De weerklank in de Belgische pers van een cultureel vredesinitiatief met hulp uit onverwachte hoek

The exhibition The Treasures form the German Middle Ages, held in the Brussels Centre for Fine Arts from 15 April to 26 June 1949 is rather unknown in German art history. The digitization of the Belgian newspapers by the Royal Library of Belgium enables the study of this great exhibition’s reception in the press. The laudatory reviews did not only move the readers to admire the 185 medieval masterpieces, they also give us a glimpse behind the scenes of the exhibition. The artefacts were not, as usual, carried by rail, but by road, safely stored in five moving vans, that brought them from Aachen to Brussels. In Germany museum curators and art historians of impeccable reputation had been returning robbed masterpieces and organizing national and later international exhibitions. The British officers of the Monuments, Fine Art and Archives Section, more widely known as the Monuments Men, facilitated the logistics and the loans. In Belgium the director of exhibitions Robert Giron and the civil servant Émile Langui were saluted as the prime organizers. The newspapers also report the theft of a stola from Xanten on 9 May 1949 that has not yet been elucidated.

“1945” as a Turning Point in German Art History? Challenging the Paradigm of Rupture and Discontinuity

The historiographical article looks at “1945” as a turning point, inquiring whether the end of both the Second World War and National Socialism also implied a radical break for art history in Germany. In evaluating both contemporary perspectives (like Herbert von Einem’s opening lecture of the First German Art Historians Meeting in 1948) and recent historiographical studies, the paper questions the concept of “Stunde Null” or “hour zero,” and intends to challenge the established paradigm of rupture and discontinuity. Arguing for a more nuanced and holistic understanding of the transformation processes in the postwar situation, three major reasons are identified why simplistic categorizations often prevail: (1) a very narrow definition of the art historian in the history of art history, (2) the disjunction between the humanities and the larger political context, which allow the individual to imagine himself/herself untainted and uncompromised by ideology, and (3) the high degree of continuity, in particular if compared to the radical changes that took place in 1933. The article thus resumes that the idea of “turning points” deserves further differentiation, and calls for the integration of the political dimension into historiography. Essentially, the challenge remains to distinguish between factual processes, false or fraudulent labelling, and symbolic gestures.

Atlasy pamięci. Warburg i Muzyka Dawna na podstawie Time Regained Björna Schmelzera i Margaridy Garcii

Time Regained (A Warburg Atlas for Early Music) by Björn Schmelzer and Margarida Garcia, published in 2018, is the first large-scale attempt to apply to musicology, or more precisely the Early Music movement with its beginnings in the nineteenth century, the thinking and action strategy of the German art historian Aby Warburg. The authors chose as a kind of model Warburg’s famous Mnemosyne Atlas. In a similar way, Time Regained was presented in the form of an exhibition, premiered during the residence of the Belgian vocal ensemble Graindelavoix at the Utrecht Early Music Festival in 2018. The book version, alongside 10 plates containing ca. 1500 pictures, provides an extensive commentary on the exhibition. In view of its close relationship to the performance practice of the Graindelavoix ensemble, led by Björn Schmelzer, the main subject of discussion is vocal polyphony in the 12th–16th centuries.The main aim of the article is to show how Aby Warburg’ s ide-as and work are used by Schmelzer and Garcia to create their own vision of Early Music, and thus to examine the possibilities opened up for musicology and historical performance by the authors of Time Regained. Most of the text is devoted to systematising the opinions scattered over the pages of this extensive publication. The point of departure is the Mnemosyne Atlas – its structure, the contexts relating to it, and its re-interpretation in relation to Early Music („Warburg’s montages, Schmelzer’s montages”). The second part („Warburg’s Dictionary for Early Music”) concerns the manner of applying Warburg’s concepts (Pathosformel, Nachleben, Zwischenraum, bewegtes Leben) in the area of musicology and historical performance. The last fragment of the article (“The potential of Time Regained”) discusses the practical realisations of the potential contained within Time Regained itself.

Hildebrand Gurlitt’s Art Activities as a Reflection of the National Socialism Epoch

The article is centered on Hildebrand Gurlitt’s figure and his role in the Nazi’s trading in pieces of art. The documents of H. Gurlitt’s life history and his art activities have just recently been publicized and remain poorly researched. It was found that due to his purposefulness and strong friendly relations with artists, H. Gurlitt, who managed to collect one of the best art collections of the contemporary modernists and expressionists in Germany by the late 1920s, became a professional sought after by the Nazi authorities. Against the background of notorious German art historians, such as the special representatives of Hitler appointed to create the collection of the Fuehrer’s museum and planned museum in Linz Hans Posse and his successor from 1943 Hermann Voss, the chair of the Federal association of art and antiquities dealers in Germany Adolf Weinmueller, who actively participated in the persecution of Jewish art dealers, it was shown what was the personal contribution of H. Gurlitt and other “cultural officers” to the development of the Third Reich cultural component. Being the member of a special Ministry of propaganda working group of art dealers, H. Gurlitt established connections with branches of Western antique firms that worked in Germany and bought from them secretly the works of “degenerative art”. In his turn he bought the works from German collectors of Jewish descent; helped them, gave them money and a chance to emigrate from Germany. The Reich Treasury received millions of foreign exchange earnings from his activities. Revealing of Gurlitt and other art dealers activities complements the holistic picture that represents the National Socialism epoch.  Gurlitt’s case was also analyzed as “the greatest discovery of the century”, when more than 1400 paintings were found in the ordinary rented apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, who was the son of Hildebrand Gurlitt, in Munich in 2012. Emphasizing that the discovery stirred Germany and widely resonated around the globe, the author reveals the reasons for which the German Government held off disclosing the information about Gurlitt collection. It is stressed that allowing open access to the collection helped in finding owners and descendants, as well as identifying criminals and accomplices of the Nazi expansionist policy.   Soloshenko, V. (2019). Hildebrand Gurlitt’s Art Activities as a Reflection of the National Socialism Epoch. Mìžnarodnì zv’âzki Ukraïni: naukovì pošuki ì znahìdki – The International relations of Ukraine: scientific searches and findings, 28, 231-252 [in Ukrainian].

The Wolfgang Born - Kondakov Institute Correspondence. Art History, Freedom, and the Rising Fear in the 1930s

Between 1931 and 1934, German artist and art historian Wolfgang Born exchanged several letters with the Kondakov Institute in Prague. Written during the troubled years of rising nationalism in Euro...

Mapping Art History: Enhancing the Teaching of German Art History with Student-Created Maps

While art history students frequently are required to write research papers, they often have trouble understanding some of the more abstract constructs they encounter. They may struggle to grasp the role that research plays in probing questions about the relationships between people, places, and events that compose complex historical periods. This article describes a collaboration between an art history professor, a librarian, and a digital humanities specialist in which students were taught how to conduct research for an art history course on German art 1900 to the present and then visualize that research through story maps created with ArcGIS. Through these mapping projects, students were encouraged to engage with the history of German art on a physical level by mapping spatial relationships between social networks, artists’ studios, exhibition venues, art museums, architecture, and other important historical sites that were integral to the development of major art movements. This case study article outlines the project, including its learning outcomes, pedagogical strategies, student products, and assessment data. In addition, it describes how the project developed through different iterations. Ultimately, this collaborative, interdisciplinary project may provide a model for ways that visualization in general and map creation in particular can be used as a teaching strategy to make art history come alive for students by opening new conceptual territory, prompting intriguing questions, generating unique answers, and engaging art history in a more physical, spatial manner.

“UNEXPECTED ALTERNATION OF REALITY”: MAGICAL REALISM IN PAINTING AND LITERATURE

The term magical realism was coined by the German art historian Franz Roh in his essay After expressionism: Magical Realism: Problems of the newest European painting (1925), and it initially referred to a new view of the real-world painting in Germany in the 1920s. It originated as a response to Impressionism, Expressionism, and Surrealism. Magical realism painters realistically depicted objects and beings in detail, while magic and mystery were highlighted by creating illusions and through a change in perspective. Venezuelan writer Arturo Uslar-Pietri used the term magical realism to describe a specific type of short story in which the view of man as a mystery surrounded by realistic data dominates. Soon enough, this term started to be used to describe Latin American literature in general primarily thanks to an article written by Angelo Flores: Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction. The so-called Latin American Boom started in the 1960s when the elements of the magical realism narrative could also be found in the prose of writers coming from countries outside the South American continent. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to examine the magical realism phenomenon and its main characteristics with regard to painting in the first half of the 20th century, as well as to Latin American literature since the mid-20th century, and to show that art movements can be transferred from one art to another, that they can transform and change their basic concept.

Migrant Images. Refugees between Pathos and Montage

Abstract The article is an attempt to explain the basic methodological principles behind the project of the online visual platform called Refugee Atlas. The crucial issue discussed here is the relation between the work on the atlas and the legacy of German art historian Aby Warburg’s Der Bilderatlas Mnemosyne. The author explains how he applied central notions, such as Pathosformeln, Nachleben, the polarity of the symbol, used by Warburg, to work concerning visual representation of the “refugee crisis” and long cultural history of migration. Besides, the text contains numerous remarks about anthropological research recently devoted to the issue of migration and its possible convergence with Warburg’s outstanding explorations in the domain of iconology.

A dialética da ninfa em The Waste Land, de T.S. Eliot

Neste artigo, refletimos sobre algumas questões relacionadas à figura da Ninfa, tal como pensada pelo historiador da arte alemão Aby Warburg, tomando como ponto de partida a sua complexidade enquanto imagem de natureza dialética que insiste em aparecer, como um sintoma que resiste e sobrevive, chegando até a modernidade e o contemporâneo, sendo capaz de ainda provocar fascínio e perturbação, de continuamente gerar novos sentidos e significados. A partir de uma reflexão sobre a imagem da Ninfa na modernidade, buscamos pensar as aparições dessa figura feminina em movimento no poema “The Waste Land”, de T.S. Eliot.

Notas sobre la recepción de Worringer en Latinoamérica

El presente trabajo se propone explorar la recepción de Wilhelm Worringer enLatinoamérica durante los años cincuenta a partir de los escritos sobre arte deMarta Traba y Romualdo Brughetti. Veremos cómo, a pesar de diferir en susposiciones respecto de la modernidad artística y el nacionalismo, ambos autoresrecurrieron a la obra del historiador del arte alemán en busca de categoríascapaces de sustentar sus ideas. A través de estas apropiaciones estratégicas,el pensamiento worringeriano se vio reactualizado en un contexto de intensosdebates acerca del lugar del arte latinoamericano en el escenario internacional.

Polska i niemiecka historia sztuki w polemicznym dyskursie - sympozjum w Rogalinie w roku 1973.

Polish and German Art History in a Polemic. The Rogalin Symposium of 1973 Summary The paper recapitulates a discussion over the book, Das Kunstwerk zwischen Wissenschaft und Weltanschauung, ed. Martin Warnke, Köln 1970, which was an aftermath of a pungent statement made by critical German art historians at the Congress of German Art Historians held in Köln in 1970. The main idea of the book was showing the “work of art as an object of ideological interests, a victim of ideological interventions” (Warnke) – in this case, those of a nationalist, Nazi, and fascist origin. A critical impulse triggered by the congress and the book was the main reason for organizing a symposium in Rogalin in 1973, during which art historians from Poznań delivered papers-comments on four articles included in the German publication. Taking into consideration the key message of the book, in the first place they focused on the methodological and theoretical assumptions adopted by German scholars. Stressing the discrepancy between the goals and assumptions of the German publication and its Polish reception, the author treats the papers delivered in Rogalin as evidence of a methodological shift in Polish art history of the early 1970s. His main observations are the following: the end of the dominant approach focusing on the artwork itself; a shift toward approaching it in terms of the communicative triad “sender-work-recipient”; acknowledging the inevitable involvement of the art historian (scholar-recipient) in that historically determined framework. It is notable that the Polish scholars virtually ignored the ideological and critical approach to the evolution of art history that was developed in the German book. Moreover, the paper presents the historical background of both the Köln conference and its proceedings as well as the specific determinants of art history in the communist Poland, particularly as regards its contacts with the two German states.

Infinite Gardens of Earthly Delights: A Visual and Kinesthetic Model for Perceiving Dance

This essay explores the possibilities afforded the viewer through the creation of a virtual visual and kinesthetic arts atlas, along the lines of the one conceived by the German art historian Aby Warburg in 1929. Such an atlas provides dance scholars with the tools to enhance their perceptions of dance and other visual art and video works through applying a kaleidoscopic mapping strategy. I describe my creation of a visual and kinesthetic atlas, paying special attention to detecting subtexts that may be read across a range of kinetic metaphors, symbols, and motifs in selected works by Ohad Naharin, Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, Roy Assaf, Noa Zuk, and Ohad Fishof.

Lettere inedite di Elio Vittorini negli archivi svizzeri (1942-51)

This article examines the ties that Elio Vittorini had with various German intellectuals and publishers during World War II. Of central importance among these figures is Werner Haftmann, who until 1940 was chief assistant of the German Art History Institute in Florence and subsequently translated Conversazione in Sicilia [Conversations in Sicily] for Steinberg Verlag in Zurich. A file housed at the Swiss Federal Archives in Bern contains correspondence between Vittorini and Selma Steinberg, who together with her sister managed the family publishing house. The letters shed light on their relationship, as well as on other events, such as the Italian translation of Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and the dispute with Silone fomented by the Swiss press and then assuaged by Franco Fortini. The appendix contains further correspondence from the University of Milan’s Vittorini Archive, including letters from Vittorini to Selma Steinberg, as well as those to Federico Hindermann, the translator of Vittorini’s works into German.

Rudolf II & Bartholomeus Spranger: Rudolf II as the Patron of Spranger’s Mythologies and Allegories. Virtuosity and Maniera.

The court of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in Prague was described by 17 th century German art historian Joachim von Sandrart as “the Parnassus of the arts”. Sandrart’s Dutch counterpart Karl van Mander went even further to praise Rudolf II as “the greatest art patron in the world at the present time”. Rudolf II’s involvement with art was two fold. He was an avid art collector with an enormous Kunstkammer, and he also was the ideal patron of art coveted by artists. Both his collection, which included works by Dürer and Titian, and his artists at court, reflected his imperial, cosmopolitan ambitions. This presentation will examine the visual language of the mythological and allegorical paintings commissioned by Rudolf II for his newly expanded palace in Prague. In particular, there will be a focus on the iconography and style of the paintings by imperial court painter Bartholomeus Spranger, with comparisons made to related paintings by fellow court painters Hans von Aachen and Joseph Heintz. Ultimately, the competitive nature of Rudolf II’s court, as well as the presence of a large art collection, encouraged Spranger as the imperial court painter to emulate, invent, and test his virtuosity in depicting subject matter. The result was seen especially in Spranger’s Metamorphoses cycle and allegories representing Rudolf II’s empire. Indeed, Rudolf II’s patronage of art became a sign of imperial power rather than a comforting hobby practiced by an out of touch ruler within the realm of Eastern Europe.

“Sostegno e adornamento.” On the Social Symbolism of the Architectural Orders

This text originated in a paper given at the thirteenth German art historians’ conference in 1972 and was published the same year in Kunstchronik. At this point the radical students of the 1960s were writing up their doctoral dissertations, gaining academic positions, and completely changing the practice of art history in Germany. A field that had previously focused on issues internal to the artwork itself—such as aesthetic value, connoisseurship, and provenance—was redefined almost as a social science, with visual information employed to decode social hierarchies and relations. This is the strategy employed by Christof Thoenes in his study of the combined arch and column, in which formal analysis is combined with Marxist critique. The evolution of this conjoined form during the Italian Renaissance in the work of architects like Brunelleschi, Alberti, and Bramante is interpreted as a response to historical necessity and to the social imperatives of the day. Thus the Gothic pier, composed of several elements bound together to make one support, is seen as a feudal structure with the subsidiary components obligated to the whole. In contrast, the freestanding Renaissance column stands for individual freedom and autonomy.

Visualising the Eastern Front: Heimatschutz and Survey Photography During the First World War

This article discusses the photographic surveys undertaken on Polish occupied lands in the framework of the German war-time Landeskunde and Kunstschutz research projects. It presents the photographic collections produced in the General Government and Ober Ost , held in larger and smaller archives, widely popularized both on the front and at home by means of the press, albums, scientific and popular publications, postcards, lantern lectures and exhibitions. It argues that the advancement of the front provided a unique opportunity for such explorations and that the German surveys were the first of such reach and scale to cover all of Polish territories. The article also traces the possible close collaboration between German and Polish scholars, photographers and institutions. In particular it juxtaposes the survey initiatives undertaken by the Warsaw civic societies with the projects of the Landeskundliche Kommission and the Warsaw Hofbauabteilung . In addition, it focuses on the close collaboration between Jan Bulhak and the German art historians in Vilnius.

Zwischen Romantik und Orientalismus. Ostasiatische Kunstgeschichte in der Weimarer Republik am Beispiel von Karl With und Alfred Salmony

This paper examines the Orientalist revival of the Romantic tradition reflected in the German scholarship on East Asian art history in the Weimar Republic. I argue that the emphasis on the autonomy of East Asian art resonated with the anticlassical tendency of Romanticism. Furthermore, a search for Chinese cultural superiority inevitably led to the Orientalist idealization of Ancient China and the mystification of seemingly “irrational” elements in Buddhism. Subsequently, based on a nihilist reading of the Buddhist elements in East Asian art, German art historians offered an alternative way to search for metaphysical meanings of art.

Pedagogika muzealna. Cele, idea, kierunek rozwoju i zastosowanie w praktyce na przykładzie „lekcji muzealnej” w polskim muzeum historycznym

Museum education is a subdiscipline of Pedagogy which has been changing rapidly during the current century. The beginning of such education was inevitably related to the origin of the museum. The richest royal men as kings, princes and priests set up their own individual collections which were displayed only to chosen people. The fi rst museums are claimed to have existed during the Italian Renaissance, for instance Pope Sixtus IV hired Michaelangelo Buonarrotti to create a special place for ancient collections. During the French Revolution it was believed that art had got an unique ability to rehabilitate those members of society who suffered from alcoholism and other kinds of pathology. The Louvre was opened to the public in 1793 and, since that time, art collections have started to be organised in special exhibition form. At the end of the 19th century two German art historians and educationists Alfred Lichtwark and Georg Kerchensteiner started to form a special educational programme for children and young people, concerning the museum collection. In the history of Pedagogy they are claimed to be the forerunners of museum education which has been developing into one of the most infl uential and potential kinds of cultural education in the 21st century. Among history studies, I would like to present museum education in the context of one selected Polish historical museum and then analyze and interpret the ‘museum lesson’ in comparison with contemporary movements in museology and critical, progressive pedagogy.