German Art History and Scientific Thought: Beyond Formalism

209 Pages·2012·20.732 MB·English

by  Mitchell B. Frank, Daniel Adler

german art history and scientific thought
A fresh contribution to the ongoing debate between Kunstwissenschaft
(scientific study of art) and Kunstgeschichte (art history), this essay collection
explores how German-speaking art historians of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century self-consciously generated a field of study. Prominent
North American and European scholars provide new insights into how a
mixing of diverse methodologies took place, in order to gain a more subtle and
comprehensive understanding of how art history became institutionalized
and legitimized in Germany.
One common assumption about early art-historical writing in Germany
is that it depended upon a simplistic and narrowly-defined formalism. This
book helps to correct this stereotype by demonstrating the complexity of
discussion surrounding formalist concerns, and by examining how German-
speaking art historians borrowed, incorporated, stole, and made analogies
with concepts from the sciences in formulating their methods. In focusing on
the work of some of the well-known ‘fathers’ of the discipline – such as Alois
Riegl and Heinrich Wölfflin – as well as on lesser-known figures, the essays in
this volume provide illuminating, and sometimes surprising, treatments of art
history’s prior and understudied interactions with a wide range of scientific
orientations, from psychology, sociology, and physiognomics to evolutionism
and comparative anatomy.
Mitchell B. Frank, Associate Professor of Art History at Carleton
University, is the author of German Romantic Painting Redefined (2001) and
Central European Drawings from the National Gallery of Canada (2007).
Daniel Adler, Associate Professor of Art History at York University
in Toronto, is the author of Hanne Darboven: Cultural
History, 1880–1983 (Afterall Books, 2009).

German Art History and
Scientific Thought
Beyond Formalism
Edited by
Mitchell B. Frank and Daniel Adler
First Published 2012 by Ashgate Publisher
Published 2016 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
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Copyright © The editors and contributors 2012
Mitchell B. Frank and Daniel Adler have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
German art history and scientific thought : beyond formalism.
1. Art--History--Study and teaching--Europe, German-speaking--
History--19th century. 2. Art--History--Study and teaching--Europe,
German-speaking--History--20th century. 3. Formalism (Art)--Europe,
German-speaking--History--19th century. 4. Formalism (Art)--Europe,
German-speaking--History--20th century. 5. Art and science--History--
19th century. 6. Art and science--History--20th century. I. Frank, Mitchell
Benjamin. II. Adler, Dan (Daniel Allan)
707.1’1’43-dc23
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
German art history and scientific thought : beyond formalism / Mitchell B.
Frank and Daniel Adler.
p.cm.
Essay collection.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-4023-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Art historians--Germany. 2. Art--Historiography. I. Frank, Mitchell
Benjamin. II. Adler, Dan (Daniel Allan) III. Title: Beyond formalism.
N7485.G3G47 2012
707.2’2--dc23
2011038475
ISBN 9781409440239 (hbk)
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction
German Art History and Scientific Thought: Beyond Formalism 1
Mitchell B. Frank and Daniel Adler
1 Body-Building: August Schmarsow’s Kunstwissenschaft
between Psychophysiology and Phenomenology 13
Andrea Pinotti
2 ‘Look at your fish’: Science, Modernism and Alois Riegl’s
Formal Practice 33
Margaret Olin
3 Heuristic Constructs and Ideal Types: The Wölfflin/Weber
Connection 57
Joan Hart
4 The Formalist’s Compromise: Wölfflin and Psychology 73
Daniel Adler
5 Recapitulation and Evolutionism in German Artwriting 97
Mitchell B. Frank
6 The Physiognomics of Architecture: Heinrich Wölfflin,
Hans Sedlmayr and Paul Schultze-Naumburg 117
Daniela Bohde
vi german art history and scientific thought
7 Materializing Strukturforschung 141
Ian Verstegen
8 Reine Wissenschaft: Art History in Germany and the Notions
of ‘Pure Science’ and ‘Objective Scholarship’, 1920–1950 161
Christian Fuhrmeister
Bibliography: Selected Secondary Sources on Kunstwissenschaft 179
Index 185
Illustrations
2 ‘Look at your fish’: Science, 2.7 Lotus blossom in half-full view,
Modernism and Alois Riegl’s from Alois Riegl, Stilfragen, Berlin:
Formal Practice Georg Siemens, 1893, p. 59, fig. 16.
2.1 Hands, from Ivan Lermolieff 2.8 Acanthus ornaments, from Alois
(Giovanni Morelli), Kunstkritische Riegl, Stilfragen, Berlin: Georg Siemens,
Studien über italienische Malerei, Leipzig: 1893, p. 213, fig. 113.
F.A. Brockhaus, 1890, p. 98.
2.9 Dirck Jacobsz, Een Groep Schutters,
2.2 Photograph of Louis Agassiz 1529, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
drawing radiates, 1872, from the
2.10 Louis Agassiz, Isophyllia
Archives of the Ernst Mayr Library of
the Museum of Comparative Zoology, dipsacea, from Report on the Florida
Harvard University. Reefs, Cambridge, 1880, plate VII.
2.3 Sea Urchins, from Louis Agassiz, 2.11 Fibulae, from Alois Riegl,
Methods of Study in Natural History, Spätrömische Kunstindustrie, Vienna,
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1863, 1901, plate VIII.
pp. 211–12.
2.12 Embroidered cuffs, Bohemia,
2.4 Star Fish, from Louis Agassiz, from Charles Holme, ed., Peasant Art
Methods of Study in Natural History, in Austria and Hungary, London: The
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1863, Studio, 1911, nos. 244–7.
pp. 214–15.
2.13 Ornaments from temples in
2.5 Lotus blossom in profile view, Split, from Alois Riegl, Stilfragen,
from Alois Riegl, Stilfragen, Berlin: Berlin: Georg Siemens, 1893,
Georg Siemens, 1893, p. 48, fig. 7. pp. 254–5, figs 132–4.
2.6 Blunt-leaf lotus blossom in full 2.14 Ornament from the Baptisterium
view, from Alois Riegl, Stilfragen, Berlin: in Split, from Alois Riegl, Spätrömische
Georg Siemens, 1893, p. 53, fig. 12. Kunstindustrie, Vienna, 1901, p. 40, fig. 4.
viii german art history and scientific thought
2.15 Interior of Diocletian’s Studie zur Entwicklugsgeschichte
Mausoleum, Split. Photograph: der römischen Architekur und
Nenad Gattin. ihr Verhältniss zur Renaissance’,
Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, 1893,
2.16 Peristyle, Palace at Split.
vol. 16, figs 1–4.
Photograph: Nenad Gattin.
5.3 Pedigree of Man, from Ernst
Haeckel, The Evolution of Man: A Popular
4 The Formalist’s Compromise:
Exposition of the Principal Points of
Wölfflin and Psychology
Human Ontogeny and Philogeny, New
4.1 Dürer, Eva, c.1507, from York: Appleton, 1897, vol. 2, plate XV.
Heinrich Wölfflin, Kunstgeschichtliche
Grundbegriffe, Munich: F. Bruckmann,
6 The Physiognomics of
1915, p. 36.
Architecture: Heinrich Wölfflin,
Hans Sedlmayr and Paul Schultze-
4.2 Rembrandt, Female Nude, from
Naumburg
Heinrich Wölfflin, Kunstgeschichtliche
Grundbegriffe, Munich: F. Bruckmann,
6.1 Cornice with profile of a human
1915, p. 37.
face (Scamozzi), from Jacques-François
Blondel, Cours d’architecture, Paris:
4.3 Dürer, Landschaft mit der Kanone
Desaint, 1771–77, plate XI.
(Landscape with a Cannon), 1518, from
Heinrich Wölfflin, Kunstgeschichtliche
6.2 Physiognomies of buildings,
Grundbegriffe, Munich: F. Bruckmann,
from Untersuchungen über den
1915, p. 102.
Charakter der Gebäude; über die
Verbindung der Baukunst mit den
4.4 Paulus Pontius (after Peter
schönen Künsten und über die
Paul Rubens), Kreuztragung (Christ
Wirkungen, welche durch dieselben
Bearing the Cross), 1632, from Wölfflin,
hervorgebracht werden sollen, Leipzig:
Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe,
Haug, 1788, p. 52, plate 1,a.
Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1915, p. 99.
6.3 Chinese physiognomy –
5 Recapitulation and Evolutionism Chinese architecture, from Charles
in German Artwriting Blanc, Grammaire des arts du dessin –
architecture, sculpture, peinture, Paris,
5.1 Comparison of the Embryos in
1876, p. 108.
Three Different Stages of Evolution,
from Ernst Haeckel, The Evolution of 6.4 Two buildings, from Paul Schultze-
Man: A Popular Exposition of the Principal Naumburg, Kunst und Rasse, Munich:
Points of Human Ontogeny and Philogeny, Lehmann, 1928, figs 144 and 145.
New York: Appleton, 1897, vol. 1,
6.5 Churches of Regensburg and
plates VI and VII.
Melk, from Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss,
5.2 Drawings of Arches, from Rasse und Seele – Eine Einführung in die
Heinrich Wölfflin, ‘Die antiken Gegenwart, Munich: Lehmann, 1933,
Triumphbogen in Italien. Eine figs 153 and 154.
Contributors
Daniel Adler is an Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary
Art at York University in Toronto. A specialist in historiography and the
history of conceptual art, he is the author of Hanne Darboven: Cultural
History, 1880–1983 (London/Cambridge, Mass.: Afterall Books/MIT Press).
An alumnus of the Whitney Independent Study Program, he was formerly
senior editor of the Bibliography of the History of Art at the Getty Research
Institute in Los Angeles. He is currently working on a project about the
aesthetics of contemporary sculpture.
Daniela Bohde is currently Professor of Early Modern Art at the
University of Basel. Her research focuses on art historiography, Early
Modern Italian painting and German art. Her publications include
Kunstgeschichte als physiognomische Wissenschaft – Eine Denkfigur der 1920er
bis 1940er Jahre (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2012); ‘Kulturhistorische und
ikonographische Ansätze in der Kunstgeschichte im Nationalsozialismus’,
in Ruth Heftrig, Olaf Peters and Barbara Schellewald (eds) Kunstgeschichte
im ‘Dritten Reich’. Theorien, Methoden, Praktiken (Berlin: Akademie Verlag,
2008); and Haut, Fleisch und Farbe – Körperlichkeit und Materialität in den
Gemälden Tizians (Emsdetten/Berlin: Edition Imorde, 2002).
Mitchell B. Frank is Associate Professor in Art History and Director of the
Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture at Carleton
University, Ottawa. His areas of research include German Romanticism,
Central European drawings, and German art historiography. He is currently
working on a project about the role of imagination (Phantasie) in turn-of-
the-twentieth-century German art and art theory. His publications include
German Romantic Painting Redefined: Nazarene Tradition and the Narratives of
Romanticism (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001) and Central European Drawings from
the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2007).