Hans Sedlmayr (18 January 1896, in
Szarvkő,
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coronation of the Hungarian monarch, c ...
– 9 July 1984, in
Salzburg
Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872.
The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...
) was an Austrian art historian. From 1931 to 1932 and from 1938 onwards, he was a member of the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
.
Positions as a University Professor
Sedlmayr held a chair in Art History at the
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hi ...
from 1936 until 1945, then at the
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...
from 1951 until 1964.
In 1964 he was appointed as Professor at the
University of Salzburg
The University of Salzburg (german: Universität Salzburg), also known as the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (''Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg'', PLUS), is an Austrian public university in Salzburg, Salzburg municipality, Salzburg (state ...
, where he established the art history curriculum.
Marriages and Family Life
After the loss of his first wife,
Helene Fritz, in 1943 he married
Maria von Schmedes, a well-known Austrian singer, whose discography contains many titles published in Nazi Germany. In 1951, their only daughter Susanna was born.
Education
Sedlmayr first studied architecture at Vienna's Technische Hochschule between 1918 and 1920. Afterward, he continued his education at the
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hi ...
, where he studied art history under
Max Dvořák
Max Dvořák (4 June 1874 – 8 February 1921) was a Czech-born Austrian art historian. He was a professor of art history at the University of Vienna and a famous member of the Vienna School of Art History, employing a ''Geistesgeschichte'' metho ...
, until Dvořák's death in 1921. He continued at the University of Vienna under Dvořák's successor,
Julius von Schlosser
Julius Alwin Franz Georg Andreas Ritter von Schlosser (23 September 1866, Vienna – 1 December 1938, Vienna) was an Austrian art historian and an important member of the Vienna School of Art History. According to Ernst Gombrich, he was "One of the ...
, who advised Sedlmayr's dissertation on the Austrian baroque architect,
Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach
Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (20 July 1656 – 5 April 1723) was an Austrian architect, sculptor, engraver, and architectural historian whose Baroque architecture profoundly influenced and shaped the tastes of the Habsburg Empire. His inf ...
, which was published in 1925.
There were considerable protests against his taking up his job in Munich in 1951, all referring to his involvement with the Nazi regime.
Sedlmayr was a strong supporter of the preservation of the old town in Salzburg. He stressed the importance of studying art and architecture in their historical and social context.
He specialized in the study of
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...
and wrote a book on the churches of
Francesco Borromini
Francesco Borromini (, ), byname of Francesco Castelli (; 25 September 1599 – 2 August 1667), was an Italian architect born in the modern Swiss canton of Ticino . A founding member of the
New Vienna School of
art history
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...
alongside
Otto Pächt, which based itself on the writings of
Alois Riegl
Alois Riegl (14 January 1858, Linz – 17 June 1905, Vienna) was an Austrian art historian, and is considered a member of the Vienna School of Art History. He was one of the major figures in the establishment of art history as a self-sufficient a ...
, he wrote a
manifesto
A manifesto is a published declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. A manifesto usually accepts a previously published opinion or public consensus or promotes a ...
in 1931 called ''Zu einer strengen Kunstwissenschaft'' ("Toward a Rigorous Study of Art"). In this text, Sedlmayr calls on the discipline of art history to move past empirical research, and he introduces a 'second', interpretive method of art historical analysis that would discern the aesthetic nature of the artwork. This method of art history is known as ''Strukturforschung'' (structure research) or ''Strukturanalyse'' (structure analysis). He is the author of ''Verlust der Mitte: Die bildende Kunst des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts als Symptom und Symbol der Zeit'' (1948, "Loss of the Center: the Fine Arts of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries as Symptom and Symbol of the Times"), published in English in 1957 as ''Art in Crisis: The Lost Center''. In this book, Sedlmayr offers a "critique" of the spirit of the 19th Century, as revealed through the artwork created during that time period.
Sedlmayr and the Nazi Era
He was a member of the Austrian
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
from 1931 onwards. Some sources date the beginning of his membership as early as 1930.
One source claims that he left the party when the “first news of the camps arrived”.
More recent Austrian research, however, strongly questions this interpretation.
Herwig Gottwald, Professor of German Philology at Salzburg University, even claims in an article for the Vienna Daily,
Der Standard
''Der Standard'' is an Austrian daily newspaper published in Vienna.
History and profile
''Der Standard'' was founded by Oscar Bronner as a financial newspaper and published its first edition on 19 October 1988. German media company Axel Sprin ...
that in Spring 1939, Sedlmayr advocated the building of an
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
city on the ruins of the mainly Jewish Second Vienna district,
Leopoldstadt
Leopoldstadt (; bar, Leopoidstod, "Leopold-Town") is the 2nd municipal Districts of Vienna, district of Vienna (german: 2. Bezirk) in Austria. there are 103,233 inhabitants over . It is situated in the heart of the city and, together with Bri ...
, traditionally the home of Vienna’s Jewry, sent to the concentration camps during this period.
Upon hearing the news of the assassination attempt by
Johann Georg Elser
Johann Georg Elser (; 4 January 1903 – 9 April 1945) was a German worker who planned and carried out an elaborate assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi leaders on 8 November 1939 at the Bürgerbräukeller in ...
against
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
on November 8, 1939, Sedlmayr saluted his students during his lecture with the
Hitler salute
The Nazi salute, also known as the Hitler salute (german: link=no, Hitlergruß, , Hitler greeting, ; also called by the Nazi Party , 'German greeting', ), or the ''Sieg Heil'' salute, is a gesture that was used as a greeting in Nazi Germany. Th ...
and called on his students at Vienna University to defeat the enemy and to denounce any attempt of resistance against the Nazi regime to the “police”, i.e. the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
, and that he himself did so recently.
In 1944, he even became a member of the academic legion of the Higher SS and Police Directorate in Vienna.
Following
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
he was expelled from the University and lost his position at the
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hi ...
as a result of his Nazi activities, although he was not prosecuted by the Allies.
In 1946, he began to publish in the Catholic review ''Wort und Wahrheit'' ("Word and Truth") under the pseudonym Hans Schwartz.
“Wort und Wahrheit” was a post-WW2 Austrian Catholic Journal, which on the one hand published articles by such authors as
Erika Weinzierl
Erika Weinzierl (6 June 1925 – 28 October 2014) was an Austrian historian, gender researcher, and historian of Nazism. A member of the Austrian People's Party and the Curatorium of the Austrian Mauthausen Committee, she was the second director o ...
, well-known for their anti-Nazi-attitudes, on the other hand it also frequently published articles by such authors as
Josef Nadler and
Taras Borodajkewycz.
His most well-known work, “Verlust der Mitte”, although it does not use explicitly the Nazi term “
Entartete Kunst”, constantly refers to the decline of art in the wake of the
Enlightenment and thus must be seen in the larger framework of the anti-Enlightenment ideology of Nazism and radical anti-Enlightenment
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. Recent Austrian research has also revealed that its first German edition was edited by
Taras Borodajkewycz, the most important figure in the history of Austrian postwar
Antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
.
[Sedlmayr, Hans. Art in Crisis: The lost center. Transaction Publishers, 2006; furthermore Ehalt, Hubert, and Oliver Rathkolb, eds. Wissens-und Universitätsstadt Wien: eine Entwicklungsgeschichte seit 1945. Vol. 10. V&R unipress GmbH, 2015; Rathkolb, Oliver. The Paradoxical Republic: Austria 1945-2005. Berghahn Books, 2010]
References
* Hans Sedlmayr, "The quintessence of Riegl's Thought (1929)," translated by Matthew Rampley in Richard Woodfield (ed.), ''Framing Formalism: Riegl's Work'' (Amsterdam 2001), .
*Hans Sedlmayr, "Art in Crisis: The Lost Centre (1957)," translated by Brian Battershaw, Hollis and Carter Ltd., London.
External links
''Sedlmayr, Hans''.in the
rthistorians.info ''Dictionary of Art Historians''Lee Sorensen, ed.
"Art in Crisis"by
Roger Kimball
Roger Kimball (born 1953) is an American art critic and conservative social commentator. He is the editor and publisher of ''The New Criterion'' and the publisher of Encounter Books. Kimball first gained notice in the early 1990s with the public ...
, ''
The New Criterion
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' volume 24, December 2005
Sir Ernst Gombrich on Sedlmayr and the Vienna School
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sedlmayr, Hans
1896 births
1984 deaths
Nazis
Austrian art historians
Austrian architectural historians
Academics of TU Wien
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich faculty
Academics of the University of Salzburg
Austrian expatriates in Germany
Austrian people of Hungarian descent
People from Eisenstadt-Umgebung District