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Heinrich Wölfflin (; 21 June 1864 – 19 July 1945) was a Swiss
art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...
, esthetician and educator, whose objective classifying principles (" painterly" vs. "linear" and the like) were influential in the development of formal analysis in art history in the early 20th century. He taught at Basel, Berlin and Munich in the generation that saw German art history's rise to pre-eminence. His three most important books, still consulted, are ''Renaissance und Barock'' (1888), ''Die Klassische Kunst'' (1898, "Classic Art"), and ''Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe'' (1915, "Principles of Art History"). Wölfflin taught at Berlin University from 1901 to 1912, at Munich University from 1912 to 1924, and at
University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...
from 1924 until his retirement.


Origins and career

Wölfflin was born in
Winterthur Winterthur (; ) is a city in the canton of Zurich in northern Switzerland. With over 120,000 residents, it is the country's List of cities in Switzerland, sixth-largest city by population, as well as its ninth-largest agglomeration with about 14 ...
, Switzerland. His father, Eduard Wölfflin, was a professor of classical philology who taught at the Munich university and helped to found and organize the '' Thesaurus Linguae Latinae''. The younger Wölfflin studied art history and history with Jakob Burckhardt at the
University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis''; German: ''Universität Basel'') is a public research university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest univ ...
, philosophy with Wilhelm Dilthey at Berlin University, and art history and philosophy at Munich. He received his doctoral degree from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in 1886 in philosophy, although he was already on a course to study the newly minted discipline of art history. Wölfflin's principal philosophy mentor at the University of Munich, where Wölfflin earned his doctoral degree, was the renowned professor of archaeology Heinrich Brunn. Greatly influenced by his mentors, particularly neo-Kantian Johannes Volkelt (''Der Symbolbegriff'') and Brunn, Wölfflin's own dissertation, "Prolegomena zu einer Psychologie der Architektur" (1886), already showed the approach that he was later to develop and perfect: an analysis of form based on a psychological interpretation of the creative process. It is considered now to be one of the founding texts of the emerging discipline of art history, although it was barely noted when it was published. After graduating in 1886, Wölfflin published the result of a years' travel and study in Italy, as his ''Renaissance und Barock'' (1888), already showed the approach that he was later to develop and perfect, he pursued his method in books on the Renaissance and Baroque periods. For Wölfflin, the 16th-century art now described as "
Mannerist Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it ...
" was part of the
Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
aesthetic, one that Burckhardt before him as well as most French and English-speaking scholars for a generation after him dismissed as degenerate. On the death of Jacob Burckhardt in 1897 Wöllflin succeeded him in the Art History Chair at Basel. He is credited with having introduced the teaching method of using twin parallel projectors in the delivery of art history lectures, so that images could be compared when magic lanterns became less dangerous. Sir
Ernst Gombrich Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich (; ; 30 March 1909 – 3 November 2001) was an Austrian-born art historian who, after settling in England in 1936, became a naturalised British citizen in 1947 and spent most of his working life in the United Ki ...
recalled being inspired by him, as well as the noted art historian
Erwin Panofsky Erwin Panofsky (March 30, 1892 – March 14, 1968) was a German-Jewish art historian whose work represents a high point in the modern academic study of iconography, including his hugely influential ''Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art ...
. Notable students of Wölfflin included Frederick Antal, Paul Frankl, Carola Giedion-Welcker, Richard Krautheimer, Kurt Martin, Jakob Rosenberg, Fritz Saxl, Bruno E. Werner, and Klara Steinweg.


''Principles of Art History''

In ''Principles of Art History'', Wölfflin formulated five pairs of opposed or contrary precepts in the form and style of art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which demonstrated a shift in the nature of artistic vision between the two periods. These were: # From linear (draughtsmanship, plastic, relating to contour in projected ideation of objects) to painterly (''malerisch'': tactile, observing patches or systems of relative light and of non-local colour within shade, making shadow and light integral, and allowing them to replace or supersede the dominance of contours as fixed boundaries.) # From plane to recession: (from the 'Will to the plane', which orders the picture in strata parallel to the picture plane, to planes made inapparent by emphasising the forward and backward relations and engaging the spectator in recessions.) # From closed (tectonic) form to open (a-tectonic) form (The closed or tectonic form is the composition which is a self-contained entity which everywhere points back to itself, the typical form of ceremonial style as the revelation of law, generally within predominantly vertical and horizontal oppositions; the open or atectonic form compresses energies and angles or lines of motion which everywhere reach out beyond the composition, and override the horizontal and vertical structure, though naturally bound together by hidden rules which allow the composition to be self-contained.) # From multiplicity to unity: ('Classic art achieves its unity by making the parts independent as free members, and the baroque abolishes the uniform independence of the parts in favour of a more unified total motive. In the former case, co-ordination of the accents; in the latter, subordination.' The multiple details of the former are each uniquely contemplated: the multiplicity of the latter serves to diminish the dominance of line, and to enhance the unification of the multifarious whole.) # From absolute clarity to relative clarity of the subject: (i.e. from the exhaustive revelation of the form of the subject to a pictorial representation which deliberately evades objective clearness in order to deliver a perfect rendering of information or pictorial appearance obtained by other painterly means. Wölfflin was following in the footsteps of
Vasari Giorgio Vasari (30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance painter, architect, art historian, and biographer who is best known for his work '' Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'', considered the ide ...
, among others, in devising a method for distinguishing the development in style over time. He applied this method to Trecento, Quattrocento and Cinquecento art in ''Classic Art'' (1899), then developed it further in ''The Principles of Art History'' (1915). Wolfflin's ''Principles of Art History'' has recently become more influential among art historians and philosophers of art. The ''Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism'' published a special issue commemorating the 100th anniversary of the publication of the ''Principles'' in 2015, edited by Bence Nanay.


Impact and reception

"Heinrich Wölfflin, perhaps the most important art historian of his generation, was so receptive to the aesthetic purism prevailing at the time that he developed a technique of dissociation that was as extreme as the
Remy de Gourmont Remy de Gourmont (4 April 1858 – 27 September 1915) was a French symbolist poet, novelist, and influential critic. He was widely read in his era, and an important influence on Blaise Cendrars and Georges Bataille. The spelling ''Rémy'' de Go ...
." – Edgar Wind, ''Art and Anarchy'', Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft No. 1163, Frankfurt am Main, 1994, p 27
The legacy of Wölfflin's ''Principles'' upon international scholarship and the teaching of the history of art was examined as the subject of a symposium at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in 2015.


Works

*H. Wölfflin. ''Principles of Art History. The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art'', Translated from 7th German Edition (1929) into English by M D Hottinger (Dover Publications, New York 1932 and reprints). *H. Wöllflin. ''Classic Art. An Introduction to the Italian Renaissance''. Translated from the 8th German Edition (Benno Schwabe & Co, Basle 1948) by Peter and Linda Murray (Phaidon Press, London 1952, 2nd Edn 1953). *H. Wölfflin. ''Die Kunst Albrecht Dürers'' (The Art of Albrecht Dürer), (F Bruckmann, Munich 1905, 2d Edn 1908). *H. Wölfflin. ''Die Bamburger Apokalypse: Eine Reichenauer Bilderhandschrift vom Jahre 1000'' (The Bamburg Apocalypse: A Reichenau illuminated manuscript from the year 1000), (Kurt Wolff, Munich 1921). *H. Wölfflin. ''Italien und das deutsche Formgefühl'' (Italy and the German sense of Form), (1931). *H. Wölfflin. ''Gedenken zur Kunstgeschichte'' (Thoughts on Art History), (1941). *H. Wöllflin. '' Kleine Schriften'' (Shorter Writings), (1946).


References


Sources

*Joan Goldhammer Hart, "Heinrich Wölfflin: An Intellectual Biography." Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1981, available through University Microfilms. *Joan G. Hart, "Reinterpreting Wölfflin: Neo-Kantianism and Hermeneutics, in '' Art Journal'', Winter 1982, Vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 292–300. *Joan Hart, Relire Wölfflin,
Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
Museum Cycle de conferences, 1993, Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts publication, 1995. *Joan Hart, "Some Reflections on Wölfflin and the Vienna School," in Wien und die Entwicklung der Kunsthistorischen Methode, XXV International Kongress fur Kunstgeschichte Wien, 1983, Cologne:
Böhlau Verlag Böhlau Verlag is a book and magazine publisher predominantly of humanities and social science disciplines, based in Vienna (Böhlau Verlag GmbH & Co. KG) and Cologne (Böhlau Verlag GmbH & Cie.), with a branch in Weimar. They describe their focus ...
, 1984. *Joan Hart, "Heinrich Wölfflin," in ''Encyclopedia of Aesthetics'',
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, Vol. 4, 1998. *Joan Hart, "Heuristic Constructs and Ideal Types: The Wölfflin/Weber Connection," in ''German Art History and Scientific Thought: Beyond Formalism'' (edited by Mitchell B. Frank and Daniel Adler), Surrey: Ashgate, 2012, pp. 57–72. *Meinhold Lurz. ''Heinrich Wöllflin—Biographie einer Kunsttheorie'', Worms am Rhein: Werner'sche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1981


External links

* * Rykov, A.br>"Formalism, Avant-garde, Classics. Heinrich Woelfflin as an Art Theorist" in Proceedings of the History Department of Saint-Petersburg University. Vol. 22. 2015. pp. 155–160. (in Russian)
*
Wölfflin, Heinrich
by Lee Sorenson at Duke University's '' Dictionary of Art Historians'' *Public domain works; full-text online: **
Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe
' **
Die Kunst Albrecht Dürers
' {{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfflin, Heinrich 1864 births 1945 deaths Swiss art critics Swiss art historians Swiss architectural historians Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)