Arnold Hauser (art historian)
Arnold Hauser ( born May 8, 1892 in Temesvár; † January 28, 1978 in Budapest) was a Hungarian- German art historian and sociologist, who lived in the UK long. Hauser is a frontier worker between different theories and disciplines such as art history, psychoanalysis, art theory, aesthetics, social history, art, sociology and psychology of art.
Hauser estimated the formal aspects of art, but as an art sociologist favored a social history perspective. His extensive and intimate knowledge of art and his years of working in the film industry have sharpened his perception of art as autonomous on the one hand and on the other social phenomenon. In art dispute between West (form immanent interpretation ) and East ( social conditioning of Art) during the Cold War would not and could Arnold Hauser convey.
Theoretical basic concept
Hauser held mid-20th century, " the hour of the sociological interpretation " of art has come accentuated socio-historical aspects of art creation and dissemination of wanting to neglect without formal, psychoanalytical or psychological inter alia moments. He analyzed art both as an autonomous and self-sufficient entity and as a versatile communication process within certain time art conditions, some of which specify after " educated classes ". Based on Karl Mannheim's sociology of knowledge looked at Hauser Art as location- bound " sociological document" that must also be interpreted critique of ideology. Because art traditionally as anti- traditional, non-conforming acts not mean new (re ) production possibilities the end of art. Newer " mass art" ( art of film, Beat, Pop Art ) found at Hauser as one of the first input in the history of art. The actual art crisis saw Hauser anti-human struggle of societies founded after 1945 and in a certain speechlessness of art. But even the new " negative Artistic ... still moves ... in more or less unmistakable aesthetic categories ... " as Samuel Beckett. Ultimately finds Hauser Art determination, starting from the inconsistency in Mannerism, its center the concept of paradox as a "union of irreconcilable opposites ", " inevitable ambiguity and eternal dichotomy " of the artistic image. Paradox was finally the whole " dialectic of the aesthetic " ( interplay of form and content, distance binding, the factual - fantastic, historicity - timelessness, conscious - unconscious, etc., etc. ). It has proven itself at Hauser as consistently gehandhabtes explanation pattern discovered in the " paradoxes of the connection of incompatible elements, a basic form of art."
Hauser specific art historical works and his sociology of art conception testify wealth of ideas, knowledge of art and great dialogue. Hauser takes inter alia, in the history of art on Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Konrad Fiedler, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Georg Lukács, Alois Riegl and Heinrich Wölfflin in psychoanalysis at the Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim in sociology at Frederick Engels, Karl Mannheim, Karl Marx, Georg Simmel and Max Weber back. Is he talking about the film, he observed both Western directors like Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and the Russians Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin.
Despite weighty differences are many points of contact in the art-theoretical views of Adorno, Lukács's and Hauser's ( and to some extent in their biographies ). Hauser wants to know is placed not only in terms of social forecasts and political ambitions between Lukács and Adorno and tries to assert itself in the tension between scientific and Totatitätsideal progresses, the process of alienation. Similarly mediating positions represents Hauser in matters of classical artistic heritage ( absolutizes Lukács ), the modern, avant-garde and the "open " work of art ( made absolute by Adorno ) and realism in his opinion.
Even the sociological approach Hauser insists on a margin for both artistic production and reception. The fact that art is essentially paradoxical secondly, just inconsistent and, for example, not only the form or content, defends art against unilateral monopolization. And thirdly, based Hauser his search for the right center by the method of " tertium datur " ( Third Way ). At the age essay " Variations on the tertium datur with Georg Lukács ," it says, " The choice of the golden middle way ' is one of the oldest teachings of wisdom ... "
Effect
Arnold Hauser played a big role for art historians in the West and East. The outsider position of his two-volume social history of art and literature in the second half of the 20th century is not to be overlooked. His fiercest intellectual rival Georg Lukács summed up 1969 in a radio interview with Hauser: " If I may now speak of your work, so I consider it as one of his unusual merit that it amidst this overwhelming neopositivist (see neo-positivism ) flow in a considerable number of sociologists and historians maintained the waning sense of the real relationships ... " for many readers looked after Christian Gneuss the social history as a " revelation ... and opened them again to look for historical issues. "Criticism reacted very contradictory at Hauser's work. Different views Behind the different ratings of a sociology of art, no less, they reflect the difficulties in the analysis of real art process and actual contradictions in Hauser's theory itself Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer praised the social history as a binding testimony of sociological analysis of art and their happy overall presentation. Jürgen Scharfschwerdt realized this only " hard präzisierbare art sociological conception " as a " last great quest for meaning and meaning of civil society. " Ekkehard May characterized Hauser as the " undeniably popular mentor interdisciplinary work." Alphons Silbermann again inveighed strongly against uncritical adepts, " which have sociological giving birth to the Hauser 's method ' connect ' and evaluates its publications as a " boundless mixture of social history, philosophy, psychology, aesthetics and Marxist ideology." Notwithstanding such objections to Hauser's scientific importance is reflected inter alia in the fact that he is already a year after his death - is recommended as a " classic sociology of art " - (! ) By the way, published in an anthology by Silbermann.
The social history of art and literature as his undoubtedly best-known work was 1990 before in about 20 languages. In Germany, their total output with the tenth edition in 1990 amounted to 70,000 copies and his books are available in bookstores. Such circulation figures indicate at least the potential impact Hauser. Account will also be his years of teaching and the acquisition of visiting professorships at the Universities of Leeds ( UK), Brandeis and Ohio (USA) and at London's Hornsey College of Art hinting Then said Zoltán Halász in the positive sense that he had a "school " justified. (see secondary literature )
Biography
After attending high school Hauser studied German and Romance Languages and Philosophy at the University of Budapest and subsequently completed a period of study in Paris. 1916 his friend Karl Mannheim leads him to Budapest " Sunday Circle" by Georg Lukács Béla Balázs with Edith Hajos, Béla Fogarasi, Frederick Antal, Emma Ritoók, Juliska Lang and Anna Schlamadinger one. In 1917, members of the Sunday circle with the participation of Lajos Fülep, Zoltán Kodály, Béla Bartók, Ervin Szabó the " Free School of the Humanities", held at the Hauser lectures on aesthetics nachkantschen. In 1919, Arnold Hauser involved in the cultural policy of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. After the collapse of the Soviet Republic Hauser fled to Italy.
From 1919 to 1938, Hauser held on to exile, study and years of travel in Italy, Germany and Austria and worked in the film business. From 1938, his creative period began in the UK. 1940 asked him Karl Mannheim to write a preface to an anthology art sociological works. Instead of a preface was created in ten years of work, his social history of art and literature.
1951-1957 Hauser worked as a lecturer at Leeds University, after which he had until 1959 a visiting professor at Brandeis University, USA, taught until 1962 at the Hornsey College of Art in London and was until 1965 a visiting professor at the State University of Ohio, USA.
In 1965 he returned to London and moved again in 1977 over Hungary.
Hauser 1954 was awarded the German Critics Prize for Literature. He was an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Comments
Works
Secondary literature
- Alberto Tenenti: Hauser, Arnold: Art, histoire sociale et méthode sociologique. In: Annales. Economies, Societes, civilizations. Paris: 12 (1957 ) 3, pp. 474-481.
- Zoltán Halász: In Arnold Hauser 's workshop. In: The new Hungarian quarterly. Budapest: 16 (1975 ) 58, pp. 90-96.
- Ekkehard Mai: Art, Science and Sociology. On the theory and methods of discussion in Arnold Hauser's " sociology of art". In: The artwork. 1/1976, pp. 3-10.
- Jürgen Scharfschwerdt: Arnold Hauser. In: Alphons Silbermann (ed.): Classics of the sociology of art. Beck, Munich 1979. Pp. 200-222.
- K.-J. Lebus: A socio-historical perspective on art and society. ( Annotation to surrender the social history ... the publishing of Art, Dresden, 1987). In: Fine arts. Berlin: 35 (1988 ) 12, p 572
- K.-J. Lebus: For art concept Arnold Hauser. In: Weimar posts. Berlin 36 (1990 ) 6, pp. 210-228. (online)