Dagobert Frey

Dagobert Frey ( born April 23, 1883 in Vienna, † 13 May 1962 in Stuttgart ) was an Austrian art historian.

Life and work

Having already completed a study of architecture at the Technical University of Vienna, in 1911, he found a job at the State Monuments Office as an employee Max Dvořák. On his advice, he also began to study art history and received his PhD in 1915 on Bramante's St. Peter's design and its Apocrypha. The architecture of the Renaissance, Baroque and Modern was in addition to numerous contributions to Austrian art Topography a focus of his research. Frey taught from 1922 as an honorary lecturer at the Technical University of Vienna. In 1931 he was appointed professor of art history at the University of Breslau, where his field of vision expanded on art geographic and national problems of the northeastern European cultural space.

After the invasion of the Germans on Poland Frey played an inglorious role in the spread of art treasures from the National Museum, Warsaw and in preparing for the demolition of the Wawel Royal Castle in Poland. In Krakow, he participated in the opening of the Institute for German Ostarbeit as a speaker on German architecture in Poland. In 1944 he became a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.

In 1945 he returned to Vienna and began its operations on Monuments Office again. In addition, he treated art scientific theories and methodological issues.

Since 1951 he lived in Stuttgart, where he held a chair of art history at the Technical University until 1953. In the writings of these last years he worked on the great artistic personalities such as Giotto, Titian, Michelangelo and Rembrandt van Rijn.

Frey's methodological position is a synthesis of the historical development, quellenkundlich sound approach of the Vienna School of Art History and the unorthodox, cross-curricular scheme Josef Strzygowski. Julius von Schlosser and especially liberal arts approach Max Dvořák were of fundamental importance for Frey. Then there was, in the sense of Strzygowski comparative art research, an intensive discussion with neighboring disciplines, an interest in natural sciences and cross-regional consideration especially Eastern European art landscapes. Subsequently Frey intended to unite these various components for the creation of a comprehensive philosophy of art.

His son Gerhard Frey (1915 - 2002) was a noted professor of philosophy in Innsbruck. He issued the preliminary work of his father for the planned philosophy of art after his death, the (1942 /45) were previously appeared in print, of course except for the two works of art and history (1949 /50) and art and allegory. In the preface he confesses an affinity for thinking of his father; it was his " self-conscious for some time that my particular voice and awareness philosophical studies with their design of a linguistic theory of reflection without thought as that was not designed from the reality character of the work of art for me would have been. "

Quotes

For Dagobert Frey art was primarily sense Foundation

"Art is emblematic design. As illustrative, formal design it is also the meaning. You are not a meaning shape, but it creates meaning through and in shape. The meaning is given only in the form. While it may be a meaning be adopted primarily for an icon is set; This is the case in the allegoresis; but this meaning must be given in a form again for another design which is set in the artwork. But inasmuch as the Deity is art, but it means more, a meaning in it is decided that reaches out over the primary given, and this more, this other is yet again included only in the artistic creation itself. In this respect, art is making sense, it is also knowledge, not in the rational- conceptual sense, but in the immediate intuition in detecting the phenomenon as a holistic form, and in detecting the shape as the expression of the essence, the existential " authentics ". "

Art history for him is the attempt to make it accessible to sense-making of the art of awareness of human existence:

" What can give of their very own problems out art history in the broadest sense, is an attempt to capture the work of art as a gestalt-like expression of the human spirit, as revelation and self-expression of the people, as historically contingent possibility of his spiritual development through historical interpretation. It could in the highest task of historical knowledge meet. Elucidating and deepening awareness of our own historical existence "

Art for him is necessarily subjective, as well as art criticism:

" As the work of art is personal expression, it is also necessary criticism. The subjectivity of the art with respect to the subjective and hence About Binding of science is founded essentially in their function. Is the work that has just been suspended, with the human environment is addressed, confession, it is the opinion of the work in the same way. While I affirm the work or reject it, as I interpret it, and it confers meaning, I take a personal standpoint him over. This opinion is not only an evaluative. The special meaning of the work of art is determined by its creative and intuitive character; therein Croce has seen rightly crucial. The understanding of a work of art is thus fundamentally different from the understanding of a rationally formulated scientific knowledge. A mathematical sentence I understand or I do not understand: the understanding is unequivocal. While this understanding can lead them to make a further thought, but this is already a new creative act that exceeds the understanding. Understanding the work of art remains basically vague and therefore inexhaustible, in that it is caused by the subjective opinion which is infinitely changeable in itself. What tells me the artwork, what it responds to me, depends on how I address it as I introduce myself to him. One can observe this in yourself, as that same work of art one responds differently in different moods or situations in life, something different states, as is inferred from the changing subjective attitude of different possibilities of interpretation. "

Works (selection)

• Bramante's St. Peter's design and its Apocrypha. Anton Schroll, Vienna 1915. Dissertation.
• Michelangelo studies. Anton Schroll, Vienna 1920
• Max Dvorák's position in the history of art '. In: Yearbook of Art History, Volume 1, 1922, pp. 1-21.
• Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. A study of his position in the development of the Vienna palace facade. Austrian publishing company Eduard Hölzel, Vienna 1923.
• Gothic and Renaissance as foundations of modern philosophy. B. Filser, Augsburg 1929
• Krakow. Recorded by Edgar Titzenthaler ( German countryside - German Art). German art Verlag, Berlin, 1941.
• English being in the visual arts. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, Berlin 1942
• Art Basic scientific questions. Prolegomena to a philosophy of art. [ Margarethe von ] Rohrer, Vienna 1946; ² Darmstadt 1972
• Foundation for a comparative science of art. Space and time in the art of African-Eurasian civilizations. [ Margaret of ] Rohrer, Vienna 1949; Neudr Darmstadt 1970
• Dagobert Frey ( autobiography), in: Austrian History in the presence of self-portraits, 2, Innsbruck 1951
• Demonic nature of the gaze. Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz 1953. Treatises of Humanities and Social Sciences class, born in 1952, No. 6
• Mannerism as a European -style appearance. Studies on the art of the 16th and 17th centuries. Gerhard Frey (Editor). W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1964
• Gerhard Frey (Editor, Introduction ), Walter Frodl ( foreword ): Building Blocks to a philosophy of art. University Press, Darmstadt, 1976, ISBN 3-534-06897-1