Franz Wickhoff

Franz Wickhoff ( born May 7, 1853 in Steyr, Upper Austria, † April 6, 1909 in Venice) was an Austrian art historian and well-known representative of the Vienna School of Art History.

Life

Wickhoff came from a respected Upper Austrian citizen family. He studied at the University of Vienna art history under Rudolf Eitelberger and Moriz Thausing 1877-79 and completed the Institute for Austrian Historical Research, where he was trained in the philological- critical source research. Also from classical archeology, he was deeply impressed. In 1880 he received his doctorate with a dissertation on a Dürer drawing from the antique. 1879 to 1895 he was curator of the textile collection at the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, now the Museum of Applied Arts (Vienna). In 1882 he became a lecturer, was appointed Associate Professor and in 1891 full professor of art history at the University of Vienna in 1885. Affected by a persistent illness for many years, died in 1909 Wickhoff surprisingly, during a stay in Venice and was buried there in the Cimitero San Michele.

In 1921 in Vienna, Rudolf -Fuenfhaus ( 15th district ) was named the Wickhoff alley after him. There is a designed by Michael Blümelhuber plaque at his birthplace.

Work

A major concern Wick Hoffs was to fight against dilettantism and aesthetic enthusiasm and provide the discipline of art history to an exact scientific basis. Exemplary seemed to him for the so-called " experimental method " by the Italian physician, Senators and connoisseur Giovanni Morelli. This had taken the view that let in the formation inconspicuous of physiognomic details in a painting, such as nose, ears, lips or fingers, the characteristic signature of the painter unequivocally determined. Indeed, it was such a number of false attributions are corrected. Although this method of course only had limited validity, it nevertheless included pioneering approaches to an empirical science of art. Wickhoff known strongly to Morelli's method and extended it to the comparative analysis of style.

In addition to the strictly methodological study of the work of art itself, it was equally important for Wickhoff to consider its position in the humanities and cultural historical context. This manifests itself in numerous essays, particularly the art of the Renaissance, which also show his fondness for Italian art landscapes. It was him basically a matter of presenting all artistic creation in a global evolutionary context, as he did it programmatically in 1898 in a study about the historical unity of the entire artistic development. From this epoch overarching perspective also results in his major work on the Vienna Genesis - an early Christian conduct in the possession of the Austrian National Library -, which he published in 1895 together with the classicists and later Minister of Education Wilhelm von Hartel. Compared with the modern Impressionism Wickhoff understood the illusionistic style in the illustrations of the early Christian purple handwriting as a creative power. Simultaneously with Alois Riegl Wickhoff thus initiating a reassessment of late antique art that had previously been regarded as a sign of degeneration.

Profound understanding of the contemporary art proved Wickhoff, as opposed to a large part of his academic colleagues, when he publicly for Gustav Klimt occurred in 1900, which provided for the Banquet Hall of the University of Vienna Faculty of images caused a sensational scandal and were never attached to their destination.

Wickhoff also acted himself as a talented landscape painter; some smaller images are now in his estate at the Institute of Art History at the University of Vienna. In addition, he had a strong literary inclination. Among other things, dared the attempt to accomplish Goethe's dramatic fragment Pandora. More important would certainly be a projected history of naturalism in the visual arts was that although no longer came to execution.

Through his uncompromising methodology Wickhoff became the real founder of the Vienna School of Art History. From his institute numerous renowned scholars emerged, including Max Dvořák, Julius von Schlosser, Hans Tietze and. His scientific view documents the review body founded in 1904, History of Art displays. As weightiest results of its own research activity was 1891-92, a catalog of Italian drawings in the collection of the Albertina. On Wick Hoffs initiative and the Descriptive List of illuminated manuscripts in Austria goes back, the first and second band he nor myself could publish in 1905. A configured Catalogue raisonné of drawings by Raphael no longer came.

Unpublished sources

• Extensive reduction of letters, manuscripts and notes, and 3 paintings at the Institute of Art History, University of Vienna

Works (selection)

• The Italian drawings at the Albertina, in: Yearbook of art historical collections of the Almighty Imperial House, 12, 1891, 13, 1892
• The Vienna Genesis, ed. by Wilhelm von Hartel and Franz Wickhoff, in: Yearbook of art historical collections of the Most Imperial House, 15 /16, 1895; Neudr Graz 1970
• About the historical unity of the entire artistic development, in: Fixed gifts for Büdinger, Innsbruck 1898
• History of Art Show, ed. by Franz Wickhoff, Innsbruck 1904-1909
• Descriptive list of illuminated manuscripts in Austria, 2 vols, Leipzig 1905
• The Franz Wick Hoff's writings, ed. Max Dvořák, 2 vols, Berlin 1912-1913

Literature (selection )

• Fritz Fellner, Doris A. Corradini (eds.): Austrian historians in the 20th century. A biographical- bibliographical lexicon ( = Publications of the Commission of Modern History in Austria. Vol. 99). Böhlau, Vienna among other things, 2006, ISBN 3-205-77476-0, pp. 451 f
• Ioli Kalavrezou - Maxeiner: Franz Wickhoff - art history as a science, in: Acts of the XXV. International Congress of Art History, 1, Vienna 1983
• Ulrich Rehm: How much time have the pictures? Franz Wickhoff and the art historical narrative research, in: Viennese School - memories and perspectives. Vienna Yearbook of Art History, 53, 2004
• Julius von Schlosser: The Vienna School of Art History, in: Communications of the Austrian Institute for Historical Research, Erg.Bd. 13/2, Innsbruck 1934