Moritz Thausing

Moritz ( Moriz recte ) Thausing ( born June 3, 1838 Castle Tschischkowitz in Bohemia; † August 11, 1884 in Leitmeritz ) was an Austrian art historian.

Life

The son of the District Director of Castle Tschischkowitz started his scientific career as a German scholar and historian. He studied in Prague and went in 1858 to Vienna, the Austrian Institute for Historical Research. There he came into contact with Rudolf Eitelberger, who held the first chair of art history at the University of Vienna since 1852. Under his influence, Thausing turned to the art research. In 1862 he got a job as a library assistant at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he also lectured in general world history and cultural history. 1864 gave him Eitelberger to the Albertina Graphic Arts Collection, which he headed from 1868, from 1876 formally with the rank of Director. Since 1873 he was also thanks Eitelberger intercession, associate professor of art history at the University and in 1879 was appointed second professor. A progressive mental illness overshadowed his final years. When he took over in 1883, the acting head of the newly founded Istituto di studi Austríaco storici in Rome, his health deteriorated dramatically. After a temporary admission to a mental hospital he found during a recovery stay in his homeland - probably wanted - death by drowning in the river Elbe.

Work

In terms of methodology, Thausing played a crucial role in the development of an autonomous science of art. Had his mentor Eitelberger still sought to achieve a balance of historical research and aesthetic enjoyment of art in the spirit of historicism, so called Thausing the complete separation of art history and aesthetics. Task of the art historian alone was the finding of the to be developed from the work of art facts, but not an evaluative judgment of taste. Example factor seemed to him for the so-called " experimental method" of the Italian scientist and connoisseur Giovanni Morelli, whom he revered as his " fratello in Raffaele " ( brother Raphael). This had developed a meticulous method to determine from physiognomic detail shapes in a painting the artist. So inadequate was this approach, it turned but represents a first approach for the comparative analysis of style, which became the basis of modern art history. Was finally completed this step of Thausings students Wickhoff Franz Alois Riegl and, probably the most important representatives of the Vienna School of Art History.

Works (selection)

  • The natural sound system of human language. Leipzig 1863
  • Dürer's letters, diaries and rhymes, Vienna 1872
  • The Votive Church in Vienna, Vienna 1879
  • Le livre d' esquisses de J. J. Callot, Vienna 1881
  • Dürer. Story of his life and his art, 2 vols, Leipzig 1876 ² 1884
  • Viennese art letters, Leipzig 1884

Literature (selection )

  • Rudolf von Eitelberger: obituary Moriz Thausing, in: Wiener Zeitung, August 26, 1884, pp. 4 ff
  • Simon Laschitzer: obituary Moriz Thausing, in: Art History. Supplement to Journal of Fine Arts, 19th Jg, No. 45, October 9, 1884 Sp 749 ff
  • Theodor von Frimmel: Thausing, Moriz. In: General German Biography (ADB ). Volume 37, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1894, pp. 660-664.
  • Julius von Schlosser: The Vienna School of Art History, in: Communications of the Austrian Institute for Historical Research, Erg.Bd. 13, Innsbruck 1934
  • Artur Rosenauer: Moriz Thausing and the Vienna School of Art History, in: Vienna Yearbook of Art History, 36, 1983, pp. 135 ff
Franz Wickhoff Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie Hans Sedlmayr Josef Strzygowski Otto Demus Otto Benesch Fritz Novotny Integrated Authority File
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