Otto Brendel

Otto Johannes Brendel ( born October 10, 1901 in Nuremberg, † October 8, 1973 in New York City ) was a German - American classical archaeologist, whose career was interrupted in Germany by the impact of the Nuremberg racial laws and the United States peaked reached where he is an innovator of classical archeology.

Life

Otto Brendel was born as a son of the Church Council Rudolf Brendel and his wife Mathilde Gareis. His family, which produced clergy over generations, in 1732 came as a result of the Protestants expelled from Salzburg to southern Germany. His interest in Classical antiquity, but also for literature and music, already developed in his time at the New School in Nuremberg. But first, outweighed the desire to become a painter. During his final year, his father allowed him to study painting at Max Unold in Munich. Even if he was not a painter at the end, Brendel remained throughout his life an artistic person.

In 1920 he began the study of archeology at Ludwig Curtius at the University of Heidelberg. He also studied Latin and Ancient History. His principal teachers in addition to Curtius, whose most important students, he counts were Karl Meister, Eugene Taeubler, Franz Boll, Ernst Robert Curtius, Alfred von Domaszewski, Friedrich von Duhn, Karl Lehmann hard life, Bernhard Schweitzer and Alfred Weber. When he heard Karl Jaspers philosophy. From 1923 to 1926 worked as an assistant Brendel by Frederik Poulsen in Copenhagen on Catalogue of Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, where he laid the foundation for his familiarity with the ancient monuments. The promotion took place in 1928 at Curtius in Heidelberg with the work Iconography of the Emperor Augustus. In the same year he prepared as an assistant at the headquarters of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI ), the centenary of the DAI in Berlin. He also married in that time, his fellow student Maria Weigert ( 1902-1994 ). As the owner of the travel grant from the German Archaeological Institute visited Brendel 1929/30, Greece and Italy.

After returning to Brendel habilitated in 1931 at the University of Erlangen with the work The schlangenwürgende Herakliskos. The University took leave him in it so he could compete at the Rome Department of the DAI under his teacher Curtius for the position of first assistant. At the end of 1935 was dismissed him because his wife was Jewish and he was allowed to be so no longer employed by an imperial authority in pursuance of the provisions of the Nuremberg race laws. In 1936 he accepted an invitation from the University of Durham, where he worked for a year as a Research Fellow. From a lecture in the United States did not come Brendel 1938 returned to Germany after he had been offered there at Washington University in St. Louis as a visiting professor. This was followed at the request of Frederick W. Shipley initially another year to where he taught art history. 1941 Brendel was appointed to the Chair of Classical Archaeology and Art History from Indiana University in Bloomington. In 1949 he became a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, where he stayed until 1951. The appointment as Professor of Art History and Archaeology Columbia University in New York was 1956. 1963 Brendel was given emeritus status.

Work

Even in Germany Brendel trod new ground by asking new questions and the ancient works of art presented in a new historical context. The most important work of this period was the symbolism of the ball. Sustainable action unfolded Brendel but only after his emigration to the United States. He is considered the reviver of the American Archaeology, which had become a discipline of sterile over-specialization and the trivial studies. Particularly influential in revitalizing the U.S. archeology were the writings Prolegomena to the Study of Roman Art (1953) and Etruscan Art ( 1978). Among the most important disciples of the force as a lovable, witty, reserved and witty Brendel included Jerome Jordan Pollitt, Larissa Bonfante and David Cast. He conducted research into the Greek, Roman and Etruscan art, history of religion, the symbolism, allegories and the aftermath of the ancient art to the modern art.

Brendel died at the age of 71 years. His daughter Cornelia was married to the composer and conductor Lukas Foss.

Writings (selection )

• Iconography of the Emperor Augustus. Nuremberg in 1931 at the same time. Heidelberg, Phil Diss 1928.
• The schlangenwürgende Herakliskos. Erlangen, Phil Habil - Schr. In 1931.
• Symbolism of the ball. In: Reports of the German Archaeological Institute, Rome Division 51, 1936, pp. 1-95. English: Symbolism of the sphere. A contribution to the history of earlier Greek philosophy. Brill, Leiden 1977, ISBN 90-04-05266-6. ( Études aux religions orientales dans l' préliminaires empire romain 67).

• German: What is Roman art? DuMont, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-7701-1812- X.