Michael Baxandall

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Michael David Kighley Baxandall (born August 18, 1933 in Cardiff , † August 12, 2008 in London ) was a British art historian and professor at the Warburg and Courtauld Institute at the University of London and at the University of California, Berkeley .

Life

Baxandall was the son of David Baxandall , a museum curator who was temporarily director of the National Gallery of Scotland . He attended Manchester Grammar School and later studied English literature with FR Leavis at Downing College , Cambridge. He spent a year at the University of Pavia (1955–1956), then taught at the International School in St. Gallen in Switzerland (1956–1957). Most recently, he went to the University of Munich to attend lectures by the art historian Hans Sedlmayr . He also worked at the Central Institute for Art History there . He returned to London in 1958, where he began a long professional relationship with the Warburg Institute . At first he was in charge of the “Photographic Collection”. There he met Kay Simon, whom he married in 1963.

Baxandall was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford in 1974 and was awarded the Aby M. Warburg Prize in 1988. He was also awarded for his work "The Limewood Sculptors Of Renaissance Germany" (1980, German "Die Kunst der Bildschnitzer") ) the Mitchell Prize . In 1982 he became a member ( fellow ) of the British Academy . In 1988 he was a MacArthur Fellow and in 1991 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

plant

One focus of his research was the Italian Renaissance . Using her painting, he developed the thesis that pictures can be read as documents about their time.

“An old picture documents a visual action. You have to learn to read it, just as you have to learn to read a text from another culture, even if you know the language in a certain sense: language and visual representation are convention-bound activities. "

- Michael Baxandall : 1980, The Reality of Images, Syndikat, Frankfurt am Main, page 185

In his work “The Reality of Pictures” he analyzed the structure of the painting trade in the 15th century. The basis for high quality painting were contracts between the clients and the painters. The client decided what should be painted. He also decided how to calculate the manufacturing cost and set the merit of the master and his assistants. This was reflected in the paintings and therefore “paintings [...] are among other things petrified forms of economic life”.

Michael Baxandall is one of the pioneers who highlighted the role of rhetoric and Renaissance humanism in the development of the visual arts at the dawn of the early modern period.

Baxandall is also seen as one of the newer researchers who broke new ground to understand the sculpture of southern Germany in the 15th century . He used the term “florid” sculpture (from Latin flora, the plant world, flower).

Works (selection)

literature

  • J. Onians: Michael David Kighley Baxandall, 1933-2008 . In: British Academy (Ed.): Proceedings of the British Academy (=  Memoirs of Fellows ). tape 166 , 2010, p. 27-46 ( thebritishacademy.ac.uk [PDF]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 3, 2020 .
  2. ↑ [Baxandall, Michael: The reality of the pictures. Painting and experience in Italy in the 15th century, Syndikat, Frankfurt am Main 1987, p. 10.]
  3. ↑ Michael Baxandall: Giotto and the Orators. Humanist observers of painting in Italy and the discovery of pictorial composition 1350-1450 . Oxford 1971
personal data
SURNAME Baxandall, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baxandall, Michael David Kighley (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British art historian and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Cardiff
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 2008
Place of death London