Albert Erich Brinckmann

Albert Erich Brinckmann (born September 4, 1881 in Norderney ; † August 10, 1958 in Cologne ) was a German art historian . In the first half of the 20th century he was one of the most famous German art critics.

Life

Albert Erich Brinckmann studied art history in Berlin and Munich . In 1908, Albert Erich Brinckmann's systematic inclusion of urban architecture was pioneered in art research. He was looking for a close connection with contemporary art. He rejected Camillo Sitte's romanticizing urban planning . Characteristic for Albert Erich Brinckmann was the suggestion of his teacher Heinrich Wölfflin to include traceable recordings of design problems in research, whereby he interpreted the form primarily as a reflex of the respective sense of existence of the human being. From 1916 he was editor of the handbook of art history .

He was appointed to the TH Karlsruhe for the first time in 1912 , where he taught architectural and art history as well as urban planning . From 1919 to 1921 he was a full professor in Rostock , from 1921 to 1931 in Cologne , from 1931 to 1935 in Berlin and then at the Art History Institute of the University of Frankfurt am Main .

He made lasting contributions to the development of baroque art in the Romanesque countries. In addition, he recognized early on the art-historical importance of Russian baroque architecture and Russian sculpture. This is regarded as evidence of his interest in space-creating, space-effective form and structure. His late works by great masters , published in 1925, is an interdisciplinary attempt to approach this art-historical phenomenon scientifically and at the same time to raise the question of certain regularities of age styles, especially their spirituality. Albert Erich Brickmann referred to the latest psychological research as well as psychological-biological conceptions of constants.

Albert Erich Brinckmann's Neo-Kantian conceptions were close to the philosophy of life . In their spirit, he advocated content-relatedness and, at the same time, a moral responsibility for art. He idealistically assessed artistic appearances, among other things, as an absolute characteristic of the nation, while overestimating the role of personality.

Although he had brief contact with the Italian fascists and was temporarily closely related to the Nazi regime (Brinckmann was 1933 member of since March NSDAP ), but was in 1935 in Berlin by Wilhelm Pinder replaced because he extremely chauvinistic view of upper-class European ideas in the sense later occidental theory represented.

Honors

• 1914 honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, London
• 1934 Royal Swedish Order of the North Star , Commander II class
• 1938 Order of the Crown of Italy , Grand Officer
• 1957 Silver Grotius Medal for services to the spread of international law
• 1959 Dr. hc from the Technical University of Turin

Publications (selection)

• Square and Monument. Studies on the history and aesthetics of urban architecture in recent times , Berlin 1908.
• Sculpture and space as basic forms of artistic design , Munich 1922.
• Late works by great masters , Frankfurt am Main 1925.
• Law, freedom, humanity. Anthology from the prose writings / Friedrich von Schiller . Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1947.
• Raffaello. Images from the stamps , ten color images based on the frescoes in the Vatican. (= The Silver Books No. 17). Woldemar Klein, Baden-Baden 1949.
• Architecture , Tübingen 1956.

literature

• Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft - The handbook of personalities in words and pictures . First volume, Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, ISBN 3-598-30664-4
• Heinz Ladendorf , Hildegard Brinckmann (Ed.): Prof. Dr. Dr. hc AE Brinckmann. Directory of Scriptures . Cologne 1961
• Sabine Arend: Albert Erich Brinckmann (1881–1958) , In: Art history at the universities during National Socialism (= Art and Politics, Vol. 5). Göttingen 2003, pp. 123-142.
• Metzler-Kunsthistoriker-Lexikon . 2nd Edition. Metzler, Stuttgart 2007, pp. 41-43.

Web links

• Literature by and about Albert Erich Brinckmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on Albert Erich Brinckmann in the Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium
• Short biography in the Dictionary of Art Historians
• Short biography at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology with a list of publications 1933–1945

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry on Albert Erich Brinckmann in the Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium , accessed on January 7, 2016.
2. ^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 80.