Art History Library

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Heinrich Wölfflin: The explanation of works of art (BDK 1)

The Library of Art History (BDK) is a book series comprising 84 titles with 88 numbers on subjects of the visual arts from the Leipzig publisher EA Seemann . The first volume appeared in 1921, in the middle of the inflationary period , and the series ended in 1925 when volume number 88 was reached, although 500 volumes were originally planned.

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Bookmarks to the Library of Art History from 1921, front and back

Edition history

The series published by the renowned Austrian art scientist and monument conservationist Hans Tietze and enriched by several volumes written by himself was opened with the volume The explanation of works of art by Heinrich Wölfflin . In the first delivery nine more titles appeared. A total of 20 volumes were planned to be published by Christmas 1921, but only 15 were actually published.According to one of the bookmarks from 1921 (see illustration), the publisher planned to publish four editions a month from 1922, so that there are 48 per year and the complete series would have been available around 1931. In 1922, however, only 35 more numbers followed - including the first double number 19-20, Donatello by Oskar Wulff - so that only volume number 50 was reached with Curt Glaser's Paul Cézanne . In the following year the pace of issuance had slowed down further, so that at the end of 1923 only number 70, Veit Stoss by Wilhelm August Luz , and by the end of 1924 only 10 more titles were on sale. The last volume from 1924, Roman portraits by Guido Kaschnitz von Weinberg , was followed by only eight numbers in six volumes in 1925 - the volume Deutsche Barock bildhauer by Leo Bruhns was published as a triple volume (BDK 85-87) - then it was the series with BDK 88 reaches its end. With an outline of contemporary French painting, an analysis of the Parisian art of the time with such masters as Matisse , Picasso , Utrillo , Braque or Léger , the editor himself had delivered the last volume in the series.

The sequence of the titles at hand seems like a kaleidoscope of art history with no connection between the individual volumes - but this was precisely the intention of the editor. Since, in his opinion, "many of the old, accustomed art history manuals (no longer) satisfy", but rather "concise, serious instruction, modern problem definition (and) book-trade refined form" was sought, Tietze divided the entire field of art history from prehistoric times to modern times into 500 small sections, each of which should be devoted to a series of volumes without the individual volumes having to follow a specific output system. Both students and art lovers were seen as potential buyers.

Tietze was able to win many respected art scholars, some of them world-class, to work on the series. So have u. a. Georg Dehio , Wolfgang Stammler , Wilhelm Waetzoldt and August Grisebach enriched the series with contributions from their research areas. Unfortunately, 10 years after the beginning of the series, quite a few of the authors should find themselves on the lists of those persecuted and / or emigrated by the National Socialist authorities because of their origin or their cultural-political positions , as the editor himself and u. a. Erwin Panofsky , Max J. Friedländer , Curt Glaser , Karl With , August Liebmann Mayer or Franz Roh .

Equipment and price

With the exception of the only pure text volume (BDK 1) with which the series had started, each normal volume contained an art-historical treatise on eight pages - from volume 82 the number of pages doubled - to which an additional bibliography was usually attached, a list of illustrations and 20 black-and-white illustration panels, which were printed on both sides on 10 sides of art paper. The two multiple volumes 19/20 and 85-87 had a correspondingly larger number of text and illustration pages, whereas the double volume 48/49, Kurt Gerstenberg : Ideen zu einer Kunstgeographie Europa , contained 26 text pages, but only 16 illustration panels. According to the imprint, the series was continuously printed by Ernst Hedrich Nachf., And the etchings were carried out by Kirstein & Co., both companies based in Leipzig. The year of publication of the volumes is always entered in the imprint . However, the number of copies cannot be found in the volumes.

The volumes were bound in marbled artist's hand-made paper and initially cost 8 marks . The last sales price registered in the German National Library , for Alfred Stanges Lucas Moser and Hans Multscher (BDK 40) from 1922, was 300 marks. Glued-on title and back labels were used. The square title label contained the series name, the information on the author and book title and the volume number. The latter two details can also be found on the back label. After currency stabilization at the end of 1923, the normal volumes up to number 80 cost 1.50 marks before the sales price was reduced to one mark in 1925. The triple volume 85-87, published that year, was accordingly given for three marks.

The overall impression of the ribbon reveals a creative similarity to the outwardly similarly equipped island library , which incidentally also experimented with bindings made of marbled paper at the end of the 1920s.

  • Illustrations of volumes

  • Oskar Wulff: Donatello (BDK 19-20), double volume

  • Leo Bruhns: German Baroque Sculptor (BDK 85-87), triple volume

  • Hans Tietze: The French painting of the present (BDK 88), last volume

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Library of Art History . Bookmark. EA Seemann, Leipzig undated [1921]
  2. ^ Heinrich Wölfflin: The explanation of works of art . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1921, p. 31 (without pagination)
  3. ↑ Compare the information on the individual issues in the inventory of the German National Library

Web links