Ernst Gombrich

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or section needs to be revised:
exact references are required for the citations, a retrieval date is very unhelpful.
Please help to improve it , and then remove this flag.

Ernst Gombrich (1975, with his wife, at the award of the Erasmus Prize )

Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich (born March 30, 1909 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; died November 3, 2001 in London ) was a British art historian of Austrian origin who worked at the Warburg Institute in London.

His sisters were Anna Forsdyke (1905-1994) and Lisbeth Gombrich (1907-1994); The latter was a lawyer, writer and translator who translated numerous works by Ernst Gombrich.

Life

Gombrich was born into a family of the Viennese educated middle class. His father Karl B. Gombrich was a lawyer, his mother Leonia (née Hock) a pianist. Music has been just as important to him as the visual arts since childhood. After the First World War , Gombrich and his sister Lisbeth spent nine months in Sweden (as the foster child of a coffin maker). After graduating from the Theresianum , Gombrich studied art history under Julius von Schlosser at the University of Vienna from 1928 to 1933 . For a short time he went to Berlin to listen to a lecture by Heinrich Wölfflin on "Italy and the German sense of form". Rather bored of Wölfflin's image comparisons, Gombrich was more concerned with the behavioral studies of the gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Köhler on great apes . Like his friend Karl Popper , he remained interested in science throughout his life. In 1933 he received his doctorate on Giulio Romano's Palazzo del Te in Mantua . Gombrich interpreted the “disturbed forms” of Mannerist architecture not as expressions of time, but as choice, play and virtuosity. Even then it became clear that he regarded art history as a history of ideas.

After completing his doctorate, Gombrich wrote A Brief World History for Young Readers , which first appeared in 1935 and is still being reprinted to this day. From then on he devoted himself to the problem areas between art history and psychology . He realized how difficult it is to interpret and translate human emotions and passions into images, and he - together with Ernst Kris - studied the caricature .

In 1936 Gombrich went to London , where he worked at the Warburg Library ( Warburg Institute since 1944 ), which - originally based in Hamburg - had found its new home there and was under the direction of Fritz Saxl , who was also from Vienna . He was a member of the Warburg Institute until his retirement and was its director from 1959 to 1976. During the war , Gombrich was employed by the BBC's Monitoring Service and analyzed German radio broadcasts. In 1970 he published an intellectual biography of Aby Warburg , the founder of the Warburg Library, who had primarily dealt with research into the iconological afterlife of antiquity .

meaning

Gombrich was considered one of the world's most respected art historians. He has rethought basic questions in art history and built bridges to neighboring disciplines from experimental psychology to humanism research and the history of rhetoric.

Gombrich's book The History of Art , published in 1950, became his most famous art historical publication. The 16th edition was published in 1996, also in German. Translations exist for 25 languages. Furthermore, this work is considered to be one of the most important guides through art and its history. It starts with the famous sentences:

“Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as 'art'. There are only artists. "

He began his lecture Artists, Connoisseurs, Customers in 1992 with the admission that this provocative statement, with which he consciously opened the treatise, was not shaped by him, but by his teacher Julius von Schlosser . In the following work, Art and Illusion , he tried to show how the illusion of the pictures is based on constant new experiments in the tension between given schemes, external observation and the intention of expression, that pictures are quasi experiments in the laboratory, which are constantly subject to new tests and corrections .

Based on Gestalt theory , Gombrich undertook in his next publication The Sense of Order - A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art to empirically explain the changing patterns of the ornaments. In the essay Icones Symbolicae he pointed out the dangers of Erwin Panofsky's concept of iconology early on. Any iconological interpretation should only be based on texts that can be proven to have been accessible at the time in the places where the artist worked. Between 1985 and 1988, Gombrich's most important treatises on the Renaissance appeared in German translation under the title Zur Kunst der Renaissance. Selected essays .

Gombrich took a critical position towards modern art, especially towards its permanent drive for innovation. “The time has come to say no,” he postulated. He also rejected the provocative gesture in modern architecture and took part, for example, in the international art historians' protest against the Vienna project of a museum quarter .

Marcel Duchamp's assertion that everything is art if you only declare it to be art was for him an example of the mystification of the artistic process that he fought against throughout his life. Likewise, he vehemently opposed relativism, although he had to admit that it is very difficult to discuss values. For him, however, there was no question that there are values, that these values ​​are of supra-personal origin, and that these are actually what the artist deals with.

“In our history books, the struggle against this academic doctrine is usually portrayed as a struggle for freedom against an outdated classicism. But I believe that real drama is bypassed if one does not account for the severe psychological trauma that the loss of that metaphysical support meant for the artist's self-respect. [... (quotation from Gustave Courbet ) ...]
You can see that Courbet, who said that he could not paint angels because he had never seen an angel, believed in the realization of values ​​as passionately as any "academic" Artist". But the loss of the metaphysical foundation made it much harder to maintain the belief, and if this claim needed proof, I could refer you to numerous statements by leading artists of the 20th century, such as Kandinsky , Klee, or Mondrian , who tried to do so resorting to some form of platonic mysticism to prove the validity and sanctity of their artistic mission. Unfortunately, intellectually most of what she has said is intellectually inflexible, and I will be the last person to recommend her to you. And yet I ask myself whether we really need this kind of metaphysics to justify a more than subjective theory of art, a theory that explains and recognizes the demand for the super-personal and thus also any version of the concept of perfection. "

- Ernst Gombrich : The super-personal in art. In: The Crisis of Cultural History. Page 198

Quotes

Gombrich has repeatedly spoken out against the "taste dictates" of his time and presented many arguments. Basically, however, he was more concerned with the essential humanistic attitude, as is clear from the following quote:

“It can happen that we understand the problem very well, but reject the values ​​that the work embodies, because we have the right to our free judgment and can also say that a masterpiece that is based on a long tradition does not affect us valuable but discarded. There is such a thing as subtle cruelty, and subtle depravity can also be expressed in a work of art. But both the voluntary effort to come closer to an understanding and the freedom of criticism are too often neglected today in favor of the emphasis on a subjective response that is seen as almost automatic. "

- The super-personal in art , in The Crisis of Cultural History. , Page 206.

As a humanities scholar, he has repeatedly dealt with the difference to the natural sciences and clearly worked out that art history cannot open up the essentials of its subject without personal commitment:

“A critic or art historian can make an effort to overcome this subjective reaction and will occasionally be able to appreciate the accomplishments of individual artists or of entire periods that are in themselves unattractive. It may be that he does not like Rubens and that over time he still admires his verve, his sovereign ability and his imagination or that, although Poussin says little to him personally, he learns to understand what his admirers see in him.

And yet it can be said that such a "cold" appraisal of works of art that we care about is only a weak surrogate for the real experience that a work of art can be for us. Love is part of such an experience. It contains an element of immediate, spontaneous surrender that may perhaps be compared to what psychoanalysts call transference. This includes the willingness to forego criticism, surrender to the work of art and explore its riches and subtleties with love. If we just try to face the work "impartially", we will never discover what the work has to offer us. "

- From the "Vanities Fair". The changes in fashion, taste and style in the light of logic. In: The Crisis of Cultural History. Page 130

Jewish identity

The fate of Gombrich and his place of work is directly related to the persecution of the Jews during the Nazi regime . On the occasion of a London conference on the subject, he derived his cultural identity from the Viennese upper middle class at the turn of the century (“I am what Hitler called a Jew!”). His publisher summarizes the lecture on the question of Jewish culture as follows:

“Ernst H. Gombrich rejects the concept of Jewish culture. The concept of Jewish art, he shows, is in no way based on the self-image of the artist. Rather, it is a product of those who wanted to defame the art and literature of artists of Jewish faith or of Jewish origin: "... the concept of a Jewish culture is an invention of Hitler and his forerunners and descendants". Ernst H. Gombrich attributes this foreign definition to the shift in social hierarchies in the transition from feudal rule to capitalism. Because Jews were denied land ownership, they were the first to occupy key social positions in commerce and finance. Only then were they perceived as Jews - in view of their origin and nationality. This is how Ernst H. Gombrich succeeds in deconstructing the Jewish myth in favor of a humanistic way of thinking. "

- Passagen Verlag, accessed on August 10, 2010

Honors

A British citizen since 1947, Gombrich was accepted into the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II as CBE in 1966 and knighted as a Knight Bachelor in 1972 . In 1964 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , 1968 to the American Philosophical Society and 1985 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters . In 1977 he received the order Pour le mérite for science and the arts . Since 1979 he has been a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1984 he was awarded the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art . In 1985 he received the " Rosina Viva Prize" from the municipality of Anacapri . In 1986 he was elected honorary member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1988 he was awarded the Order of Merit (OM). In 1985 he received the Balzan Prize for Art History of the Occident, in 1986 the City of Vienna Prize for the Humanities , and in 1988 the Ludwig Wittgenstein Prize of the Austrian Research Foundation. In 1994 he was awarded the Goethe Prize of the City of Frankfurt am Main . In 1999 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Vienna . In 2002 he received the Leverhulme Medal of the British Academy , of which he has been a member ( Fellow ) since 1960.

In 2009 the Gombrichgasse in Vienna- Favoriten (10th district) was named after him.

Since 2011, the Art History Society of the University of Vienna has been awarding the Sir Ernst Gombrich Young Talent Prize in honor of Sir Ernst Gombrich to promote and honor highly qualified graduates in the field of art history.

family

Gombrich married the concert pianist Ilse Heller in 1936. Their only child, Richard Gombrich , became an eminent Indologist and Buddhist scholar , who held a professorship at Oxford from 1976 to 2004 .

Fonts

  • The history of art. Phaidon, Cologne 1952 (new edition: Phaidon, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-0-7148-9137-8 ; available again in German-speaking countries after legal disputes from 04/2009).
  • Art and illusion. On the psychology of visual representation. [Original English edition: Art and Illusion. 1959, German translation by Lisbeth Gombrich: Cologne 1967], Phaidon, Berlin 2002, ISBN 0-7148-9317-X .
  • Art, perception, reality. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1977, ISBN 0-7148-9317-X .
  • Meditations on a hobby horse. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1978, ISBN 3-518-07837-2 .
  • The eye makes the picture, the ear makes the sound, the brain makes the world. Franz Kreuzer in conversation with Ernst H. Gombrich, Hellmuth Petsche. Salzburg Music Talk 1983. Franz Deuticke, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-7005-4483-9 .
  • Ideal and type in Italian Renaissance painting. Rhema, Münster 1983, ISBN 3-531-11951-6 .
  • Image and eye. New Studies in the Psychology of Visual Representation. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-608-76180-2 .
  • On the art of the Renaissance. Volumes 1-3 (of 4). Norm and form. / The symbolic picture. / The discovery of the visible. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-608-76146-2 .
  • Ways to create images. From idea to execution. Rhema, Münster 1989, ISBN 3-531-11962-1 .
  • Artists, connoisseurs, customers. Picus, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-85452-317-3 .
  • The art of making pictures speak: a conversation with Didier Eribon. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-608-93187-2 .
  • The inquiring eye. Art observation and nature perception (Edition Pandora). Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-593-35155-2 .
  • Food for the painter's boy. On the technical basis of Dürer's art. WUV Universitätsverlag, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-85114-295-0 .
  • Jewish identity and fate. A discussion note. Passagen, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-85165-292-4 .
  • Art and criticism. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-608-76153-5 .
  • The crisis of cultural history. Thoughts on the value problem in the humanities. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-608-76149-7 .
  • Ornament and art. Jewelry instinct and sense of order in the psychology of decorative creativity. From d. Engl. Trans. by Albrecht Joseph . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-608-76156-X .
  • The Uses of Images: Studies in the Social Function of Art and Visual Communication. Phaidon Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-7148-3969-1
  • Art and progress. Effect and change of an idea. Dumont, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-8321-7235-1 .
  • Aby Warburg. An intellectual biography. Philo & Philo Fine Arts, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-86572-541-4 , ( PDF, 2.014 kB ).
  • Shadow. Their representation in occidental art. Wagenbach, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-8031-1259-0 .
  • A short world history for young readers : From prehistoric times to the present. Dumont, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-8321-7654-9 .

bibliography

JB Trapp : EH Gombrich: a bibliography . Phaidon Press, London 2000, ISBN 0-7148-3981-7

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anne Linsel : Against the chatter . In: The time . November 14, 1997, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed September 6, 2019]).
  2. ↑ a b Gombrich, Ernst H .: The history of art . Adult, revised and newly designed 16th edition, new edition. in paperback, 2nd and 3rd editions Phaidon, Berlin 2001, ISBN 0-7148-9137-1 , p. 13 .
  3. ^ Artists, connoisseurs, customers. 1993, ISBN 978-3-85452-317-8 , pp. 9/10
  4. ↑ Cf. Der Standard May 6, 1993: "Art Historians Against Kateridee Museumsquartier"
  5. ↑ Member History: Sir Ernst H. Gombrich. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 24, 2018 .
  6. ^ Honorary Members: Ernst H. Gombrich. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 11, 2019 .
  7. ^ Ernst Gombrich, in Awards, Honors: Rosina Viva Prize of the Commune of Anacapri, 1985 , on encyclopedia.com, accessed May 27, 2016
  8. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 94.
  9. ^ Welt-Online, March 30, 2009: Victory for Gombrich
personal data
SURNAME Gombrich, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gombrich, Ernst Hans Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian art historian who worked at the Warburg Institute in London
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH November 3, 2001
Place of death London