Hans Jantzen

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Hans Jantzen (born April 26, 1881 in Hamburg , † February 15, 1967 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German art historian .

Life

Hans Jantzen studied art history at the University of Halle , where he received his doctorate in 1908 from Adolph Goldschmidt ; he completed his habilitation there in 1912 with a paper on the subject of "Choice of colors and the use of colors in Dutch painting of the 17th century".

In 1916 he became a professor at the University of Freiburg, in 1931 he moved to the University of Frankfurt am Main , and in 1935 he was appointed to the University of Munich , where he taught as the successor to Wilhelm Pinder until the end of the war. Jantzen was a supporting member of the SS and a member of the NS-Volkswohlfahrt . On January 8, 1946, he was dismissed because of his proximity to National Socialism, but reinstated in his office on February 28 of the same year.

From 1945 until his retirement in 1951 he was professor and head of the art history seminar at the University of Munich. After his retirement he moved to Freiburg, where he was appointed honorary professor at the university.

Since 1936 he was a full and since 1953 a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

Hans Jantzen and the "diaphanous structure"

Jantzen is one of the founders of modern Gothic research . The term diaphany coined by him is part of the basic vocabulary when describing and analyzing Gothic churches.

In 1927, Hans Jantzen coined the term “diaphanous structure”. He pointed out that in the Gothic lighting and also in the construction of the wall it is important to put two layers behind one another, as it were: a plastically formed and meaningful front layer and an optical space shell behind it, which acts like a background, in front of which the front layer Layer stands out. And the ever larger windows also correspond to this principle. With them, what is “translucent” is given by the light alone; with the wall, this effect must first be created by the shell.

Jantzen sees “the relationship between the body-sculpted wall and the parts of the room behind it as the relationship between the body and the ground. That means: the wall as the delimitation of the entire interior of the nave cannot be grasped without the floor of the room [...] The floor of the room itself appears as an optical zone, which is, as it were, laid behind the wall. The term 'deposit' expresses the character of the relationship between the wall body and the floor of the room. The concept of the diaphanous structure means that different parts of the room that lie behind the wall structure (as the boundary of the nave) intervene in their function as a pure optical appearance in the style of the nave wall. "

According to his theory, the entire height of the central nave is surrounded by a space shell with different depths, with a basilical cross-section different on each floor, but the principle of two-shell construction is respected. It is not about brightness alone, but about making a designed surface transparent. According to Jantzen, the triforium and gallery also serve this function in the Gothic cathedral . Both ensure that a two-shell system develops in the Gothic wall. The principle of the “diaphane” is to be interpreted from the core of the cultic process itself, which takes place in the cathedral during the service. In a paradox, space becomes a symbol of a spaceless, spiritual - metaphysical - state.

With the illuminated triforium, almost the entire outer wall of the room can be dissolved in light and color. The result is an expressive, expressive, illuminated screen - because between the upper window story and the lower arcade story, which let light flow in from the side aisle walls, is the last, third link, the illuminated triforium. The sluggish Romanesque walls were brought to life in the Gothic, the tension in the space was increased and the entire building was transformed into a system of intense visual worlds.

Fonts (selection)

  • Ottonian art. F. Bruckmann, Munich 1947.
    • New edition: Rowohlt's German Encyclopedia, No. 89; Reinbek near Hamburg 1959.
  • Gothic art: Classical cathedrals of France - Chartres, Reims, Amiens. Rowohlt, Hamburg 1957.
  • The Naumburg donor figures . Reclam, Stuttgart 1959.
  • The Gothic of the Occident. Idea and Change. Du Mont Schauberg, Cologne 1962.

literature

  • Festschrift for Hans Jantzen. Berlin 1951
  • Willibald Sauerländer :  Jantzen, Hans. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 348 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Metzler Kunsthistorikerlexikon , ed. by Peter Betthausen , Peter H. Feist and Christiane Fork, Stuttgart / Weimar 1999, ISBN 3-476-01535-1 , pp. 192-195.
  • Jutta Held : Art history in the “Third Reich”: Wilhelm Pinder and Hans Jantzen at the Munich University. In: Focus: Art History at Universities during National Socialism. V&R Unipress, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89971-118-1 ( Art and Politics. Vol. 5), pp. 17-60 ( online ).
  • Renate Maas: Hans Jantzens analysis of Ottonian art. The pictorial space as a symbol of historical beginnings and ontological origins. In: Ingrid Baumgärtner et al. (Ed.), Spatial concepts. V&R unipress, Göttingen 2009, pp. 95–123.
  • Renate Maas: Diaphanous and poetic. The artistic space with Martin Heidegger and Hans Jantzen , Kassel University Press, Kassel 2015, ISBN 978-3-86219-854-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Short biography on the website of the Institute for Art History of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Retrieved May 20, 2014.
  2. ^ Hans Jantzen obituary at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences by Theodor Müller (PDF file).
  3. ↑ Hans Jantzen: About the Gothic church interior and other articles. Mann, Berlin 1951, pp. 7-20.
  4. ↑ Nikolaus Pevsner : European architecture from the beginning to the present. 3. Edition. Prestel, Munich 1973, p. 145.
personal data
SURNAME Jantzen, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 1967
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau