Herbert Kühn (prehistoric)

Herbert Kühn (born April 29, 1895 in Beelitz ; † June 25, 1980 in Mainz ) was a German prehistoric scientist , religious scholar , art historian and philosopher who presented a style of prehistoric art and focused in particular on research into rock art ( cave paintings ) and archeology deserved the migration period . For a long time he was considered one of the best experts on the culture of the last cold ages and their artistic legacies.

Herbert Kühn often set himself apart from the prevailing doctrines of his time, in particular that of the leading French prehistorian Henri Breuil (1877-1961) and the German palaeolite researcher Hugo Obermaier (1877-1946). Many colleagues considered his interpretations to be too generous and daring.

Kühn's importance lies mainly in having brought Paleolithic art closer to a broad and interested public through numerous publications. Boldly compiled the art of early human history , especially that in the caves of Spain, France, Scandinavia and Russia. He examined around 120 European caves with Ice Age images, engravings and sculptures in detail and tried to interpret them.

Life

Herbert Kühn was born as the son of the postmaster Hermann Kühn (1854–1918) and his wife Franziska, b. Worbes (1868–1955) was born in Beelitz near Potsdam. Kühn attended the Viktoria-Gymnasium in Potsdam (matriculation examination in August 1914), completed a short military service (war volunteer 1914) and then began studying prehistory with Gustaf Kossinna in Berlin . He then went to the University of Munich , because he was initially interested in the research of the physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen . After two semesters, however, he went to Jena to study philosophy, art, religious and prehistory, where he joined the philosopher Rudolf Eucken .

In February 1918, Kuhn was after his interrupted by World War II studies as a 22-year-old in philosophy at the University of Jena in Rudolf Eucken Dr. phil. is doing his doctorate with his dissertation The Psychological Foundations of the Style Change in Modern Art . This work is to be understood against the background in which art after Impressionism was looking for new paths in the direction of abstraction.

Shortly after the First World War, Kühn made his first trip to France to the Dordogne department , one of the world's most important rock art regions. Here he was enthusiastic about the numerous cave paintings that occupied him all his life.

From 1919 to 1921 Kühn worked as a political editor and art critic for the “Halberstädter Tageblatt”. In July 1923 he was habilitated at the University of Cologne for the subject “Prehistoric Art” with his work The Sensorism of Palaeolithic Art . As a private lecturer, he held courses on prehistoric art at the Institute of Art History; however, this subject was not an examination subject. In 1925 Kühn became the founder and editor of the international journal “ Yearbook for Prehistoric and Ethnographic Art (IPEK)”. Some of the fundamental publications on prehistoric art and ethnography were presented here. From 1928 Kühn also acted as editor of the Rhenish research on prehistory . In 1928 his Venia legendi was changed to “Prehistory”, and in 1930 he was appointed an extraordinary, non-civil servant professor. At Kühn's instigation, an "Institute for Prehistory" was founded in 1930 as a department of the history seminar of the University of Cologne.

In 1931 and 1933 Kühn undertook two major world trips by ship to America, Asia, Africa and Australia, visited numerous important rock art stations and excavation sites and thus brought himself up to date with the current state of archaeological science outside Germany. His destinations included Italy, Greece, Palestine, Africa, India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Bali, Philippines, Taiwan, China, Japan, California, Panama, Cuba and North America.

On November 1, 1935, after denunciations, his license to teach was revoked for political reasons , among other things because he had a Jewish wife. Nevertheless, due to his independence during the Nazi era , he was able to devote himself entirely to his research tasks. After his release, Kühn lived as a private scholar in Berlin from 1935 to 1946. It was here that he wrote his basic work, The Germanic Temple Brooches of the Migration Period in the Rhine Province , the second edition of which was published in 1966.

After the end of the war, Kühn accepted an appointment as first professor for prehistory and early history at the newly founded University of Mainz (without assistant, typist and draftsman). He then held this professorship until 1956.

Kühn visited the United States several times. In 1959 and 1960 he gave lectures on prehistory and prehistoric art at numerous universities (including New York and Chicago). Kühn received two appointments as visiting professor at US universities: 1959–1960 at Wayne State University in Detroit (Michigan) and 1963 at the University of California, Berkeley ( CA ). He was also an employee of the renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In the 1960s he then visited the pyramids of Mexico, in 1967 made a trip through the Balkans and Turkey, to Iran and Iraq, to Babylon , Assur , Nineveh , Ur and in 1974 finally to Russia. But his favorite destinations have always been the caves in France and Spain since 1923 . And often Kühn was the first to visit her with her discoverers.

In March 1959 Kühn retired from the University of Mainz and was a senior German prehistoric scientist for a long time. After his retirement, Kühn continued to devote himself to his extensive publication activities.

Kühn had been married since 1921 and had a son. He died in Mainz at the age of 85.

Friendships

Kühn cultivated a close friendship with the important palaeolite researchers Abbé Henri Breuil and Hugo Obermaier , but they never followed his theses. Like many of his specialist colleagues , Kühn no longer considered Levant art to be from the Ice Age, in contrast to Breuil, for example. Kühn was also friends with numerous poets, writers and philosophers, including Franz Pfemfert . Kühn published his own poems in his social-revolutionary magazine “ Die Aktion ”.

Representations of horses from the Chauvet Cave , Aurignacien

Prehistoric Studies

The prehistorian Kühn is widely regarded as a pioneer in the study of Ice Age art . He dealt in particular with the chronological, cultural and stylistic development of the art of the Upper Palaeolithic (younger Paleolithic). Kühn thus also provided groundbreaking insights into the history of art and culture as well as the history of religion and had a significant influence on other researchers such as the Swiss ethnologist Eduard Renner . And as a field researcher, he was always very close to the objects of his science. As already mentioned, the prehistoric of international standing traveled to prehistoric sites on two major world trips and visited India, China, Japan, America and Africa.

It is Kühn's merit to have made the cave paintings and rock engravings talk. In doing so, he pursued his own methodological and scientific path. Modern dating methods , especially radiocarbon dating , later led to a more precise classification and periodization of prehistoric art.

Systematization and interpretation

In the systematisation (order) and interpretation of the earliest art, Kühn applied art-historical interpretative approaches. In the 1950s he developed his analysis method based on specifically modern aspects. He then applied his results to the entire development of mankind. In all cultural epochs, painting developed for him from the first naturalistic expressions to ever larger abstractions. With this, Kühn also made valuable contributions to art historical research.

One of Kühn's main research objectives was the interpretation of cave art . He always associated the Upper Palaeolithic rock painting with magical ideas and rites that played a role in hunting and fertility. This thesis was and is still controversially discussed today. However, Kühn was not only concerned with the art, culture and religion of prehistoric European times, but also with the advanced cultures of ancient Mesopotamia , ancient Egypt and India as well as the classical Greek and Roman cultures. For Kühn, religion and art have always been linked, in fact, almost a matter of course, art as a form of religiosity.

Kühn also pioneered the teaching of the importance of rock art . He is considered to be one of the first scientists who recognized the importance of cave paintings in Spain and France. In doing so, he made them very popular throughout his life.

Another aspect of his investigations is the exciting relationship between prehistoric and modern art, as there are numerous similarities between rock art and modern works of art, for example in Willi Baumeister , Paul Klee , Joan Miró or Pablo Picasso .

Culture and religion research

In the 1960s, Kühn devoted himself in particular to building philosophical, religious and historical bridges between the past and the present. He differentiates between magical and mythical thinking. In his investigations - in which the religious development in prehistoric times was always the focus - he repeatedly considered findings from ethnological research on religion and social philosophy . For him, personality and community formed the two great poles of economic and intellectual human shaping. Kühn was always aware that there was no knowledge of the absolute. His path led him to our present. For him prehistoric man never lived without property, so he is of the opinion that all the presuppositions of socialism contradict historical facts. The aim of man is to achieve freedom and dignity of the person.

One of his main works is the three-volume work Prehistory of Humanity - Culture and History , which has had numerous editions and has been translated into many foreign languages. When looking at the development of humans from the pre-Neanderthals to the 1st millennium BC Knowledge of modern philosophy flow into it again and again.

Kühn's second field of research was in the area of ​​early history, especially the migration period . In 1940, for example, he presented an impressive material template for the “Germanic temple primers of the migration period”, a four-volume standard work that is still exemplary today.

Kühn's standard work

His final monumental work is dedicated to the "history of prehistoric research" and with its more than 1000 pages is still an indispensable standard work for all students and specialists in prehistoric archeology. He had personally got to know the most important prehistoric sites on earth during his intensive research career. The opulent monograph “deals with the history of excavations and finds across the globe”, says Kühn himself in his foreword (p. V). He expressly emphasizes here that the human being, the personality of the digger, the researcher, the excavator, is important to him. "The purpose and purpose of this book should be", says Kühn (p. VIII),

"... to understand and interpret the human being from its beginnings".

That is why the excavators are also mentioned in his magnum opus, their life data and publications, their personal memories are woven in, and often their personal experiences and relationships with Kühn themselves.

“This book has the task of grasping the essence of man through the phenomena and facts through all times and continents”. (P. VIII).

Writer Kühn

Kühn was also active as a writer. He has mastered the art of conveying scientific content, some of which is difficult to understand, to his interested audience in a generally understandable way. His numerous publications have an audience of millions, and not only in Germany. Many of his basic publications have new and multiple editions and have been translated into several foreign languages.

honors and awards

• 1932 corresponding member of the Archaeological Institute of the German Empire (later the German Archaeological Institute )
• 1941 member of the Sociedad Española de Antropología, Etnografía y Prehistoria , Madrid
• 1945 first German honorary member of the Société préhistorique française , Paris
• 1947 member of the Société préhistorique de l'Ariège
• November 1949 full member of the humanities and social sciences class at the Academy of Sciences and Literature , Mainz
• 1955 member of the Soc. de prehistoria , Rome
• full member of the Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-lettres de Dijon
• Deputy Chairman of the former Society for Prehistory

Quotes

"The beginnings of ornament, offering simple lines and dots, cannot be derived from technology, the roots of ornament are aesthetic." , From: Herbert Kühn 1929, p. 302.

“The excavator is the person, the personality, carried by the big questions about what has been and what happened in the past. Because only from what was once does the present and what follow grows, just as every single person rests on those who were, lived and suffered before him, just as mankind rests on the epochs that have borne the past. " , from: Herbert Kühn 1976, p. VII.

Publications (in chronological order, selection)

Monographs

• The psychological foundations of the style change in modern art . Printed by Gutenberg-Buchdruckerei Schulze & Sohn, Halberstadt 1919. (Jena, Phil. Diss. From March 6, 1920). New edition Frankfurt a. M., 1968.
• The painting of the Ice Age . Munich 1921.
  • The painting of the Ice Age . 3rd, presumably edition. Delphin-Verlag, Munich 1923.
• The art of the primitive . Delphin-Verlag, Munich 1923. (Russian 1933).
• Art and Culture of Prehistoric Europe - The Paleolithic . Verlag Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin / Leipzig 1929.
• Prehistoric art in Germany . Propylaea publishing house, Berlin ( Propylaea art history ), 1935.
• Rock paintings from India . Berlin 1935.
• The Germanic bow brooches of the migration period in the Rhine province (Rhenish research on prehistory, vol. 4). Verlag Röhrscheid, Bonn 1940. 2 volumes.
• Present and Past (Books of Knowledge, Vol. 8), Metopen-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1948. 2., extended u. revised. 1968 edition
• On the meaning of prehistory (World and Knowledge Vol. 1), Churfürstenverlag, Mainz (Gonsenheim) 1948.
• Action and sinking - Europe and Asia . Verlag Kirchheim, Mainz 1948.
• On the trail of the Ice Age man . Brockhaus publishing house, Wiesbaden 1950 (also Italian, English and Dutch).
  • On the trail of the Ice Age man . 3rd ext. Edition, Verlag Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1956, pocket edition 1958 List-Verlag, engl. Random House, New York, Arrow Books, London., Lw. (Translation into Italian, English, American, Dutch and Japanese).
  • In the footsteps of the Ice Age man (List library, vol. 118). List-Verlag, Munich 1965. 2nd edition. (also Italian, English and Dutch).
• The problem of primordial monotheism (= treatises of the academy of sciences and literature, humanities and social science class . 1950, issue 22). Publishing house of the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz / F. Steiner Verlag in commission, Wiesbaden 1950. (English translation in Selection II Sheed and Ward, London / New York, 1954).
• The art of old Europe . Zurich 1952.
• The rock art of Europe . 1st edition, Verlag Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1952 (also Italian, Spanish, Swedish, English and Dutch editions).
• The awakening of humanity (Fischer Bücherei, vol. 53). Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / Hamburg 1954 (also French, Dutch, Japanese and Italian).
• The rise of mankind (Fischer Bücherei) (books of knowledge, 82). Frankfurt am Main / Hamburg 1955 (also French, Dutch and Japanese).
• On the track of prehistoric man . 1955.
• Abstract art of the past (Das kleine Kunstbuch). Knorr & Hirth Verlag, Munich / Hanover 1956.
• Ice age painting. 50,000 - 10,000 BC Chr. (Piper library, vol. 95). Publishing house R. Piper & Co., Munich 1956.
  • Ice age painting . 2nd Edition. Verlag R. Piper & Co., Munich 1958 (Italian translation).
• Germanic art of migration (The small art book). Knorr & Hirth Verlag, Munich / Hanover-Ahrbeck 1956.
• The art of old Europe . 2nd Edition. Verlag Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1958 (translation Dutch, Spanish and Italian; pocket edition Dutch).
• The development of humanity (Fischer Bücherei, Vol. 221). Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / Hamburg 1958 (Dutch translation).
• Personality and Community (Experience and Thinking, Vol. 3). Duncker & Humblot Verlag, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00870-7 .
• Prehistory of Humanity - Culture and History, Vol. 1: Paleolithic and Mesolithic (DuMont documents). Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1962 (numerous translations in European languages ​​and Japan.).
• The rock art of Europe . Stuttgart 1962.
• Prehistory of Humanity - Culture and History, Vol. 2: New Stone Age (DuMont Documents). M. DuMont Schauberg publishing house, Cologne 1963.
• The Face of India (Klosterberg Collection, New Series), Benno Schwabe & Co. Verlag, Basel / Stuttgart 1963.
• Ice Age Art - The History of Their Exploration (Great moments in archeology, Vol. 4). Musterschmidt-Verlag, Göttingen / Berlin / Frankfurt / Zurich 1965 (also Italian), ISBN 3-7881-1504-1 . Review by Peter La Baume . In: Prehistoric Journal 1965–1966, pp. 371–372.
• When stones speak - the language of rock art . Brockhaus publishing house, Wiesbaden 1966.
• Prehistory of mankind. Vol. 3: Bronze Age and Iron Age (DuMont Documents - Culture and History). M. DuMont Schauberg publishing house, Cologne 1966.
• The basics of style change in modern art . Metopen-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 1968 [= dissertation from 1919].
• History of Prehistory . Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1976, ISBN 3-11-005918-5 .
• The bow brooches of the migration period in northern and former eastern Germany . Graz 1979.

Other publications

• Primitive art . In: Max Ebert (Hrsg.): Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte . Volume 10 (Lease - Pyrenean Peninsula), Verlag Walter de Gruyter & Co. Berlin 1927/28, pp. 264-292.
• Decorative arts from the Ice Age and the Migration Period . In: History of the arts and crafts . Volume 1, 1928.
• Ancient art of Europe . In: The Atlantis Book of Art . 1952.
• The new Cougnac cave . In: Kosmos , Franckh'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart, issue October 10, 1954, pp. 494–497
• Prehistory . In: Ploetz - excerpt from the old, middle and recent history . 25th edition, 1956

Literature (chronological)

• Religion in the past and present - concise dictionary for theology and religious studies . 3rd, completely revised edition, register volume, JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck) Tübingen 1965, list of employees p. 134.
• Bold, Herbert . In: Jan Filip (Hrsg.): Encyclopaedic handbook on the prehistory and early history of Europe . Vol. 1, Academia - Publishing House of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences Prague, Prague 1966, pp. 655–656.
• Bold, Herbert . In: Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar 1980 . de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1979, 13th edition, p. 2154, ISSN  0341-8049 .
• Bold, Herbert . In: Who is who? The German who's who, XVII. Edition of Degeners Who is it? , Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 599.
• Karl Dietrich Adam and Renate Kurz: Ice Age Art in Southern Germany . Konrad-Theiss-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-8062-0241-9
• Herbert Kühne , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 35/1980 of August 30, 1980, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
• Martín Almagro: In memoriam Prof. Dr. Herbert Kühn, April 29, 1895 - June 25, 1980. In: Trabajos de prehistoria 37 (1980) pp. 9-10
• Konrad Fuchs:  Kühn, Herbert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 195 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Bold, Herbert . In: Lexicon of Art . Volume 4, EA Seemann Verlag, Leipzig 1992, p. 95, ISBN 3-363-00047-2 .
• Thomas Schulte im Walde, Harald Braem : Bibliography of German-language literature on international rock art research (Imago Mundi - series of studies by the KULT-UR-INSTITUT for interdisciplinary cultural research e.V. Volume 7 = Bibliographies from the KULT-UR-Institut e.V., Vol. 1). Pulsar Verlag, Warmsroth 1994, ISBN 3-929068-07-9 .
• The stones begin to speak ... Commemorative text for the 100th year of Prof. Dr. Herbert Kühn (Imago Mundi - series of studies by the KULT-UR-INSTITUT for interdisciplinary cultural research e.V., Volume 9). Pulsar Verlag, Warmsroth 1995, ISBN 3-929068-09-5 .
• Bold, Herbert . In: Brockhaus - The Encyclopedia in 24 Volumes , 20th, revised a. updated edition, Volume 12, 1997, FA Brockhaus, Leipzig / Mannheim, p. 605, ISBN 3-7653-3100-7 .
• Bold, Herbert . In: German Biographical Encyclopedia (DBE) . Vol. 6, p. 144, KG Saur Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-598-23166-0 .
• Konrad Fuchs:  Kühn, Herbert. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 16, Bautz, Herzberg 1999, ISBN 3-88309-079-4 , Sp. 882-885.
• Martina Schäfer: Herbert Kühn and the founding years of the Cologne UFG Institute 1920-1935. In: Johan Callmer u. a. (Ed.): The beginnings of prehistoric and early historical archeology as an academic subject (1890-1930) in a European comparison. Publishing house Marie Leidorf, Rahden / Westf. 2006, ISBN 3-89646-512-0 , pp. 117-126

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See: Herbert Kühn: When Stones Talk - The Language of Rock Art . Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1965.
2. ↑ See: Herbert Kühn: The Painting of the Ice Age . Delphin-Verlag, Munich 1921.
3. ^ Herbert Kühn: History of Prehistory Research . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1976, ISBN 3-11-005918-5 .