Hermann Bauer (art historian)

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Hermann Bauer (born December 12, 1929 in Dorfen , Upper Bavaria, † January 21, 2000 in Munich ) was a German art historian . Bauer was the son of the writer Josef Martin Bauer (" As far as your feet can carry "). Bauer's research focus was the art history of Bavaria, his method that of the critical form (after Sedlmayr), iconology (after Erwin Panofsky ) based on phenomenology (after Edmund Husserl ). He coined the technical terms picturesque in painting of the 18th century and macchie (spots) in late Rococo painting.

Life

Hermann Bauer was a student of Hans Sedlmayr (1896–1984) and Ernst Buschor (1886–1961). 1955 he was with the dissertation: Rocaille. On the origin and essence of an ornament motif. to the Dr. phil. PhD. The work was published by de Gruyter in 1962 .

From 1956 to 1959 he worked as a research assistant at the Central Institute for Art History in Munich, from 1959 to 1964 Hermann Bauer was assistant to Hans Sedlmayr. Until 1965 he worked for several years on the index for the documentation of baroque iconography of the Central Institute for Art History in Munich.

In 1964 Hermann Bauer completed his habilitation with Hans Sedlmayr (assessors: Ernesto Grassi , Norbert Lieb) with the habilitation thesis Art and Utopia. Studies of Art and State Thought in the Renaissance . The habilitation pursues different evaluations of the world of images within literary utopian drafts, the work also questions monuments and epochs about their relationship to utopias. Bauer interprets Alberti's architectural treatise as an expression of the endeavor to establish a new, good way of life with the art of architecture. For the first time, according to Bauer, art presumed to represent law, religion and education through the identification of ethics and aesthetics. The work was published by de Gruyter in 1965.

From 1969 to 1973, Hermann Bauer succeeded Hans Sedlmayr as full professor of art history at the University of Salzburg . From 1974 up to and including 1994, Hermann Bauer was Professor of Art History, succeeding Norbert Lieb, at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, taking particular account of the history of art in Bavaria .

Together with Bernhard Rupprecht , he was co-initiator and co-editor of the Corpus of Baroque Ceiling Painting in Germany , a fundamental work of German art history. Hermann Bauer was married to the art historian Anna Bauer-Wild, who among other things works on the research project on the corpus of baroque ceiling painting . The marriage resulted in two daughters and two sons, including the youngest child, the archaeologist and art historian Franz Alto Bauer .

Hermann Bauer passed away in January 2000 after a brief, serious illness.

Central thoughts and concepts

The critical form, meta-style

The dissertation accepted by Ludwig Maximilians University in 1955 deals with the genesis of the rocaille from French master sheets and the structural laws of the rocaille, whereby the Nordenfalk law on the interdependent relationship between spatialization and objectification of the ornament was shown to be valid: “ The relative objectivity of an ornamental Pattern and its relative connection to the material base are in inverse relationship to each other ”.

With regard to the epoch structure of the 18th century, Style Rocaille proves to be a “ meta style ” , says Bauer . Hermann Bauer provided evidence of this using the method of critical form , the method of Hans Sedlmayer, his doctoral supervisor. According to this, radical new, apparently unimportant, even absurd-looking extreme forms in an epoch of research can serve as the key to accessing the epoch.

The analysis of the rocaille in the field of tension between the categories architecture, sculpture and ornament served the purpose of gaining insights into the uniqueness of the Rococo and the structure of the arts of the 18th century as a whole. Bauer recognized that the metastyle of the 18th century manifested itself in the shift in the art genres of architecture, sculpture, and painting towards the image (in the sense of figurative, depicted). (Example: incursion of scenic islands in the ornamentation of the rocaille.)

18th century iconological style

Methodologically, Bauer did not limit himself to categorical observations or stylistic or iconographic contexts. He was interested in the integral instance , the “ iconological style ”.

Result according to Bauer: the hypäthral perspective of the early Rococo (the illusion of painting into the hypäthral, ​​Christian heaven) changes over time to a historical perspective. The illusion of the architecture that is open to the top remains, the view from below into the sky changes into a view from below on a historical plot.

That means: The historical illusion replaces the heavenly illusion (the representation of a heavenly state ).

The paradigm that can be derived , according to Hermann Bauer, is the aesthetic distancing from imagery , which can be seen particularly in the ceiling painting of the era. The corpus of the baroque ceiling painting is the posthumous history of the visual medium ceiling painting in this geographical area.

Art and utopia

Renaissance: For the first time, according to Bauer, based on Alberti's architectural treatise, art assumes the representation of law, religion and education through the identification of ethics and aesthetics.

Epoch under King Ludwig I: The task of the art of that epoch, according to Bauer, was to keep eternal values ​​present, as well as to realize those monuments in which sovereign achievement is remembered: historicity as the sphere superior to everyday life that tempts to do so to live up to the memorial value anticipated in art , which manifests itself as " lived historicism ".

Appreciation

Research: " The Rococo era found one of its most outstanding interpreters in Bauer ."

Teaching: " The design of large arcs of tension and the ability to emphasize and make nuances audible made Hermann Bauer a fascinating university teacher ." Bauer's high level of commitment as a university teacher reflects the disproportionately high number of post-doctoral candidates and doctoral candidates during the twenty years of teaching at the University of Munich . " Generations of art historians are committed to their teacher Bauer ."

List of works

  • Rocaille . On the origin and essence of an ornament motif . Phil. Diss .; De Gruyter, Berlin 1962.
  • Hermann Bauer: Art and Utopia: Studies on Art and State Thought in the Renaissance . Habilitation thesis. de Gruyter, Berlin 1965.
  • The sky in the Rococo. The fresco in the German church interior of the 18th century . Pustet, Regensburg 1965.
  • Art history. A critical introduction to the study of art history. CH Beck, 1st edition. 1976.
  • Dutch painting of the 17th century . Heyne, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-453-41347-4 .
  • Art history. A critical introduction to the study of art history . 2nd Edition. Beck, Munich 1979.
  • Rococo painting. Six studies. Maeander, Mittenwald 1980, ISBN 3-88219-066-3 .
  • 17th century Dutch painting . GeraNova Bruckmann, Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3-7654-1873-0 .
  • with Anna Bauer-Wild and Wolf-Christian von der Mülbe: Johann Baptist and Dominikus Zimmermann . Origin and completion of the Bavarian Rococo . Pustet, Regensburg 1985, ISBN 978-3-7917-0918-5 .
  • Monasteries in Bavaria . Beck, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-406-30857-0 .
  • Art in Bavaria . Rosenheimer Verlagshaus , Rosenheim 1985, ISBN 3-475-52470-8 .
  • with Hans Sedlmayr: Rococo - Structure and Essence of a European Epoch . Cologne 1992, ISBN 978-3-406-07299-4 .
  • Baroque - art of an era . Reimer, Berlin 1992, ISBN 978-3-496-01095-1 .
  • with Wolf-Christian von der Mülbe: Baroque ceiling paintings in southern Germany . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2000. ISBN 978-3-422-06273-3 .
  • with Bernhard Rupprecht and Frank Büttner (eds.): Corpus of baroque ceiling painting in Germany - Bavaria. Volume 1, 1976 to Volume 12, 2005 and ff. Hirmer, Munich, ISBN 978-3-7774-2365-4 .

literature

  • Bernhard Graf: Hermann Bauer (1929-2000). In: The Institute for Art History in Munich 1909–2000. Edited by Daniela Stöppel, Gabriele Wimböck, Munich 2010, pp. 72–79.
  • Karl Möseneder , Andreas Prater (ed.): Essays on art history. Festschrift for Hermann Bauer on his 60th birthday. Olms, Hildesheim, Zurich, New York 1991.
  • Karl Möseneder: Hermann Bauer (12.12.1929–21.1.2000) . In: Journal for Art History . 64th vol., Issue 1 (2001), Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin, pages 148–151.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heaven in Rococo. The fresco in the German church in the 18th century. Regensburg: Pustet 1965, blurb
  2. ↑ a b Karl Möseneder: Hermann Bauer (December 12, 1929– January 21, 2000) . In: Journal for Art History . 64 vol., Issue 1 (2001), Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich, Berlin, p. 148.
  3. ↑ Source Albert Ottenbacher ( Memento of the original from May 20, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.albert-ottenbacher.de
  4. ↑ Nordenfalk, quoted from Karl Möseneder: Hermann Bauer (12.12.1929–21.1.2000) . In: Journal for Art History . 64 vol., Issue 1 (2001), Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich, Berlin, p. 148.
  5. ↑ a b c Karl Möseneder: Hermann Bauer (12.12.1929–21.1.2000) . In: Journal for Art History . 64 vol., Issue 1 (2001), Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich, Berlin, p. 150.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bauer, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Villages
DATE OF DEATH January 21, 2000
Place of death Munich