Hermann Schmitz (art historian)

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Hermann Schmitz (born January 2, 1882 in Elberfeld , † January 16, 1946 in Dresden ) was a German art historian .

Life

Hermann Schmitz was a Westphalian and Catholic . His parents were the lawyer Alfons Schmitz (born November 22, 1818 in Aachen, † October 12, 1889 in Elberfeld) and his wife Elisabeth, b. Schlosser (born November 19, 1851 in Kirchhundem, † May 29, 1882 in Arnsberg). After graduating from the Realgymnasium in Elberfeld, he studied art history in Marburg (1901), Munich (1901-02), Berlin 1902/03, Basel (1903/04) and Münster (1904-05), where he worked with Hermann Ehrenberg (1858 –1920) received his doctorate. On April 1, 1904, he began his career as a research assistant at the art library in Berlin , which was housed as part of the arts and crafts museum in the Martin-Gropius-Bau . In 1905 he became a scientific assistant at the Kunstgewerbemuseum under the director Julius Lessing , on April 1, 1908, assistant director under the director Otto von Falke , and on July 1, 1918 he was appointed custodian with the title of professor .

In Wilhelmine Berlin

In late Wilhelmine Berlin, Schmitz belonged to the liberal and nationally oriented social reform camp. He belonged to the environment of Walter Rathenau , Carl Sonnenschein , Paul Mebes and Paul Emmerich . He supported their demand for residential construction without backyards in the media. Schmitz wrote a number of art historical presentations. His publication Berliner Baumeister from the end of the eighteenth century in 1914, which he dedicated to Rathenau, became a standard work . Schmitz supported the educational work of Catholic workers' associations in particular through lectures and museum tours .

Curator of the Berlin Palace

In 1918 Schmitz was aloof from the November Revolution and largely rejected the ideas represented by the Labor Council for Art , including those for state funding for modern art . Nevertheless, in 1919 he was appointed curator of the newly established palace museum in the Berlin palace . In 1921 the castle became the location of the Museum of Applied Arts. Schmitz dealt with the art politics in the social democratically ruled Free State of Prussia . He feared a loss of cultural substance when the castles and art collections of the Hohenzollernhaus passed into the possession of the Free State of Prussia through improper use. In order to draw attention to the value of the cultural heritage, in 1926 he published the Prussian Royal Castles, the first art and cultural history-based overview of the now state castles, especially in Berlin and Potsdam. Goerd Peschken calls the work because of its general comprehensibility with "highest technical mastery ... in one word: masterful". In addition, Schmitz rejected the consideration of fashionable architectural trends such as Art Deco and Neo-Gothic Expressionism by the public as out of place. Several times he publicly opposed the Ministry of Science, Art and Public Education because of its implementation of fiscal plans or the latest art historical theories in dealing with art ownership.

For Schmitz in 1927, his arguments with politicians and bureaucrats had the consequence that he was passed over when the director was appointed to the arts and crafts museum, he was considered a troublemaker. Wilhelm von Bode was one of the critics of this state punishment for an uncomfortable person . Schmitz resigned from his position as custodian on January 31, 1928 in protest, retired without his pension and wrote a pamphlet as a general settlement with his superiors under the title Revolution der Verinnung! Prussian cultural policy and national community since November 9, 1918 , which he self- published in 1931 . After retiring from museum work, he worked in the antiques department of the Margraf & Co. company in Berlin from February 1928 to October 1930 .

Director of the State Art Library in Berlin

After Hitler's rise to power , with which he sympathized, he was appointed acting director of the State Art Library on July 1, 1933, as the successor to Curt Glaser , who had been dismissed by the National Socialists ; in the summer of 1934 he finally became director. The art library had meanwhile had its own building on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse and was separated from the applied arts museum in 1924. But by the beginning of July 1934, the library had to leave its house to make way for the expanding Reich Security Main Office . Their holdings were transported to the Gropiusbau, where they were displayed in the atrium and its surroundings. The library reopened in January 1936. Schmitz was committed as a director in the spirit of the National Socialists, but was suspended from work on July 15, 1941 and retired on January 1, 1942 due to his increasing radicalization on the “ Jewish question ” and for health reasons, probably a mental illness offset.

Evacuated to Dresden towards the end of the Second World War because of the air raids on Berlin, where he witnessed the air raid on February 13, 1945 . Schmitz died of hunger and misery in Dresden at the beginning of 1946.

Fonts (selection)

  • Medieval painting in Soest. Contribution to the history of the feeling for nature in German art . Dissertation Münster 1905 (with curriculum vitae).
    • Print version Medieval painting in Soest. On the history of the feeling for nature in German art (= contributions to Westphalian art history 3). Coppenrath, Münster 1906 ( digitized version ).
  • The stained glass of the Royal Museum of Applied Arts in Berlin. With an introduction to the history of German glass painting . Bard, Berlin 1913 ( digitized version ).
  • Berlin builders from the end of the eighteenth century . Verlag für Kunstwissenschaften, Berlin 1914 ( digitized version ). 2nd edition Berlin 1925.
    Unchanged. Reprint of the 2nd edition Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1980, ISBN 978-3-7861-1272-3 ,
  • Berlin iron art casting. Festschrift for the 50th anniversary of the Royal Museum of Applied Arts, 1867 to 1917. Bruckmann, undated, undated [Munich 1917].
  • Picture carpets. History of tapestry . Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin 1919.
  • A hundred years ago. Festival rooms and living rooms of German classicism and Biedermeier . Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin 1920.
  • Art and Culture of the 18th Century in Germany . Bruckmann, Munich
  • The art of the early and high Middle Ages in Germany . Bruckmann, Munich 1924.
  • Soest and Münster (= Famous Art Places Volume 45). Seemann, Leipzig 1925.
  • Prussian royal castles . Drei Masken, Munich 1926.
    New edition with an afterword by Goerd Peschken, Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-7861-1849-3 .
  • The furniture factory. Furniture forms from antiquity to the middle of the 19th century . E. Wasmuth, Berlin [1926].
    Reprint Wasmuth, Tübingen 1982, ISBN 978-3-8030-5022-9 .
  • Revolution of Mind! Prussian cultural policy and national community since November 9, 1918 . Self-published, Neubabelsberg 1931.
  • Catalog of the ornament engraving collection of the State Art Library in Berlin . Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin 1939.
    Reprinted by B. Franklin, New York 1958; HES Publishers, Utrecht 1986.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Death register StA Dresden 7, No. 110/1946.
  2. ↑ After the dedication of his book Revolution der Verinnung! Prussian cultural policy and national community since November 9, 1918 . Neubabelsberg 1931.
  3. ↑ Peschken, epilogue p. 108.
  4. ↑ See Timo Saalmann: Die Kunstpolitik der Berliner Museen 1919–1959 . De Gruyter, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-05-006101-6 , pp. 131-132.
  5. ↑ Publications on the art library: Hermann Schmitz: Die Staatliche Kunstbibliothek in Berlin . In: Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel 103, 1936, pp. 871–872; Hermann Schmitz: The State Art Library in Berlin. Their structure, their holdings and new additions. At the same time an introduction for the user . Berlin 1940.
  6. ↑ See for example Stephan Waetzoldt: Carl Koch . In: Berliner Museen NF 20, 1970, issue 1, p. 2: “The curator and professor of the art library [ Carl Koch ], who had refused to join the party, nevertheless obtained the removal of the superior director [Hermann Schmitz ], who - mentally unstable and politically fanatical - threatened to ruin the institute ”.
  7. ^ Peschken, epilogue p. 107; Brand, Art Library p. 252.
personal data
SURNAME Schmitz, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Elberfeld
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 1946
Place of death Dresden