Jean Seznec

Jean Joseph Seznec (born March 19, 1905 in Morlaix , Bretagne , France ; † November 22, 1983 in Chipping Norton, Oxford , England ) was a French art and literary historian who was particularly concerned with the mythography of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance .

Life

Seznec grew up as the son of a teacher couple in Morlaix, where he made friends with the Breton painter and ceramist Pierre Cavellat while at school. He then completed a degree at the École normal supérieure in Paris . In 1929 he became a member of the Académie de France à Rome and worked with Émile Mâle , whose methodology he valued. From 1930 to 1933 he was a lecturer in French literature at the University of Cambridge , and in 1934 teacher in ancient languages ​​and French at the Lycée Thiers in Marseille . In the same year he was first lecturer, then deputy director of the Institut Français de Florence . When France entered World War II in 1939, Seznec returned to fight as an officer in the mountain troops. In the same year his main work, La Survivance des dieux antiques, was printed in Gap in a small edition , but was only published after the liberation . For this work the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres awarded him the Prix ​​Fould in 1948 . After the war, Seznec took up a position in the Department of Romance Languages ​​and Literatures at Harvard University , which he took over the following year. During this time he discovered a number of drawings by Jean Honoré Fragonard , which he made available to the public in a catalog and in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC . In 1950 he was appointed as the successor to Gustave Rudler (1872-1957) Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at Oxford University and Fellow of All Souls College , where he researched and taught until 1972.

Seznec was married to Simone Lee for the second time since 1954. His son Alain Seznec was a professor at Cornell University .

Seznec has received the following awards: Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , Member of the Medieval Academy of America , Fellow of the British Academy , Officer of the Légion d'Honneur , Prix ​​du Rayonnement Français of the Académie française in 1972, Commander of the Ordre national du Mérite in 1973.

plant

In his main work The Persistence of the Ancient Gods , Seznec shows how the gods of the ancient Greeks and Romans lived on in various forms in the written and pictorial tradition of the Middle Ages until they “regained their classical form” in the art and literature of the Renaissance . This research work came about under the influence of the scholars of the Warburg Institute , namely: Fritz Saxl , Erwin Panofsky and Aby Warburg himself.

In 1957, Seznec, together with Jean Adhémar, began to edit and comment on the salons , literary and artistic reviews written by Denis Diderot between 1759 and 1781, making a significant contribution to the understanding of the history of taste .

While at Oxford, Seznec was a member of the editorial board and then the advisory board of French Studies .

membership

In 1943, Seznec was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Publications (selection)

• La survivance des dieux antiques. Essai sur le rôle de la tradition mythologique dans l'humanisme et dans l'art de la Renaissance ( Studies of the Warburg Institute , Volume 11). The Warburg Institute, London 1940; second edition Flammarion, Paris 1980, reprint 1993.
  • English translation: The survival of the pagan gods. The mythological tradition and its place in Renaissance humanism and art. Translated by Barbara F. Sessions, New York 1953, reprinted by Princeton University Press, Princeton / NJ 1972, 1995.
  • German translation: The continued life of the ancient gods. The mythological tradition in humanism and in Renaissance art. Translated from the French by Heinz Jatho. Fink, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-7705-2632-5 .
  • Spanish translation: Los dioses de la Antigüedad en la Edad Media y en el Renacimiento. Translated by Juan Aranzadi, Taurus, Madrid 1983.
  • Japanese translation
• (with Elizabeth Mongan and Philip Hofer): Fragonard Drawings for Ariosto . Pantheon Books, New York 1945.
• Essais sur Diderot et l'Antiquité . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1957.
• Marcel Proust et les dieux. The Zaharoff lecture for 1962 . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1962.
• (Ed., With Jean Adhémar): Denis Diderot, Salons , in four volumes, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1957–1966, second edition in three volumes 1975–1983.
• (Ed., With Herbert Dieckmann): Diderot et Falconèt: Correspondance. Les six premières lettres ( Analecta Romanica , issue 7). Texts en partie inédit, établi et présenté avec variants, notes and introduction. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1959.

Literature (selection)

Festschrift

• The Artist and the writer in France: essays in honor of Jean Seznec , ed. Francis Haskell, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974
• Jean Adhémar: A Personal Postscript , in: The Artist and the Writer in France: Essays in Honor of Jean Seznec , Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974, 173-77

Obituaries and short biographies

• Professor Jean Seznec , in: The Times (London), 22 November 1983, 14
• Jean Seznec (1905–1983) , in: French Studies 38.4, 1984, 505–506 [1]
• AHT Levi and Francis Haskell: Jean Joseph Seznec , in: Proceedings of the British Academy 73, 1987, 643-56
• Richard John: Jean Seznec , in: Dictionary of Art ( online version )

Web links

• Entry in the Dictionary of art historians [2]
• Entry in EconomicExpert.Com [3]

Individual evidence

1. ^ Members of the American Academy. Listed by election year, 1900-1949 ( PDF ). Retrieved September 29, 2015