Paul Weber (art historian)

Paul Weber , b. Paul Josephson (born April 29, 1868 in Schwelm in Westphalia, † January 28, 1930 in Jena ) was a German art historian and monument conservator .

Life

After completing the Goethe-Gymnasium in Gera , Paul Weber studied the subjects of art history, history and classical archeology at the universities of Heidelberg, Strasbourg and Leipzig, where he explained their relationship to August Schmarsow with a dissertation on sacred drama and ecclesiastical art an iconography of the church and synagogue . In 1896 he completed his habilitation at the University of Jena with a thesis The wall paintings in Burgfelden on the Swabian Alb: a building block for a history of German wall painting in the early Middle Ages and began teaching here. In 1917 Weber was appointed associate professor, and in 1923 full professor of modern art history in Jena.

In 1901 Weber founded the Jena City Museum , which was located in the town hall in Weigelstrasse on the first and second floors and which he managed until his death. When the Jena City Palace was demolished in 1906, Paul Weber documented the old stock and saved numerous furnishings for the city museum.

Paul Weber was involved in issues of monument protection and was a co-founder of the homeland protection movement . From 1896 he worked under Cornelius Gurlitt on the inventory project of the descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony . For the inventory of architectural and art monuments in the administrative district of Cassel established in 1901 by Ludwig Bickell , he wrote the fifth volume on the district of Herrschaft Schmalkalden . During the First World War he was employed in the art protection department in Vilnius as a permanent monument conservator for Lithuania . In 1921 Weber presented the draft of a monument and heritage protection law for Thuringia .

Honors

Paul-Weber-Straße was named after him in Jena.

Fonts (in selection)

• Spiritual drama and ecclesiastical art, illustrated in their relationship with an iconography of the church and synagogue; an art historical study . Ebner & Seubert, Stuttgart 1894.
• The wall paintings at Burgfelden on the Swabian Alb: a building block for a history of German wall painting in the early Middle Ages, at the same time a contribution to the oldest history of the Zollerian ancestral lands . Bergstraesser, Darmstadt 1896.
• Contributions to Dürer's Weltanschauung: a study of the three engravings of the knight death and the devil, melancholy and Hieronymus in the case . (Studies on German art history; 23) Heitz, Strasbourg 1900.
• The Iwein pictures from the 13th century in the Hessenhof in Schmalkalden . In: Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst NF. 12, 1900/1901, pp. 73-84 and 113-120.
• Heritage protection, monument preservation and land reform . (Social Issues of Time, Vol. 26). Verlag Bodenreform, Berlin 1906.
• Preservation of historical monuments and homeland protection in contemporary legislation . In: Blätter für Rechtspflege in Thüringen and Anhalt 35, 1908, pp. 161–181.
• The architectural and art monuments in the administrative district of Cassel. Volume V: District rule Schmalkalden. Atlas ribbon and text ribbon. Marburg 1913

literature

• Birgitt Hellmann: Paul Weber. Art historian, museum founder and monument preservationist in Jena , in: Jürgen John, Volker Wahl (ed.): Between convention and avant-garde. Twin city Jena Weimar . Böhlau, Weimar 1995, pp. 91-104 (with a complete list of publications and lectures).
• Birgitt Hellmann: Paul Weber's efforts to preserve the cityscape of Jena. In: Mark Escherich, Cristian Misch and Rainer Müller (eds.): Development and change of medieval cities in Thuringia (= Erfurt studies on art and building history, volume 3). Lukas-Verlag, Erfurt 2007, pp. 241-253.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Paul Weber: The municipal museum; in: Jenaische Zeitung, vol. 228, no. 247, October 20, 1901. URL http://zs.thulb.uni-jena.de/receive/jportal_jparticle_00140867 (accessed on August 15, 2017)