Richard Muther

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Muther

Albert Carl Richard Muther (born February 25, 1860 in Ohrdruf ; † June 28, 1909 in Wölfelsgrund , Province of Lower Silesia ) was a German art historian .

Live and act

Richard Muther studied art history and literary studies in Heidelberg and Leipzig from 1877 and received his doctorate from Anton Springer in 1881 with a dissertation on the Swiss painter Anton Graff . He went to Munich , where he dealt with medieval book illustrations. There he completed his habilitation in 1883 with his work The oldest German picture Bibles . From 1885 he worked as a second curator in the Kupferstichkabinett in Munich. His efforts to get a professorship in Munich failed in 1890, which Berthold Riehl received .

During this time, Muther began to write more and more art-related articles for various newspapers and magazines. He also wrote two travel guides for the Alte Pinakothek in Munich and the Berlin Gemäldegalerie . He caused a stir for the first time with his history of painting in the 19th century , which appeared in three volumes in 1893/94 and was immediately translated into several languages. In this Muther attacks some older doctrines and seizes, among other things. a. Party for naturalism and new idealism . Because of these views, but not least because of his unusual, very pictorial and sometimes erotic writing style, with which not only a scientific audience should be addressed, Muther made a few enemies, e. B. Georg Dehio , but also won well-known sympathizers such as Felix Dahn , Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Sigmund Freud . With this publication, Muther was one of the first to deal scientifically with emerging modern art .

In 1895 he became a professor of art history at the University of Breslau . After he had been repeatedly criticized for his literary style and his sometimes very subjective assessments, accusations by the art historian Theodor Volbehr were raised in 1896 that Muther had copied from him. Because of these allegations of plagiarism, the faculty reprimanded him that same year, which severely damaged Mother's reputation. Muther himself saw the allegations as a smear campaign against himself and spoke of Muther agitation , which also became the title of a defensive pamphlet. Of his later works, the history of painting , which appeared in five volumes and was also translated into English, gained popularity. From 1902 Muther was the editor of a series of artist monographs entitled Die Kunst. Collection of illustrated monographs for which u. a. Julius Meier-Graefe and Rainer Maria Rilke wrote books. Rilke wrote a monograph on the French sculptor Auguste Rodin on behalf of Muthers . The confrontation with Rodin was to have a major impact on the poet's work.

He was one of the most controversial, but also one of the most popular German art historians of the time. His history of painting is published to this day, along with other works.

Fonts (selection)

  • Anton Graff. The portrait painter of our classics , Leipzig 1881.
  • The oldest German illustrated Bibles: bibliographical and art-historical , Munich 1883.
  • The German book illustration of the Gothic and Early Renaissance (1460-1530) , Munich 1884.
  • with Georg Hirth (ed.): Master woodcuts from four centuries , Munich 1888–1893.
  • The Cicerone in the Munich Alte Pinakothek , Munich 1888.
  • The Cicerone in the Royal Picture Gallery in Berlin , Munich 1889.
  • History of painting in the 19th century , 3 volumes, Munich 1893/1894.
  • The Muther-baiting. A contribution to the psychology of envy and slander , Munich / Leipzig 1896.
  • History of Painting , 5 volumes, Leipzig 1899–1902.
  • Studies and reviews , 2 volumes, Vienna 1901/1902.
  • A century of French painting , Berlin 1901.
  • History of English painting , Berlin 1903.
  • Belgian painting in the 19th century , Berlin 1904.
  • Rembrandt, an artist's life , Berlin 1904.
  • with Ernst Wilhelm Bredt : Munich as a city of art. Marquardt, Berlin 1907.

For the series Die Kunst. Collection of illustrated monographs Muther wrote the articles on Gustave Courbet , Lucas Cranach , Francisco de Goya , The Renaissance of Antiquity , Leonardo da Vinci , Jean-François Millet and Diego Velázquez .

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Richard Muther  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Muther, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Muther, Albert Carl Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Ohrdruf
DATE OF DEATH June 28, 1909
Place of death Wolfelsgrund