Robert Vischer

Robert Vischer (born February 22, 1847 in Tübingen , † March 25, 1933 in Vienna ) was a German art historian and aesthetician .

Live and act

The son of the aesthetician and writer Friedrich Theodor Vischer was shaped at a young age by the numerous acquaintances of his father, for example with Eduard Mörike , who was also his godfather, Ludwig Uhland and David Friedrich Strauss . After finishing school, he studied art history and philosophy at the universities in Zurich, Heidelberg, Bonn, Munich and Tübingen . In 1872 he received his doctorate in Tübingen with the topic: " About the optical sense of form ". Two years later he moved to the Vienna Art Academy , where he was taken on as a scriptor in the library there until 1878 . Vischer then moved to the University of Munich , where he completed his habilitation in 1879 and taught as a private lecturer . During this time Vischer became a member of the Munich poet group " The Crocodiles ". In 1882 he accepted an appointment at the University of Breslau , where he was initially given an extraordinary professorship for new art history, before he accepted an appointment at RWTH Aachen University in 1885, where he was professor for general art history and aesthetics for the aesthetic fields until 1893 Form problems and Italian renaissance to work. Finally, in 1893, Vischer moved to the University of Göttingen , where he taught in the same position until his retirement in 1911. From 1903 he was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

Robert Vischer is considered to be the real pioneer in the field of aesthetic empathy . He was still influenced by the expiring (old) Hegelianism and developed his father's theses further, but in contrast to this he did not represent a nativistic , but rather an empirical approach. In the context of empathy, Vischer developed the thesis that the "soul" - by which he meant the power of feelings - is a projection of an observer onto an object, so that in the process of empathy, the observed objects connect with one's own feeling. For this purpose, he transferred the results of experimental psychology according to Wilhelm Wundt to the concept of empathy, which was then expanded and deepened in particular by Heinrich Wölfflin and Theodor Lipps . According to his understanding, Vischer linked psychology and aesthetics in order to create an interdisciplinary intermediate stage in art history, which, according to Herman Glockner, represents a new modern direction in aesthetics. Vischer made it clear that a work of art should be seen as the product of a living person with imagination and feeling and expected an “ penetration into the spirit of the matter ” from the art historian . Wilhelm Waetzoldt , like Benedetto Croce, considered Robert Vischer to be one of the most important impressionists among art historians, especially with regard to Vischer's mentioned interpretation of the impressions that paintings or other objects of art made on the viewer.

Vischer's theses are reflected in his various publications, with which he not only sparked enthusiasm, but also received condescending and defamatory criticism, for example from Wilhelm von Bode , because he blurred the lines of traditional art history and philosophy . Conversely, Vischer also used a certain polemic when he expressed himself critically in his works about those art historians " whose work is exhausted in cataloging, data determination, document hunting, the accumulation of notes and technology ". In the field of art theory , too, Vischer not only made friends by advocating a re-evaluation of late antiquity , which at that time was declassified as an "era of decline". Influenced by Alois Riegl and the Vienna School of Art History , he was just like them of the opinion that ancient art was the starting point for both early medieval and oriental art and therefore needed a new assessment.

In addition to his own publications, Robert Vischer was also the authoritative editor of a large part of the works of his father Friedrich Theodor Vischer.

There is an estate in the library of the University of Tübingen .

Works (selection)

• About the optical sense of form - a contribution to aesthetics , Diss., Tübingen 1872
• Luca Signorelli and the Italian Renaissance: an art-historical monograph , Leipzig, Veit 1879
• Art history and humanism - contributions to clarification , Stuttgart 1880
• News about Bernhard Strigel , in: Yearbook of the Kgl. Prussian Art Collection , 1885
• Studies in art history , Stuttgart: Bonz 1886 ( digitized version )
• Peter Paul Rubens - A booklet for non-professional art lovers , Berlin: Bruno Cassirer 1904
• Three writings on the aesthetic problem of form , Halle ad Saale: M. Niemeyer 1927
• Empathy, Form, and Space - Problems in German Aesthetics 1873-1893 , HF Mallgrave, E. Ikonomou, R. Vischer, K. Fiedler , H. Wölfflin: Oxford University Press 1994, ISBN 0-89236-259-6
• Further works by Robert Vischer in the catalog of the Freiburg University Library: [1]

Literature and Sources

• Kürschner's German Scholarly Calendar , 1931, Col. 3100
• Metzler-Kunsthistoriker-Lexikon : two hundred portraits of German-speaking authors from four centuries , Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, pp. 423–425
• Thomas Friedrich, Jörg H. Gleiter: Empathy and phenomenological reduction - basic texts on architecture, design and art , 2007, 337 pages, paperback LIT Verlag, ISBN 3-825-89366-9
• Herman Glockner: Robert Vischer and the crisis in the humanities in the last third of the 19th century. A contribution to the history of the problem of irrationality , Logos 14 (1925), pp. 297–343; 15 (1926), pp. 47-102

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Federal Archives, Central Database of Legacies. Retrieved September 11, 2019.

Web links

• Literature by and about Robert Vischer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry Vischer on zeno.org.
• Vischer, Robert , in: Dictionary of Art Historians (Engl.)