Heinrich W�lfflin

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Heinrich W�lfflin
Heinrich W�lfflin (German: ['ha?n??� 'v�lfl?n]; 21 June 1864, Winterthur � 19 July
1945, Zurich) was a Swiss art historian, whose objective classifying principles
("painterly" vs. "linear" and the like) were influential in the development of
formal analysis in art history in the early 20th century. He taught at Basel,
Berlin and Munich in the generation that raised German art history to pre-eminence.
His three great books, still consulted, are Renaissance und Barock (1888), Die
Klassische Kunst (1898, "Classic Art"), and Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe
(1915, "Principles of Art History").

Contents
1 Origins and career
2 Principles of Art History
3 References
3.1 Sources
4 External links
Origins and career
W�lfflin was born in Winterthur, Switzerland, and is buried in Basel. His father,
Eduard W�lfflin, was a professor of classical philology who taught at Munich
University and helped found and organize the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. W�lfflin
studied art history and history with Jakob Burckhardt at the University of Basel,
philosophy with Wilhelm Dilthey at Berlin University, and art history and
philosophy at Munich University where his father had taught. He received his degree
from Munich University in 1886 in philosophy, although he was already on a course
to study the newly minted discipline of art history.

W�lfflin's principal philosophy mentor at the University of Munich, where W�lfflin

got his doctoral degree, was the renowned professor of archaeology Heinrich Brunn.
[1] Greatly influenced by his mentors, particularly neo-Kantian Johannes Volkelt
(Der Symbolbegriff) and Heinrich Brunn, his dissertation, Prolegomena zu einer
Psychologie der Architektur (1886) attempted to show that architecture had a basis
in form through the empathetic response of human form. It is considered now to be
one of the founding texts of the emerging discipline of art history, although it
was barely noted when it was published.

After graduating in 1886, W�lfflin published the result of a years' travel and
study in Italy, as his Renaissance und Barock (1888), the book that evaluated the
pathological "Baroque" as a new stylistic category and a serious area of study. For
W�lfflin, the 16th-century art now described as "Mannerist" was part of the Baroque
aesthetic, one that Burckhardt before him as well as most French and English-
speaking scholars for a generation after him dismissed as degenerate. On the death
of Jacob Burckhardt in 1897 W�llflin succeeded him in the Art History Chair at
Basel. He is credited with having introduced the teaching method of using twin
parallel projectors in the delivery of art-history lectures, so that images could
be compared when magic lanterns became less dangerous. Sir Ernst Gombrich recalled
being inspired by him, as well as Erwin Panofsky. W�lfflin taught at Berlin
University from 1901 to 1912, Munich University from 1912 to 1924 and Zurich
University from 1924 until his retirement.
Principles of Art History
In Principles of Art History, W�lfflin formulated five pairs of opposed or contrary
precepts in the form and style of art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
which demonstrated a shift in the nature of artistic vision between the two
periods. These were:

From linear (draughtsmanship, plastic, relating to contour in projected ideation of

objects) to painterly (malerisch: tactile, observing patches or systems of relative
light and of non-local colour within shade, making shadow and light integral, and
allowing them to replace or supersede the dominance of contours as fixed
boundaries.)
From plane to recession: (from the 'Will to the plane', which orders the picture in
strata parallel to the picture plane, to planes made inapparent by emphasising the
forward and backward relations and engaging the spectator in recessions.)
From closed (tectonic) form to open (a-tectonic) form (The closed or tectonic form
is the composition which is a self-contained entity which everywhere points back to
itself, the typical form of ceremonial style as the revelation of law, generally
within predominantly vertical and horizontal oppositions; the open or atectonic
form compresses energies and angles or lines of motion which everywhere reach out
beyond the composition, and override the horizontal and vertical structure, though
naturally bound together by hidden rules which allow the composition to be self-
contained.)
From multiplicity to unity: ('Classic art achieves its unity by making the parts
independent as free members, and the baroque abolishes the uniform independence of
the parts in favour of a more unified total motive. In the former case, co-
ordination of the accents; in the latter, subordination.' The multiple details of
the former are each uniquely contemplated: the multiplicity of the latter serves to
diminish the dominance of line, and to enhance the unification of the multifarious
whole.)
From absolute clarity to relative clarity of the subject: (i.e. from exhaustive
revelation of the form of the subject, to a pictorial representation which
deliberately evades objective clearness in order to deliver a perfect rendering of
information or pictorial appearance obtained by other painterly means.
W�lfflin was following in the footsteps of Vasari, among others, in devising a
method for distinguishing the development in style over time. He applied this
method to Trecento, Quattrocento and Cinquecento art in Classic Art (1899), then
developed it further in The Principles of Art History (1915). Wolfflin's Principles
of Art History has recently become more influential among art historians and
philosophers of art. The most important journal for aesthetics and philosophy of
art, the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, published a special issue
commemorating the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Principles in 2015,
edited by Bence Nanay.[2]

References
Mark Jarzombek, The Psychologizing of Modernity. (Cambridge University Press
2000), p. 47. (Note: Jarzombek is incorrect in stating that Brunn was Chair of
W�lfflin's doctoral committee. Brunn was not on the committee). See Joan Goldhammer
Hart, 'Heinrich Wolfflin: An Intellectual Biography' (Dissertation 1981) for an
extended analysis of Woelfflin's dissertation, where correct documentation can be
found.
http://aesthetics-online.org/?page=symposia
Sources
Joan Goldhammer Hart, Heinrich W�lfflin: An Intellectual Biography, Dissertation,
UC Berkeley, 1981, available through University Microfilms.
Joan G. Hart, "Reinterpreting W�lfflin: Neo-Kantianism and Hermeneutics, in Art
Journal, winter 1982, Vol. 42, no. 4, pp. 292-300.
Joan Hart, Relire W�lfflin, Louvre Museum Cycle de conferences, 1993, Ecole
nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts publication, 1995.
Joan Hart, "Some Reflections on W�lfflin and the Vienna School," in Wien und die
Entwicklung der Kunsthistorischen Methode, XXV International Kongress fur
Kunstgeschichte Wien, 1983, Hermann Bohlaus, 1984.
Joan Hart, Heinrich W�lfflin, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Oxford Univ. Press, Vol.
4, 1998.
Joan Hart, "Heuristic Constructs and Ideal Types: The W�lfflin/Weber Connection,"
in German Art History and Scientific Thought: Beyond Formalism (ed.s Mitchell B.
Frank and Daniel Adler), Surrey,UK: Ashgate, 2012, pp. 57-72.
M. Lurz. Heinrich W�llflin: Biographie einer Kunsttheorie (Worms am Rhein 1981)
H. W�lfflin. Principles of Art History. The Problem of the Development of Style in
Later Art, Translated from 7th German Edition (1929) into English by M D Hottinger
(Dover Publications, New York 1932 and reprints).
H. W�llflin. Classic Art. An Introduction to the Italian Renaissance. Translated
from the 8th German Edition (Benno Schwabe & Co, Basle 1948) by Peter and Linda
Murray (Phaidon Press, London 1952, 2nd Edn 1953).
H. W�lfflin. Die Kunst Albrecht D�rers (The Art of Albrecht D�rer), (F Bruckmann,
Munich 1905, 2d Edn 1908).
H. W�lfflin. Die Bamburger Apokalypse: Eine Reichenauer Bilderhandschrift vom Jahre
1000 (The Bamburg Apocalypse: A Reichenau illuminated manuscript from the year
1000), (Kurt Wolff, Munich 1921).
H. W�lfflin. Italien und das deutsche Formgef�hl (Italy and the German sense of
Form), (1931).
H. W�lfflin. Gedenken zur Kunstgeschichte (Thoughts on Art History), (1941).
H. W�llflin. Kleine Schriften (Shorter Writings), (1946).
External links
Petri Liukkonen. "Heinrich W�lfflin". Books and Writers
Rykov, A. �Formalism, Avant-garde, Classics. Heinrich Woelfflin as an Art Theorist�
in Proceedings of the History Department of Saint-Petersburg University. Vol. 22.
2015. pp. 155�160. (in Russian)
Public domain works; full text online:
Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe
Die Kunst Albrecht D�rers
Authority control
WorldCat Identities BNE: XX988400 BNF: cb11929331j (data) GND: 118634496 HDS: 27789
ISNI: 0000 0001 2130 2823 LCCN: n50013734 NDL: 00461337 RKD: 361365 SUDOC:
027198812 ULAN: 500230469 VIAF: 44306790
Categories: 1864 births1945 deathsSwiss art criticsSwiss art historiansSwiss
architectural historiansRecipients of the Pour le M�rite (civil class)
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