Henry Voeflin Art critic. Country: Switzerland

Biography of Heinrich Wölfflin

Heinrich Wölfflin was an art historian known for his influential contributions to the development of the field. Born in Switzerland, he received his education at the University of Basel, where he was mentored by the renowned Renaissance culture historian Jacob Burckhardt. Wölfflin inherited from Burckhardt a taste for broad conceptual frameworks and the idea of "classical art" as the pinnacle of stylistic development. He completed his education in Munich under the guidance of Professor Heinrich Brunn, who instilled in him an interest in meticulous examination of specific artistic monuments.

Wölfflin's exceptional education, combined with his talent and dedicated work ethic, yielded significant results. It is almost unbelievable that his fundamental monograph "Renaissance and Baroque," which brought him European recognition, was published in 1888 when he was only twenty-four years old. By the time the book was released, Wölfflin was already teaching at the University of Munich, marking the beginning of his career in academia. He held professorships at renowned universities in Germany and Switzerland, including Basel, Berlin, and Zurich. Wölfflin's lectures were highly anticipated events, attended by virtually all art historians receiving education in Europe. Through his lectures, he sought to convey the essence of his ideas and the advantages of his innovative approach to art in a clear and accessible manner, using concrete examples.

Wölfflin's influence extended beyond art history, affecting literary studies and other humanities disciplines that sought to explore the intrinsic study of artistic form. His popularity can be attributed not only to the novelty and relevance of his ideas but also to his literary talent. Wölfflin wrote in a vivid and figurative language, setting his works apart from the overly technical and scientific approach of other German scholars. By employing unexpected and seemingly arbitrary comparisons and metaphors, he managed to effectively convey his thoughts. For example, he famously compared the early Renaissance to "delicate female figures in bright dresses." Wölfflin's engaging writing style made his profound scholarly works accessible and interesting to a wide range of readers.

As a result of his popularity and wide recognition, Wölfflin was elected as a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, becoming the first researcher to receive this honor for contributions to the field of art history, thereby elevating the prestige of the young discipline.

However, Wölfflin's glory began to decline after World War I when his method faced substantial criticism. The researcher was unable to offer substantial counterarguments to these critiques. During the final three decades of his life, Wölfflin published only one significant work, "Italy and the German Sense of Form" (1931), which refined his previously expressed ideas rather than introducing original concepts. The new generation of art historians no longer found Wölfflin's formal and stylistic analysis of artistic form satisfying and instead aimed for a deeper understanding of the content of art. The minds behind the concept of "art history as a history of the spirit," such as Max Dvořák, and the emerging iconological school, gained influence. Wölfflin's works gradually lost relevance and became a kind of art historical classic. It is no coincidence that "Principles of Art History," which became a textbook, was repeatedly reprinted. In this situation, Wölfflin refrained from engaging in polemics against cultural and sociological approaches to the study of art, acknowledging the possibility of "art history as a history of expression." However, he staunchly defended the existence of his own theory, which he defined as "art as immanent history of form."

To understand the origins of Wölfflin's theory of artistic development, we must return to the events of 1887 when the young researcher met and became close with a group of German intellectuals in Rome. This group included philosopher Konrad Fiedler, painter Xavier von Marees, and sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand. They were united by the idea of reviving the "great style" based on the rediscovered "eternal laws of artistic creation." Fiedler played the role of ideologist, asserting that the task of art was not to reproduce the surrounding world or idealize it but to create a "new reality" through the achievement of perfect harmony of forms. The connection between Fiedler's ideas and artistic practice was elucidated in von Hildebrand's widely known book, "The Problem of Form in Visual Art." Von Hildebrand's main thesis stated that everything beyond the "optical values," the visible and formal aspects of the art piece, had no direct relation to the essence of artistic creation.

These ideas of the "Roman circle" inspired Wölfflin, whom he later likened to a "refreshing and rejuvenating rain on parched soil." In the researcher's perspective, the possibility of transforming art history into an objective science stood out, as forms, in his opinion, could be "mathematically" measured. Raised on the positivist ideals of the 19th century, Wölfflin sought to move away from subjective methods towards precise experimentation, through which he aimed to discover the unchanging laws governing the development of art. This new approach to art, applied to the study of historical phenomena, allowed Wölfflin to develop a comprehensive and evolving concept throughout his life. His major works marked milestones along this path. The foundation of Wölfflin's theory is the idea that various "methods of vision" exist, characteristic of different historical epochs. The difference in methods is linked to the evolution of human mental nature, giving rise to changes in the visual perception of the surrounding world and, consequently, the reproduction of forms in art. The researcher emphasizes that stylistic changes are not driven by conscious will of artists. Therefore, the development of artistic forms, according to Wölfflin, is an internally determined, immanent process that subordinates all other aspects of creative activity. From this perspective, any knowledge about artists plays a secondary role in understanding art. Hence the famous Wölfflinian thesis: not the "history of artists" but the "history of art without names." In his first book, Wölfflin viewed the Renaissance and Baroque not merely as styles that succeeded each other but as two fundamentally different ways of artistic thinking, expressing distinct worldviews. In the transition from the Renaissance style to the Baroque, the researcher saw one of the most significant regularities in the development of form, observable not only in Italian art. It is noteworthy that Wölfflin intended to provide parallel consideration of the "ancient Baroque" in that book. In the process of investigating the essence and origin of the Baroque style, the scholar attempted to develop a system of concepts to describe the different "methods of vision." This work continued in the book "Classic Art," in which Wölfflin presented High Renaissance art as the result of the development of a "purely optical character" directed toward the "unified contemplation of the many and the relation of parts to the whole."

Wölfflin's method in "Principles of Art History" became consistently ahistorical as he created a picture of art in modern times using a system of formal categories consisting of five pairs of contrasting concepts: linear and painterly, plane and recession, closed and open form, multiplicity and unity, absolute and relative clarity. This system served as the culmination of Wölfflin's theoretical constructions. In his final book, dedicated to the "German sense of form," the scholar did not introduce anything fundamentally new; he merely demonstrated additional possibilities of the "formal" approach to art, attempting to connect the "method of vision" with peculiarities of national worldviews.

Wölfflin recognized the limitations of his theory, acknowledging that it only applied to art of epochs characterized by unified "methods of vision." He refused to explore the art of the 19th and 20th centuries, with its chaos of different movements, considering this period a profound decline in art. In his opinion, the "great achievement of art history is to preserve at least the concept of unified vision, to overcome incredible confusion, and to establish a firm and clear attitude toward the visible."

Heinrich Wölfflin's contributions to the field of art history continue to be recognized, with his works serving as important milestones in the development of the discipline. Although his method has been subject to criticism and evolving trends in art history, Wölfflin's ideas remain influential and his writings continue to be studied and appreciated for their unique perspective on the study of artistic form.