The New Vienna School of Art History: Fulfilling the Promise of Analytic Holism
This book is an account of the theory and practice of practitioners of the so-called "second" or "younger" Viennese school associated with Hans Sedlmayr and Otto Pächt and their short-lived journal, Kunstwissenschaftliche Forschungen. It demonstrates the strong dependence of these writers on the work of Gestalt psychology which was emerging at the time. Gestalt theory emerges as the master key to interpreting Sedlmayr and Pächt’s ideas about art and history and how it affected their practices.
This fresh interpretive apparatus casts light on the power and originality of Sedlmayr’s and Pächt’s theoretical and empirical writings, revealing a practice-based approach to history that is more attuned to the visuality of art.
Verstegen demonstrates the existence of a genealogy of Vienna formalism coursing throughout most of the twentieth century, encompassing Johannes Wilde and his students at the Courtauld as well as Otto Demus in Byzantine studies. By bringing Gestalt theory to the surface, he dispels misunderstandings about the Vienna School theory and attains a deeper understanding of the promise that a Gestalt analytic holism – a non-intuitionist account of the relational logic of sense – is offered.

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The New Vienna School of Art History: Fulfilling the Promise of Analytic Holism
This book is an account of the theory and practice of practitioners of the so-called "second" or "younger" Viennese school associated with Hans Sedlmayr and Otto Pächt and their short-lived journal, Kunstwissenschaftliche Forschungen. It demonstrates the strong dependence of these writers on the work of Gestalt psychology which was emerging at the time. Gestalt theory emerges as the master key to interpreting Sedlmayr and Pächt’s ideas about art and history and how it affected their practices.
This fresh interpretive apparatus casts light on the power and originality of Sedlmayr’s and Pächt’s theoretical and empirical writings, revealing a practice-based approach to history that is more attuned to the visuality of art.
Verstegen demonstrates the existence of a genealogy of Vienna formalism coursing throughout most of the twentieth century, encompassing Johannes Wilde and his students at the Courtauld as well as Otto Demus in Byzantine studies. By bringing Gestalt theory to the surface, he dispels misunderstandings about the Vienna School theory and attains a deeper understanding of the promise that a Gestalt analytic holism – a non-intuitionist account of the relational logic of sense – is offered.

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The New Vienna School of Art History: Fulfilling the Promise of Analytic Holism

The New Vienna School of Art History: Fulfilling the Promise of Analytic Holism

by Ian Verstegen
The New Vienna School of Art History: Fulfilling the Promise of Analytic Holism

The New Vienna School of Art History: Fulfilling the Promise of Analytic Holism

by Ian Verstegen

Hardcover

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Overview

This book is an account of the theory and practice of practitioners of the so-called "second" or "younger" Viennese school associated with Hans Sedlmayr and Otto Pächt and their short-lived journal, Kunstwissenschaftliche Forschungen. It demonstrates the strong dependence of these writers on the work of Gestalt psychology which was emerging at the time. Gestalt theory emerges as the master key to interpreting Sedlmayr and Pächt’s ideas about art and history and how it affected their practices.
This fresh interpretive apparatus casts light on the power and originality of Sedlmayr’s and Pächt’s theoretical and empirical writings, revealing a practice-based approach to history that is more attuned to the visuality of art.
Verstegen demonstrates the existence of a genealogy of Vienna formalism coursing throughout most of the twentieth century, encompassing Johannes Wilde and his students at the Courtauld as well as Otto Demus in Byzantine studies. By bringing Gestalt theory to the surface, he dispels misunderstandings about the Vienna School theory and attains a deeper understanding of the promise that a Gestalt analytic holism – a non-intuitionist account of the relational logic of sense – is offered.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781474489768
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Publication date: 04/28/2023
Series: Refractions
Pages: 368
Product dimensions: 8.27(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ian Verstegen is Associate Director of Visual Studies at University of Pennsylvania. Trained in Italian Renaissance art history, he also writes on art theory and historiography. He is the author of Arnheim, Gestalt and Art: A Psychological Theory (2004) and Arnheim, Gestalt and Media: An Ontological Theory (2018).

Table of Contents

Series Editor’s Preface

Preface by Richard Woodfield

Introduction: ‘In the Beginning was the Eye, not the Word’

  • The Challenge and the Pay-off
  • The Players
  • The Corpus
  • Gestalt Theory: Basis of the Viennese Method
  • Doing Vienna School Art History

Part I: Theory and Methodology

1. The Crisis of the Sciences, Art History and the Vienna School

  • Gestalt Psychology
  • Holism and Politics
  • Sedlmayr’s Turn Towards Iconology

2. The Basics of Strukturforschung

  • Hamburg Iconology
  • Two Sciences of Art
  • Mental Set (Einstellung)
  • Embedded Behaviour
  • Reflexivity and Progress

3. Struktur, History and Determinism

  • Genius
  • Social Gestalten – Alfred Vierkandt
  • Historical Chains
  • Historical Compulsion

Part II: Case Studies

4. Hans Sedlmayr’s Borromini

  • The Book
  • Sedlmayr’s Method
  • Gebilde – Borromini’s Works
  • Architektur – Borromini’s Theory
  • Dokument – Borromini’s Character

5. Otto Pächt and ‘National’ Constants in Late Gothic Painting

  • Design Principles: Technical and Aesthetic Space
  • Design Principles: Surface and Pattern
  • The Netherlandish Design Principle
  • The Dutch Design Principle
  • The French Design Principle
  • Schapiro’s Critique
  • Reconstituting Art Historical Constants
  • Whither Zeitgeist?

6. Johannes Wilde on Michelangelo: The Image in Space

  • Wilde and his Historical Method
  • Function, Parts and Wholes
  • An Erudite Chapel?
  • Gestalt, Parts and Wholes

7. Otto Demus, Byzantine Art and the Spatial Icon

  • Towards Byzantine Mosaic Decoration
  • The Icon in Space
  • Beyond Byzantine Mosaic Decoration?
  • Non-Western Art and Gestalt Restructuring

Conclusion: The Vienna School Today

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