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Clasen, Karl-Heinz

    Full Name: Clasen, Karl-Heinz

    Other Names:

    • Karl-Heinz Clasen

    Gender: male

    Date Born: 09 July 1893

    Date Died: 16 April 1979

    Place Born: Remscheid, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

    Place Died: Mettmann, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

    Home Country/ies: Germany

    Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre), Medieval (European), and sculpture (visual works)

    Institution(s): Universität Greifswald and Universität Rostock


    Overview

    Medievalist, principally architecture; produced scholarlship predominantly in Nazi and DDR (communist) Germany. Clasen studied art history in Munich under Heinrich Wölfflin beginning in 1913 and then with Adolph Goldschmidt in Berlin, from 1918. In 1921 he received his doctorate under Arthur Haseloff at Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel with a thesis titled Wehrbau und Kirchenbau (defense and church building). In 1923 he wrote his habilitation in Königsberg, Der Hochmeisterpalast der Marienburg and as a private lecturer in the following years, contributed to Handbuch der Kunstwissenschaft: Die gotische Baukunst. In 1930 Clasen became a professor at Königsberg with Wilhelm Worringer, however the two frequently clashed in their views of art history. After the rise to power of the Nazis in German and the occupation of Poland, 1939-1940, Clasen taught at the Reich university in Poznań. In 1940 he was appointed the University of Rostock. After World War II, he accepted a teaching chair at the university in Greifswald in 1949, East Germany. Clasen was one of the first members of the German Academy of Architecture of the (communist) German Democratic Republic in 1951. His numerous publications were dedicated to the medieval architecture of the Baltic region, raising the profile of this region for the middle ages. Clasen retired emeritus in 1958 and taught as guest professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin through 1968. In his retirement he also wrote a particularly readable tome on the paintings of the Louvre in 1965. His book on the sculpture of the 14th century Der Meister der Schönen Madonnen (1974) was finished when he went to West Germany.

    Clausen’s work emphasized the Teutonic origins of the decorative vaulting in late Gothic architecture. He employed the notion of a collective will in art and architecture. Unusual for medievalists of his time, he was unafraid to examined both commonplace as well as the royal and religious architecture of the Middle Ages to reach his conclusions. Clasen used aesthetic and structural elements (in the case of architecture) in order to prove his theory. Unlike Hans Jantzen, he seldom looked into a building’s interior, preferring the exterior and its surroundings as a basis of comparison. Clasen saw Gothic art as a unified distinct artistic expression, in contrast to, for example, Georg Vitzthum von Eckstädt who viewed it as a degenerate precursory of the Italian Renaissance. Occasionally, in works such as Gotische Baukunst (1930) Clasen was criticized for failing to prove some of his conclusions (Schenkluhn).


    Selected Bibliography

    [bibliography:] Hahn, Gudrun. “Schriften und Veröffentlichungen von Karl Heinz Clasen.” in, Müller, Hans, and Hahn, Gudrun, eds. Aspekte zur Kunstgeschichte von Mittelalter und Neuzeit; Karl Heinz Clasen zum 75. Geburtstag. Weimar: H. Böhlau, 1971, pp. 387-390; [dissertation:] Wehrbau und Kirchenbau, Kiel, 1921; [habilitation:] Der Hochmeisterpalast der Marienburg, Königsberg, 1923; Kant-Bildnisse. Königsberge Ortsgruppe Kantgesellschaft (Halle): Königsberg, 1924; Baukunst des Mittelalters; die gotische Baukunst. Wildpark-Potsdam: Akadamische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1930; “Deutschland Anteil am Gewölbebau der Spätgotik” Zeitschrift des deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft. 4, (1937): 163-185; Die mittelalterliche Bildhauerkunst im Deutschordensland Preussen; die Bildwerke bis zur Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts. 2 vols. Berlin: Deutscher verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1939; “Der Graudenzer altar der Marienburg.” Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenshaft 13 (1944): 111-28; Kloster Maulbronn. Aufnahem von Helga Schnidt-Glassner. Königstein im Taunus: K.R. Langewiesche Nachfolger H. Kösters, 1965; Die Gemäldegalerie des Louvre: die Werke des 13. – 18. Jh. Leipzig: Seemann, 1964; Die Gemäldegalerie des Louvre: die Werke des 19. Jahrhunderts. Leipzig: Seemann, 1965; Der Meister der Schönen Madonnen; Herkunft, Entfaltung und Umkreis. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1974.


    Sources

    Müller, Hans. “Karl Heinz Clasen.” in, Müller, Hans, and Hahn, Gudrun, eds. Aspekte zur Kunstgeschichte von Mittelalter und Neuzeit; Karl Heinz Clasen zum 75. Geburtstag. Weimar: H. Böhlau, 1971, pp. 5-7; Schenkluhn, Wolfgang. “Wiedergelesen ‘Die gotische Baukunst’ von Karl-Heinz Clasen.” Kritische Berichte zur kunstgeschichtlichen Literatur 10 (1982): 3, 61-66; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 286; Feist, Peter H. “Karl-Heinz Clasen.” Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2007, pp. 52-54. Buddrus, Michael. Die Professoren der Universität Rostock im Dritten Reich. Munich: Saur, 2007, pp. 104-106.



    Contributors: Lee Sorensen


    Citation

    Lee Sorensen. "Clasen, Karl-Heinz." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/clasenk/.


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