Subject Area(s): documentaries (documents), documentary (general concept), and Renaissance
Overview
Scholar of renaissance art; documentary approach. In 1902 Brockhaus found a 17th-century copy of Apollonio di Giovanni’s and Marco del Buono’s workshop book, a fragmentary record of commissions. This led to its publication by Paul Schubring in 1915. This in turn made possible the idenitification of Apollonio di Giovanni (di Tomaso), also known as the Dido Master or Master of the Jarves Cassoni.
Selected Bibliography
Forschungen über florentiner Kunstwerke. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1902; Die Kunst in den Athos-Klöstern. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1891; über die Schrift des Pomponius Gauricus “De sculptura” (Florenz, 1504). Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1885.
Sources
Callmann, Ellen. “Apollonio di Giovanni (di Tomaso).” Dictionary of Art;
Citation
"Brockhaus, Heinrich." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/brockhaush/.
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Scholar of renaissance art; documentary approach. In 1902 Brockhaus found a 17th-century copy of Apollonio di Giovanni’s and Marco del Buono’s workshop book, a fragmentary record of commissions. This led to its publication by
Subject Area(s): ancient, archaeology, Etruscan (culture or style), and prehistoric
Overview
Archaeologist and art historian of Etruscan and prehistory. Brizio studied and excavated at the sites of Pompeii and the Roman Forum (Forum Romanum) in Rome. His association with Enrico Brunn at the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) taught him formal analysis of Greek art, the basis for his later art history. He traveled to Greece in 1874. In 1876 he was named chair at the University of Bologna for archaeology and numismatics. His lectures exposed his students to the German stylistic analysis. At this time, be began a life’s passion: the question about populations in prehistoric Italy. His theory about Etruscans put him at odds with many in the archaeological community. Count Giovanni Gozzadini (1810-1887) had postulated that the Etruscans had come from the Villanova, but Brizio insisted that Etruscans had come from the east after the Villanovan period. He also chided Gozzadini for his failure to recognize Marzabotto as a city, rather than the necropolis which Gozzadini claimed. His bitterest feuds came against Antonio Zannoni (1833-1910) regarding the objects of Certosa and against Wolfgang Helbig, who insisted that Etruscans had come from the north instead of eastern regions. As an archaeologist and ex officio director of the Museo Civico in Bologna, he oversaw the timely excavation reports on the sites of Verucchio, Montefortino, Marzabotto and Bologna.
Selected Bibliography
Pitture e sepolcri scoperti sull’Esquilino dalla Compagnia fondiaria italiana nell’anno 1875. Rome: Tipografia Elzeviriana, 1876; Una Pompei etrusca a Marzabotto nel Bolognese. Bologna: Stabilimenti Poligrafici Riuniti, 1928; Monumenti archeologici della provincia di Bologna descritti da Edoardo Brizio. Bologna: Fava e Garagnani, 1881; and Bertolini, F. Epoca preistorica. Milan: F. Vallardi, 1897; Sulla Nuova situla di bronzo figurata trovata in Bologna. Modena: G.T. Vicenzi e Nipoti, 1884.
Sources
“Brizio, Edoardo.” Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 1, p. 198.
Archaeologist and art historian of Etruscan and prehistory. Brizio studied and excavated at the sites of Pompeii and the Roman Forum (Forum Romanum) in Rome. His association with Enrico Brunn at the German Archaeological Inst
Architectural historian of the Gothic in England, topographer; earlier serious scholar of medieval architecture. He was born in Kingston St. Michael, Wiltshire, UK, near Chippenham. Britton’s parents were Henry Britton, who worked as a farmer, baker, and village shopkeeper, and Anne Hillier (Britton). After his mother’s death, Britton left school with only a remedial education to assist his father’s business. He moved from Wiltshire to London in 1787 working at the Jerusalem tavern, Clerkenwell, but studying in his off hours. In 1789 he met Edward Wedlake Brayley (1773-1854) at a bookshop who hired him to assist in book publication. By the 1795 Britton worked as a solicitor’s clerk by day and supplementing his income through writing and theatrical productions. In 1801 his interest in topography and architecture led him issued The Beauties of Wiltshire. He married in 1802. The succes of Beauties led the publishers Vernor and Hood to contracted with him to write al survey England, a monthly publication ultimately running to six volumes over a three-year period with Brayley The Beauties of England and Wales 1801-1816, eventually a twenty-seven volume series written in the course of twenty years. Over the years, other writers took over Brayley’s contribution in The Beauties series while Britton wrote the architecture pieces. He wrote a work on painting, The Fine Arts of the English School in 1812. Britton completed his authorship in the Beauties series in 1814. Under his direction he employed the emerging artists Samuel Prout and Frederick Mackenzie, John and Henry Le Keux, Edward Blore, George Cattermole, R. W. Billings, and Henry Shaw. His next series, Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain, (Longman and Taylor, publishers) was an illustrated examination of English medieval architecture. Illustrations included those by the Le Keux brothers and the first volume appeared in 1807. Others appeared in 1809, 1812, and 1814 with A Chronological History and Graphic Illustrations of Christian Architecture in England in 1827. While engaged in that work, he began Cathedral Antiquities of England (1814-1835) the first survey of English cathedrals since Browne Willis in 1798 or John Carter and his abortive series (1797-1801). Even in Britton’s case, the volumes for Rochester, Durham, Chichester, Chester, Carlisle, Ely, and Lincoln were never published. Britton teamed up with Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (illustrations) and E. J. Willson (documentation) to produce Specimens of Gothic Architecture 1821-1823, his most successful book and the lasting importance of his reputation. During the publication of his series, steel engraving supplanted copperplate which Britton had used. Britton produced several volumes in the new medium, Bath and Bristol (1829), and a of classical-structured Edinburgh, Modern Athens (1829). Britton’s highly illustrated editions now faced competition, most notably The Union of Architecture, Sculpture and Painting, a survey of Sir John Soane’s collection in 1827. Britton eventually went bankrupt and even the publication of his Dictionary of the Architecture and Archaeology of the Middle Ages, 1831-1838, was not a financial success. Two other works in collaboration with Pugin, The Public Buildings of London, 1825, and The Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, 1825-1828, also appeared. A tireless campaigner for governmental protection of ancient monuments he was made honorary fellow of Royal Institute of British Architects in 1835. An autobiography was published in 1850 and 1857. After his first’s wife’d death in 1848 he married his wife’s niece Ellen, in 1849 though Britton was now in financial straight at only civil-list pension in 1852 saved him. He participated in the rennovations of Waltham Cross, Stratford church, and St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol over the years. He died of bronchitis at his home in the St. Pancras area of London in 1857 and is buried at Norwood cemetery in 1857; a brass plaque at Salisbury Cathedral was later placed in his honor. Britton’s work inspired the pioneer of French medival studies, Arcisse de Caumont, to publish beginning in 1830 his work Cours d’antiquités monumentales, and examination of Norman architecture (Summerson). The art historian and historiographer Paul Frankl described Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain as “the first attempt at a coherent history of English Gothic.” As a publicist his influence on the Gothic revival ranks with that of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin and John Ruskin (Crook). Specimens of Gothic Architecture incorporated ground plans, elevations and scrupuous drawn details in addition to intelligent texts which transformed medieval architecture as a study (Postle).
Selected Bibliography
The Beauties of Wiltshire: Displayed in Statistical, Historical, and Descriptive Sketches: Interspersed with Anecdotes of the Arts. 3 vols. London: Printed by J.D. Dewick for Vernor and Hood, 1801-1825; and Brayley, E. W., et al. The Beauties of England and Wales, or, Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Descriptive, of Each County. 18 vols. London: Printed by Thomas Maiden, for Vernor and Hood, 1801-1816; The Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain, Represented and Illustrated in a Series of Views, Elevations, Plans, Sections, and Details, of Various Ancient English Edifices: with Historical and Descriptive Accounts of Each. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme [etc.], 1807; Cathedral antiquities: Historical and Descriptive Accounts . . . of the Following English Cathedrals, Canterbury, York, Salisbury, Norwich, Winchester, Lichfield, Oxford, Wells, Exeter, Peterborough, Gloucester, Bristol, Hereford, and Worcester. 13 vols. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Reese, Orme and Brown, 1814-1831; and Pugin, Augustus, and Willson, Edward James, and Raley, Robert L. Specimens of Gothic Architecture: Selected from Various Ancient Edifices in England: Consisting of Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Parts at Large, Calculated to Exemplify the Various Styles, and the Practical Construction of this Class of Admired Architecture. 2 vols in 1. London: Printed for J. Taylor, Architectural Library, 1821-1823; Chronological History and Graphic Illustrations of Christian Architecture in England: Embracing a Critical Inquiry into the Rise, Progress, and Perfection of this Species of Architecture. London: M.A. Nattali, 1835; and Le Keux, John, and Godwin, George. A Dictionary of the Architecture and Archaeology of the Middle Ages: Including Words Used by Ancient and Modern Authors in Treating of Architectural and Other Antiquities … also, Biographical Notices of Ancient Architects. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longmans [etc.], 1838; and Pugin, Augustus. Illustrations of the Public Buildings of London, with Historical and Descriptive Accounts of Each. 2 vols. London: J. Taylor [etc.], 1825-1828; and Pugin, Augustus. Historical and Descriptive Essays Accompanying a Series of Engraved Specimens of the Architectural Antiquities of Normandy. London: Printed for the proprietors, J. Britton, 1828.
Sources
Summerson, John. “Viollet-le-Duc and the Rational Point of View.” Heavenly Mansions and Other Essays on Architecture. New York: Norton, 1963, p. 138; Frankl, Paul. The Gothic: Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960, p. 498; Crook, J. Mordaunt. “John Britton and the Genesis of the Gothic Revival.” in, Concerning Architecture: Essays on Architectural Writers and Writing presented to Nikolaus Pevsner. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1968, pp. 98-119; Postle, Martin. “Britton, John.” Dictionary of Art 4: 828-829; Crook, J. Mordaunt. “Britton, John.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Architectural historian of the Gothic in England, topographer; earlier serious scholar of medieval architecture. He was born in Kingston St. Michael, Wiltshire, UK, near Chippenham. Britton’s parents were Henry Britton, who worked as a farmer, bak
Medieval stained glass scholar; student of Louis Grodecki, succeeded him at Musée des Plans-Reliefs.
Selected Bibliography
[all] and Groecki, Louis. Le vitrail gothique au XIIIe siècle. Fribourg, SW: Office du livre, 1984; English: Gothic Stained Glass, 1200-1300. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985; Le vitrail roman. Fribourg: Office du livre, 1977; English: A Thousand Years of Stained Glass. Translated from the French by Geoffrey Culverwell. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1986.
Sources
[obituary] Stained Glass 87 (Spring 1992): 56-7; Gauthier, M. Revue de l’Art. no. 94 (1991): 90.
Citation
"Brisac, Catherine." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/brisacc/.
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Modern art champion in Germany, first director of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg. He married Ida Laura Anna Marie von Froschauer in 1868. Plans for the museum were formulated from 1873 to 1875 thorugh a design of Carl Johann Christian Zimmermann. The Museum was opened in 1877, located on Steintorplatz, officially known as the Staatliches Technikum und Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (State Center for Technology and Msueum of Fine and Useful Arts). Brinckmann collected a wide range of objects for the museum, from Renaissance painting to Viennese furniture to Japanese prints. He lectured publicly on the collection. Beginning in 1878, one person in Brinckmann’s audience was the young Alfred Lichtwark. The two became friends with Brinckmann introducing Lichtwark to the Hamburg industrials Carl Kall, who funded Lichtwark’s later studies in art history. The young Otto Kümmel, later director of the Berlin Museums, volunteered under Brinckmann in 1902-1904. After Brinckmann’s death, Max Sauerlandt succeeded him as director in 1919. The Justus Brinckmann Gesellschaft, Hamburg, is named in his honor. His lectures (along with those of Lichtwark) inspired the modernist art historian Rosa Schapire to become an art historian. Udo Kultermann sites Brinckmann among those Gründerzeit museum directors, along with Wilhelm Bode, Lichtwark, Woldemar von Seidlitz, and Karl Woermann, as responsible for the formation of art history by virtue of their scholarship and interest in museum training. During the Wilhelmine period, the mercantile Hanseatic city of Hamburg was in the process of establishing a modern identity through new or reinvigorated public institutions and culture.
Selected Bibliography
Ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss des japanischen Kunstgewerbes. Aarau: E. Wirtz, 1892; Führer durch das Hamburgische Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, zugleich ein Handbuch der Geschichte des Kunstgewerbes. 2 vols. Hamburg: Verlag des Museums für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1894; Kunst und Handwerk in Japan. Berlin: R. Wagner, 1889. revised, Chaffers, William, and Litchfield, Frederick, and Hobson, R. L.. Marks and Monograms on European and Oriental Pottery and Porcelain: with Historical Notices of Each Manufactory. 13th ed. London: Reeves and Turner, 1912.
Sources
Der Jugendstil in Hamburg: Zum Gedächtnis an Justus Brinckmann, geb. 23 Mai 1843, gest. 9. Febr. 1945, und Otto Eckmann, geb. 19. Nov. 1865, gest. 11. Juni 1902. Hamburg: Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1965; Spielmann, Heinz. Jugendstil: Justus Brinckmann und die Jugendstil-Sammlung des Museums für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg. Dortmund: Harenberg, 1983; Kultermann, Udo. The History of Art History. New York: Abaris, 1993, pp. 138; [cited] Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon: zweihundert Porträts deutschsprachiger Autoren aus vier Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, pp. 337-39; Wendland, Ulrike. Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler. Munich: Saur, 1999, vol. 2, pp. 581; Spielmann, Heinz. Justus Brinckmann. Hamburg: Ellert & Richter, 2002; Kay, Carolyn Helen. Art and the German Bourgeoisie: Alfred Lichtwark and Modern Painting in Hamburg, 1886-1914. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002, pp. 13-
Citation
"Brinckmann, Justus." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/brinckmannj/.
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Modern art champion in Germany, first director of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg. He married Ida Laura Anna Marie von Froschauer in 1868. Plans for the museum were formulated from 1873 to 1875 thorugh a design of Carl Johann Christian
Place Died: Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Home Country/ies: Germany
Subject Area(s): Baroque
Overview
Berlin art historian and early exponent of the study of Baroque art. Brinckmann’s father was an architect; the younger Brinckmann learned the elements of architecture as a youth. He studied art history and archaeology at the universities of Munich and Berlin. He wrote his dissertation under Heinrich Wölfflin. His dissertation employs methodology of developmentalism and psychology of his mentor. In 1909 he became an assistant at the Technische Hochschule in Aachen, completing his habilitation a year later on Renaissance city planning, dedicated to Wölfflin. He was called to a teaching chair at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe in 1912 in architectural history. The same year he collaborated with Fritz Burger to update the Handbuch der Kunstwissenschaft, orginally founded by Anton Springer as a series of commissioned volumes on the history of art by important younger art historians. In 1919 Brinckmann moved to Rostock where he founded its Institute for Art History. Two years later he was called to Cologne where he taught again as ordinarius professor. There he published in 1922 his Plastik und Raum als Grundform künstlerischer Gestaltung. Using the conceptual elements of space and sculpture, he examined the development of architecture from the middle ages to the nineteenth century. He retired in 1931. Brinckmann was among the first group of art historians to consider the Baroque an area worthy of art historical study, including Cornelius Gurlitt, Heinrich Wölfflin, Robert Dohme, August Schmarsow, Aloïs Riegl, and Adolf Feulner. In addition to Gurlitt, Schmarsow, his other significant influence was Adolf von Hildebrand (1847-1921) and his book Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst, 1893 Brinckmann used Hildebrand’s notion of space precisely defined as depth, extending the concept to architectural space and town planning. He saw the change of the space/volume as the key to stylistic change (Watkin). This emphasis on space as a key determinant of architecture, together with his appreciation of the Baroque, had direct influences on the work of Paul Frankl and Nikolaus Bernard Leon Pevsner, as seen in Pevsner’s Outline of Architecture. His work in textual research influenced his (student) Roberto Salvini.
Selected Bibliography
[dissertation:] Baumstilisierungen in der mittelalterlichen Malerei. Berlin, 1905, published, Strassburg: J. H. E. Heitz, 1906; [habilitation:] Platz und Monument: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Àsthetik der Stadtbaukunst in neuerer Zeit. Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth A.-G., 1908; Barockskulptur; Entwicklungsgeschichte der Skulptur in den Romanischen und germanischen Ländern seit Michelangelo bis zum 18. Jahrhundert. Berlin-Neubabelsberg: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1917;Plastik und Raum als Grundform künstlerischer Gestaltung. Munich: R. Piper, 1922
Sources
Watkin, David. The Rise of Architectural History. London: Architectural Press, 1980, p. 12, 116; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986 pp. 186, 375; Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon. 2nd. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2007, pp. 41-43.
Citation
"Brinckmann, Albert." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/brinckmanna/.
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Berlin art historian and early exponent of the study of Baroque art. Brinckmann’s father was an architect; the younger Brinckmann learned the elements of architecture as a youth. He studied art history and archaeology at the universities of Munich
First director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Brimmer was the son of Martin Brimmer, a former mayor of Boston. He entered Harvard University at age 16, graduating in the class of 1849. Although he obtained a law degree, Brimmer never practiced and was exempted from military service because of lameness. Instead, he served politics as a representative for the Massachusetts legislature in 1859-61 and in the state senate in 1864. Brimmer served the Boston Museum at the same time as Luigi Palma di Cesnola did the rival Metropolitan Museum of Art. Brimmer provided strong contrast in that he was scholarly and conducted museum business with decorum.
Selected Bibliography
and Chapman, Minna Timmins. Egypt: three Essays on the History, Religion and Art of Ancient Egypt. Cambridge, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1892; “The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.” American Architect and Building News 8, no. 256: 206-216;
Sources
Tomkins, Calvin. Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2nd. ed. New York: Henry Holt, 1989, p. 81; [obituary:] “Martin Brimmer.” New York Times January 16, 1896, p. 5; Whitehill, Walter Muir. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: A Centennial History. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard University, 1970, vol. 1, pp. 11-12.
First director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Brimmer was the son of Martin Brimmer, a former mayor of Boston. He entered Harvard University at age 16, graduating in the class of 1849. Although he obtained a law degree, Brimmer never practiced
Subject Area(s): Roman (ancient Italian culture or period)
Overview
Scholar of Roman art; Anna S. Garbedian Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University (1970- ). Brilliant was born to Frank Brilliant and Pauline Apt (Brilliant); his father a businessman and his mother a social worker. He attended Yale University receiving a B. A. in 1951. The same year he married Eleanor Luria (later a professor of social work at Rutgers University). Brilliant next attended Harvard Law School, receiving an LL.B. in 1954 and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1954 as well. However, he returned classical studies and Yale, receiving his M.A. in 1956. Brilliant was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Italy to complete his dissertation 1957-59, submitting a dissertation on the topic of gestures in Roman art for his Ph.D., in 1960. His thesis examined how gesture was conventionalized through a system of visual signals which manifested themselves in Roman life and art. He received the Rome Prize from American Academy in Rome, 1960-1962. Brilliant returned to the United States where he was appointed assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania in 1962. He published a revised version of his dissertion in 1963 and promoted to associate professor in 1964. Brilliant’s first article in the field of Roman art was commissioned by Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, one on symbols and attributes in Greco-Roman art, for the Enciclopedia dell’Arte Antica (1966). In 1967 he was the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship. Brilliant was made full professor of art history at Pennsylvania in 1969. The following year he moved to Columbia University, New York, to be professor of art history and archaeology. Brilliant taught as Mellon Visiting Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Pittsburgh in 1971. His survey on Roman art, considered one of the finest brief introductions to this problematic field, was published in 1974. In the 1980s he began advising Dr. Michael Miller of Armonk, New York, in the acquisition of classical sculpture, which developed into one of the more important private collections of classical sculpture in the United States. Brilliant published his Visual Narratives book, 1984, an epistomology of narrative imagery in Etruscan and Roman art. The Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates was bestowed upon him in 1990. In 2000 Brilliant published My Laocoön: Alternative Claims in the Interpretation of Artworks, in which, in contrast to Margarete Bieber and her book on the Laocoön, took a pluralistic view of its interpretatioin, denying that a definitive interpretation of work was possible. Gesture and Rank in Roman Art Brilliant asserted in 1993, was one of the first semiotic study in modern art history (Brilliant, 1994). The book examined how gesture determined social meaning, a programmatic representation throughout Roman life.
Selected Bibliography
[dissertation:] Hands Up: The Use of Gestures to Denote Status in Roman Sculpture and Numismatics. Yale University, 1960, revised and published as, Gesture and Rank in Roman Art: the Use of Gestures to Denote Status in Roman Sculpture and Coinage. New Haven, The Academy, 1963; [collected studies:] Commentaries on Roman Art: Selected Studies. London: Pindar Press, 1994; “Simboli ed attributi nell’arte greca-romana.” Enciclopedia dell’Arte Antica 7: 303-311 (1966); Roman Art from the Republic to Constantine. New York: Praeger, 1974; Pompeii AD 79: The Treasure of Rediscovery. New York: C. N. Potter/Crown Publishers, 1979; Visual Narratives: Storytelling in Etruscan and Roman Art. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984; and Borgatti, Jean M. Likeness and Beyond: Portraits from Africa and the World. New York: Center for African Art, 1990; Portraiture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991; and Sternfeld, Joel, and Stebbins, Theodore E., Jr. Campagna Romana: the Countryside of Ancient Rome. New York: Knopf, 1992;and Smith, Ellen. Facing the New World: Jewish Portraits in Colonial and Federal America. New York: Jewish Museum, 1997; My Laocoön: Alternative Claims in the Interpretation of Artworks. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Sources
Columbia University Faculty Directory. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory/html/dept_faculty_brilliant; Brilliant, Richard. “Introduction.” in Commentaries on Roman Art: Selected Studies. London: Pindar Press, 1994, pp. i-iii; Brilliant, Richard. Un Americano a Roma: riflessioni sull’arte romana. Rome: Di Renzo, 2000.
Contributors: Lee Sorensen
Citation
Lee Sorensen. "Brilliant, Richard." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/brilliantr/.
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Scholar of Roman art; Anna S. Garbedian Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University (1970- ). Brilliant was born to Frank Brilliant and Pauline Apt (Brilliant); his father a businessman and his m
Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre), Baroque, and sculpture (visual works)
Overview
Architectural historian; his Baroque Architecture (1913) was one of the early texts to favorably treat the subject. Briggs was born to a Congregational minister, Rev. G. S. Briggs. After attending Mill Hill School, north London, and Leeds University, he moved to London to practice architecture. There he became a member of the RIBA in 1905, designing several buildings and lecturing at the Bartlett School of Architecture, London University. He published a travelogue, In the Heel of Italy in 1910, and married Constance Rose. In 1913 he wrote and issued an architectural history on what was still a maligned period, Baroque. Throughout the nineteenth century, historians viewed 16th-century architecture as decadent. Baroque Architecture was translated into German. During World War I he served in Palestine and Egypt. However, after he returned he abandoned the architecture to become an inspector of the technical schools. He retired from the Board of Education in 1945. A classicist by sympathy and training, he disapproved of modern architecture which gained force after the war. He served as Vice President of the RIBA between 1952 and 1954.Briggs’ Baroque Architecture stands as one of the early sympathetic treatments of a period of architecture generally maligned, especially in the English-speaking world. When he wrote his text, many art historians considered the style decadent, unworthy of discussion. In this, he followed German-writing art historians, such as Heinrich Wölfflin, Cornelius Gurlitt, and August Schmarsow. It was only with the 5th edition of The Architecture of the Renaissance in Italy by William J. Anderson, updated by Arthur James Stratton in 1929 that Baroque architecture received a serious treatment in the English press.
Selected Bibliography
Baroque Architecture. London: T.F. Unwin, 1913; The Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers in England and America (1620-1685). London/New York: Oxford University Press, 1932; A Short History of the Building Crafts. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1925; Wren, the Incomparable. London: Allen & Unwin, 1953.
Sources
mentioned, “Wohl, Helmut. “Robert Chester Smith and the History of Art in the United States.” in, Sala, Dalton, and Tamen, Pedro, et al. Robert C. Smith, 1912-1975: A investigação na História de Arte/ Research in History of Art. Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2000, p. 24, mentioned; [obituary:] “Mr Martin Shaw Briggs.” Times (London) October 21, 1977, p. 16.
Citation
"Briggs, Martin S.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/briggsm/.
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Architectural historian; his Baroque Architecture (1913) was one of the early texts to favorably treat the subject. Briggs was born to a Congregational minister, Rev. G. S. Briggs. After attending Mill Hill School, north London, and Leeds
