Art Historians

Raczynski, Athanasius, Graf

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Raczynski, Athanasius, Graf

Gender: male

Date Born: 1788

Date Died: 1874

Place Born: Poznań, Greater Poland Voivodeship, Poland

Place Died: Berlin, Germany

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): Portuguese (culture or style)

Overview

early historian of Portuguese art; diplomat in Lisbon (1842-1845); commissioned by the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Berlin to make a detailed survey of Portuguese. Born in Posen, Prussia, which is present-day, Poznań, Poland.

Selected Bibliography

Les Arts au Portugal. Paris, 1846; Dictionnaire historico-artisticque du Portugal. Paris, 1847.

Sources

Bazin 447; Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon: zweihundert Porträts deutschsprachiger Autoren aus vier Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, pp. 312-14.

Rackham, Bernard

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Rackham, Bernard

Gender: male

Date Born: 1876

Date Died: 1964

Place Born: London, Greater London, England, UK

Place Died: London, Greater London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): ceramic ware (visual works), ceramics (object genre), Medieval (European), and pottery (visual works)

Overview

Pottery and maijolica scholar and medievalist; Keeper of the Department of Ceramics at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1914-1938. Rackham was a son of Alfred Rackham (1829-1912), an Admiralty Court clerk, and his wife, Annie Stevenson (Rackham) (1833-1920). He attended the City of London School before entering Pembroke College, Cambridge, on a scholarship. After receiving a first in Classics in 1898, he joined the South Kensington Museum (renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum the following year), taking advantage of a new hiring level designed to attract honors graduates. He was assigned to cataloging the pottery and porcelain, an area in which he had no formal training, a large collection transferred to the V&A from the Museum of Practical Geology. Faced with identifying over 5,000 pieces of pottery from all countries and time periods, Rackham soon became an authority on the subject. He married Ruth Adams (d. 1963) around this time. Rackham began researching Italian maijolica in 1901 when assigned to write that section for the Museum’s catalog of the Cook collection (published 1903). Rackham’s concept of his subject was aided by the 1909 expansion and reorganization of the Museum, one which confirmed the display of objects by medium rather than by integrating various arts into rooms of a similar historic period. This emphasis by medium encouraged Rackham to view ceramics as an art form and not simply support artifacts to a historic period. Numerous articles on maijolica appeared in the Burlington Magazine. By the time the collection was moved to safety storage during World War I, Rackham had gained sufficient experience to publish his first important work, a Catalogue of the Schreiber Collection,1915, which established a periodization for early English porcelain. This was followed by a second important catalog of the Herbert Allen collection, then on loan to the Museum, appearing in 1918. The same year, Rackham issued his first work on non-western pottery, the Catalogue of the Le Blonde Gift of Corean Pottery. After the war, Rackham devoted himself to the re-installing of the collection. Then came his most widely read and perhaps best monograph on the subject, a collaborative effort with the esthetician Herbert Read, English Pottery: its Development from Early Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century in 1924. The following year his translated and edited edition of the Emil Hannover book, Keramisk haandbog, appeared as Pottery & Porcelain: a Handbook for Collectors. His interest in Asian pottery resulted in his contribution, together with other British art historians of note, in the Burlington House exhibition of Chinese art the same year. After this, Rackham’s interest turned increasingly to medieval stained glass and maijolica, which he termed “the pottery of Humanism.” His wider knowledge of pottery was displayed in his 1934 catalog of the Glaisher gift to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. His final years at the V&A were devoted to a permanent holdings catalog of the Museum’s Italian maijolica of over 1500 pieces. He retired from the Museum in 1938, succeeded by William B. Honey (1889-1956). His catalog, his magnum opus, appeared in 1940. In retirement, he produced English Mediaeval Pottery (1948) and a corpus on the remaining medieval stained glass at Canterbury cathedral, published in 1949. His final efforts were two books, Early Staffordshire Pottery, 1951, and Italian Maijolica, 1952. His eldest brother was the illustrator Arthur Rackham (1867-1939). Rackham built his methodology upon the continental pottery studies of Hannover, melding them with his objects at the V&A. He took a genre of object, largely defined as a collectables hobby by antiquaries such as William Chaffers (1811-1892) or as support artifacts by British Museum Keeper Hercules Read, and redefined it into an academic discipline, rooted in historical method and artistic merit.

Selected Bibliography

and Read, Herbert. English Pottery: its Development from Early Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century. New York: Scribner’s, 1924; translated and edited, Hannover, Emil. Pottery & Porcelain: a Handbook for Collectors. 3 vols. London: E. Benn, limited, 1925; and Fry, Roger Eliot, and Binyon, Laurence, and Kendrick, Albert Frank, and Sién, Osvald, et al. Chinese Art: an Introductory Handbook to Painting, Sculpture, Ceramics, Textiles, Bronzes & Minor Arts. London: Burlington Magazine/B. T. Batsford, 1925;

Sources

[obituary:] “Mr. Bernard Rackham.” The Times (London) February 15, 1964, p. 10, addendum, Thorpe, W. A. The Times (London) February 20, 1964, p. 15; “Bernard Rackham, C. B., F. S. A.” Burlington Magazine 106, no. 738 (September 1964): 424-425.

Quintavalle, Armando Ottaviano

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Quintavalle, Armando Ottaviano

Gender: male

Date Born: 1894

Date Died: unknown

Overview

Selected Bibliography

Antelami scultore. 1947.

Sources

Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986 p. 263

Quinn, Robert M.

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Quinn, Robert M.

Other Names:

Robert MacLean Quinn

Gender: male

Date Born: 1920

Date Died: 2003

Place Born: Chicago, Cook, IL, USA

Place Died: Tucson, Pima, AZ, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Spanish (culture or style)

Career(s): educators

Overview

University of Arizona Professor of Spanish Art; founder of the art history programs there. Quinn’s family moved from Illinois to New Rochelle, NY as a child where he was raised. After graduation from George School in Newtown, PA in 1939, Quinn entered Yale University where he remained until 1943. A chance visit to Arizona made him fall in love with the climate. He switched to the University of Arizona, married Jacqueline Strawn in 1944, and earned his B.A. the following year. He joined the faculty there that same year (1945), initially teaching studio art. Quinn continued to work on his graduate degree at Johns Hopkins University and in 1958 was awarded his Ph.D. By now he was teaching art history for the University. His book on a retablo from the Kress Collection added to the University of Arizona art museum was published in 1960. Quinn was promoted to full Professor in 1963. During those years, he built the department of Art History into first a B.A.-granting one and then into an M.A. program. Familiar with east-coast research facilities in art history, Quinn also developed the slide collection. He retired to professor emeritus in 1985, running a business in art appraising. He taught for nearly 20 summers in Guadalajara, Mexico for the University of Arizona. Quinn was instrumental in the founding both of the Tucson Museum of Art (initially named the Tucson Arts Center) and the University of Arizona Art Museum. An auto accident in 2003 greatly debilitated him and he died in a nursing home later that year.

Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] German Art in Reference to the Protestant Reformation. Johns Hopkins, 1958; Fernando Gallego. The retablo of Ciudad Rodrigo. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press, 1960; The Colonial Arts of Latin America. Tucson, AZ: Tucson Arts Center, 1966; Krazy-Kat: the University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona. Tucson: The Museum, 1972.

Sources

[obituary:] Arizona Daily Star November 6, 2003, p. B4.

Quillet, Frédéric

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Quillet, Frédéric

Gender: male

Date Born: unknown

Date Died: unknown

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): Spanish (culture or style)

Overview

wrote precurser to art historical studies of Spanish art

Selected Bibliography

Dictionnaire des artistes espagnols. 1816.

Sources

Bazin 446

wrote precurser to art historical studies of Spanish art

Quicherat, Jules

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Quicherat, Jules

Gender: male

Date Born: 1814

Date Died: 1882

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): archaeology, French (culture or style), and Medieval (European)

Overview

appointed to the first chair in art history in France, in medieval archaeology at L’école des Chartes (1821)

Selected Bibliography

Histoire du costume en France depuis les temps les plus reculés jusque’à la fin du XVIIIe. (1875). [diverse works found also in:] Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire. 2 vols. Paris, 1885-1886.

Sources

Bazin 467

appointed to the first chair in art history in France, in medieval archaeology at L’école des Chartes (1821)

Quatremère de Quincy, Antoine

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Quatremère de Quincy, Antoine

Other Names:

Antoine Quatremère de Quincy

Gender: male

Date Born: 28 October 1755

Date Died: 28 December 1849

Place Born: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Place Died: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): art theory, biography (general genre), eighteenth century (dates CE), and French (culture or style)

Overview

Leader of the French Académie under Napoleon; theorist and historian of 18th century French art; artistic biographer. Quatremère initially studied law before taking courses in art and history at the Collège de Louis-le-Grand. He also trained as a sculptor by Guillaume Coustou and Pierre Julien. After visiting Naples with Jacques-Louis David, and later Rome, Quatremère became interested in Classical Greek sculpture and architecture. He wrote several essays on architectural theories, winning a competition sponsored by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1785. Based on his belief that style and function were inseparable in architecture, Quatremère orchestrated the renovation of the Parisian church of St. Genevieve into the Panthéon, France’s national mausoleum. He also advocated the use of the Neo-Classical style in other buildings. The events of the French Revolution caused him to become an advocate for artistic freedom and copyright. He was elected a deputy to the Legislative Assembly in 1791, but during the Reign of Terror imprisoned for two years, and nearly executed twice (1793 and1795). After being exiled to Germany in 1797, Quatremère began reading the works of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, subsequently incorporating their philosophical ideas into his own theories on aesthetics. As a member of the Council of the 500 in 1797, he served both there and later as a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1804. In 1815, as the Intendant Général des Arts et Monuments Publics, he published a critical evaluation of French museum practices aimed at the practices of the museum builder Alexandre Lenoir, entitled Considérations Morales. While serving as the Secétaire Perpétuel to the Académie des Beaux-Arts from 1816-1839, Quatremère gave funeral orations of Académie members. His important essay on the fine arts, Essai sur la nature, le but et les moyens de l’imitation dans les beaux-arts, was published in 1823 and translated into English by 1837. Quatremère was instrumental in assisting the career of Guillaume-Abel Blouet by convincing the Académie Royale d’Architecture to publish Blouet’s important report on monuments restoration, Restauration des thermes d’Antonin Caracalla à Rome in 1828. During this time Quatremère published biographies of several Italian artists, including Antonio Canova (1823), Raphael (1824), and Michelangelo (1835). Quatremère’s theories epitomized the Académie’s stance of the Greco-Roman style as the only appropriate building type for architects. This would be challenged in succeeding generations by architectural historians such as Jean-Baptiste Lassus and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Quatremère was the last “armchair” archaeologist, eschewing the excavation site for personal and sometimes romantic interpretations of art (Greenhalgh and de Grummond). However, Quatremère strongly argued for keeping works of art in situ and against Napoleon’s conglomerate museum. His work caught the attention of many subsequent scholars, including René Schneider, who wrote his thesis on him.

Selected Bibliography

[Kulterman lists Quatremère de Quincy’s works extensively, p.122]; Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages des plus célèbres architectes du XIe siècle jusqu’ à la fin du XVIIIe, accompagnée de la vie du plus remarquable édifice de chacun d’eux. 2 vols. Paris: Renouard, 1830; Déotte, Jean Louis, ed. Considérations morales sur la destination des ouvrages de l’art; suivi de, Lettres sur l’enlèvement des ouvrages de l’art antique à Athènes et à Rome. Paris: Fayard, 1989; Dictionnaire historique d’architecture: comprenant dans son plan les notions historiques, descriptives, archaeologiques, biographiques, théoriques, didactiques et pratiques de cet art. 2 vols. Paris: Librairie d’Adrien le Clere, 1832; Lo studio delle arti e il genio dell’europa: Scritti di A.C. Quatremère de Quincy e di Pio VII Chiaramonti (1796-1802). Bologna: Nuova Alfa, 1989; Essai sur la nature, le but et les moyens de l’imitation dans les beaux-arts. Paris: J. Didot, 1823, English, An Essay on the Nature, the End, and the Means of Imitation in the Fine Arts. London: Smith, Elder, 1837.

Sources

Schneider, René. L’esthétique classique chez Quatremère de Quincy (1805-1823). Paris: Hachette, 1910; Kultermann, Udo. Geschichte der Kunstgeschichte: Der Weg einer Wissenschaft. 2nd ed. Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein, 1981, pp. 120-22; Watkin, David. The Rise of Architectural History. London: Architectural Press, 1980, p. 24; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 467; Luke, Yvonne. “Quatremère de Quincy, Antoine.” Dictionary of Art 25: 798-799; The Guardian (London), December 17, 1996; Greenhalgh, Michael, and de Grummond, Nancy. “Quatremère de Quincy, Antoine-Chrysôthome.” Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 2, pp. 942-43; Lavin, Sylvia. Quatremère de Quincy and the Invention of a Modern Language of Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.

Quant, Johann Gottlob von

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Quant, Johann Gottlob von

Gender: male

Date Born: 1787

Date Died: 1859

Place Born: Leipzig, Saxony, Germany

Place Died: Dresden, Saxony, Germany

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): German (culture, style, period)

Career(s): art collectors

Overview

Patron, collector, and historian of German art. Quant came from a wealthy merchant family in Leipzig, and became an art critic in 1808. His first article described a visit to the city of Annaberg, and was published in the Zeitung für die elgante Welt. He received praise from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1815 for rescuing 11 German paintings from the attic of Nikolaikirche in Leipzig. In 1818, Quant moved to Rome, where he supported contemporary artists. Members of the northern artistic community frequently visited his home, including Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Because of his incendiary writings, Quant’s artistic friends satirized his work in Betrachtungen und Meinungen über die in Deutschland herrschende Kunstschreiberei (1833). He commissioned the work of several artists and published his comments on their work in Kunstblatt and Briefe aus Italien. In 1823, he moved back to Dresden, after spending time traveling to Paris and Weimar to visit Goethe. Quant collected paintings, prints, and stained glass, publishing a guide to his collection, Verzeichnis von Gemälden und anderen Kunstgegenständen, in 1824. His lectures entitled Entwurf zu einer Geschichte der Kupferstecherkunst were published in 1826. In 1828, Quant helped to found the Sächsiche Kunstverein in Dresden, becoming the first Director. After nearly thirty years of publishing art-historical essays, and serving on several arts commissions in Dresden, Quant received a membership in the Akademie in Berlin (1828), and honorary memberships in the Akademie in Munich, and the Dürerverein in Nuremburg. He actively patronized contemporary German artists and participated in the Dresden Academy until his death in 1859.

Sources

The Dictionary of Art

Puyvelde, Léo Van

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Puyvelde, Léo Van

Gender: male

Date Born: 1882

Date Died: 1965

Place Born: Sint-Niklaas-Waas, Liège, Wallonia, Belgium

Place Died: Uccle, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium

Home Country/ies: Belgium

Career(s): curators

Overview

Professor of Art History; Museum Curator. Van Puyvelde was a student at the Episcopal High School in Sint-Niklaas (Waas), in the Flemish part of Belgium, and then enrolled at the Faculty of Arts of the Catholic University of Louvain, where he obtained a doctoral degree in 1905. During his university years, he was active in promoting the Flemish language, which at that time was undervalued in favor of the French, and was not in use in schools and official institutions. His dissertation was on the Flemish poet Albrecht Rodenbach (1856-1880). A reworked version of it was published in 1908: Albrecht Rodenbach. Zijn leven en werk (“His Life and Work”). Van Puyvelde did further research on Rodenbach and published, among other things, the complete edition of his poems. In 1911, he became a member of the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taal en Letterkunde (Flemish Academy for Language and Literature). In 1912, this institution published his book Schilderkunst en toneelvertooningen op het einde van de middeleeuwen, which was devoted to the relationship between Flemish painting and theater plays in the late Middle Ages. In the same year, he was appointed lecturer of Art History at the State University of Ghent, which marked the beginning of his career as an art historian. In 1920, he became full professor and chair of the Hoger Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis (Higher Institute of Art History) at the same university. He taught medieval art and archaeology as well as medieval-, Renaissance- and seventeenth-century painting. In 1925, he published a study on the ancient abbey of Ghent, called the Bijloke, where an important ensemble of fourteenth-century mural paintings had been uncovered during the restoration campaign of 1924. In 1927, he left Ghent University for a full professorship in Art History at the University of Liège. At the same time, he was appointed chief curator of the Royal Museums of Fine Art of Belgium (Brussels). He was active in reorganizing the museum and changed the display of the works of art in the galleries. In 1934, he expressed his ideas on this matter in an article in Mouseion: “Principes de la présentation des collections dans les musées”. He argued that the aim of a museum is not only to preserve works of art, but also to make them accessible to the wider public for education and enjoyment. A number of the major works of art should be selected on esthetical grounds and displayed in the main galleries, whereas the lesser works may be placed in other departments, accessible to students and researchers only. The selected works should be enjoyed in their own right. This article reflects wide spread thoughts on museum reform. The same ideas prevailed for instance in the Netherlands, where his Dutch colleagues, like F. Schmidt-Degener and H. E. Van Gelder were engaged in reorganizing respectively the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum and the Municipal Museum of The Hague. As curator, Van Puyvelde was deeply committed to the conservation of works of arts, and established a modern laboratory in the museum in 1929-30. Cleaning old pictures was his main concern, but the procedure was rather controversial in those days. As an art historian, he was particularly interested in Flemish and Netherlandish painting, including the Van Eycks and the Flemish Primitives, Quinten Metsys, Bosch, Bruegel, and the masters of seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque: Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens. He also followed with interest the artistic evolution of the work of contemporary artists, including the sculptor George Minne (1866-1941), the painters James Ensor, Gustave De Smet (1877-1943), and Frits Van den Berghe (1883-1939). He frequently published articles on these artists in international journals. As visiting professor, he taught at several universities abroad, in Paris (1932), Algiers (1933), the USA (1939, Princeton, Harvard and Yale), and in Poland. During World War II, Van Puyvelde lived in England as an exile. On invitation by the King of England, he studied the Flemish and Dutch drawings in the royal collection of drawings at Windsor Castle. This resulted in two separate publications: on the Flemish Drawings in 1942 and on the Dutch Drawings in 1944. When the war was over in Belgium, Van Puyvelde was appointed General Director for the Fine Arts in 1944, in charge of the cultural heritage of his country. As lieutenant colonel, he accompanied the army of the Allied searching for works of art that had been stolen by the Germans during the occupation. The Ghent Polyptych, “The Adoration of the Lamb”, along with other masterworks, was found in the salt mine of Alt Aussee, in Austria. Before its return to the Cathedral of St. Bavon, the recovered altarpiece was on show in the Royal Museums of Fine Art in Brussels for a month. Van Puyvelde, who resumed his post as chief curator, took the opportunity to study this masterwork thoroughly. Van Eyck: L’Agneau Mystique was published in 1946. The English edition (Van Eyck: The Holy Lamb) and a Dutch one followed respectively in 1947 and 1948. This study however did not become authoritative. His analysis of the style of the Van Eyck brothers was rather subjective, and his controversial premise that they would not have used oil in the painting was proven to be incorrect. Van Puyvelde nevertheless won great acclaim as a specialist in Flemish art as well as a modern museum curator. When he retired from this position in 1948, his students and colleagues in Belgium and abroad honored him in Miscellanea Léo Van Puyvelde. The introductory articles include an analysis of his impressive art-historical oeuvre. In 1950, 1952 and 1953 respectively, his monographs on Van Dyck, Rubens, and Jordaens appeared. In 1952, Van Puyvelde retired from his post as professor, but he continued publishing. A monograph on Velasquez appeared in 1963; one on Goya in 1966. In the same period he also published broad overviews on Flemish art. His posthumous work La peinture flamande au siècle de Rubens appeared in 1970. Van Puyvelde was self-trained in art history. In his publications, he repeatedly defended his method of art historical research. He argued that the work of art itself and the style of the artist who created it should be the main object of investigation. Historical documentation, he contended, must be part of the scholarly work, but cannot in itself be the main goal of the study of a work of art. In search of the “genius” of an artist, Van Puyvelde’s style analysis shows a rather personal involvement, with a romantic undertone.

Selected Bibliography

[bibliography ot 1948] Roemans, Rob. Analytische bibliographie van Prof. Dr. Leo van Puyvelde (Koninklijke Academie voor Taal-en Letterkunde IV, 12) Turnhout 1949; “Extrait de la Bibliographie de Leo van Puyvelde” in Miscellanea Leo van Puyvelde. Brussels: éditions de la Connaissance, 1949: 37-42; [for the bibliography until 1969, see] Roemans, Rob and Van Assche, Hilda in Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden 1969-1970. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1971: 176-181; Albrecht Rodenbach, zijn leven en zijn werk. Amsterdam: L.J. Veen, 1908; Schilderkunst en Tooneelvertooningen op het einde van de Middeleeuwen. (Koninklijke Vlaamsche Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde) Ghent: W. Siffer, 1912; Un Hôpital du Moyen âge et une Abbaye y annexée. La Biloke de Gand. étude archéologique. (Université de Gand. Recueul de Travaux publiés par la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres 57) Ghent-Paris: Van Rysselberghe et Rombaut – Edouard Champion, 1925; Dessins de maîtres de la collection des Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. Basle: éditions Holbein, 1940; Les Esquisses de Rubens. Basle: éditions Holbein, 1940; The Flemish Drawings in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle. London: Phaidon, 1942; The Dutch Drawings in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle. London: Phaidon, 1944; The Genius of Flemish Art; a Lecture given in the University of London on 27 November 1943. London: Phaidon, 1949; La peinture flamande à Rome. Brussels: Librairie Encyclopédique, 1950; Van Dyck. Brussels: Elsevier, 1950; Rubens. Paris: Elsevier, 1952; Jordaens. Paris: Elsevier, 1953; La peinture flamande au siècle des Van Eyck. Brussels: Elsevier: 1953; La peinture flamande au siècle de Bosch et Breughel. Brussels: Elsevier, 1962; Velasquez. Paris: Meddens, 1963; Goya. Paris: Meddens, 1966; La peinture flamande des Van Eyck à Metsys. Brussels: Meddens, 1968 (translated in Dutch in 1969), English: Flemish Painting from the van Eycks to Metsys. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1970; and Van Puyvelde, Thierry La peinture flamande au siècle de Rubens. Brussels: Meddens, 1970, English: Flemish Painting: the Age of Rubens and van Dyck. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971; La Renaissance flamande de Bosch à Breughel. Brussels, Meddens, 1971.

Sources

Bernard, Charles “Leo van Puyvelde et les Musées Royaux der Beaux-Arts” in Miscellanea Leo van Puyvelde. Brussels: éditions de la Connaissance, 1949: 9-14; Bergmans, Simone “Leo van Puyvelde, le Professeur et le Conservateur” ibidem: 15-17; Gilissen, John “Leo van Puyvelde, historien d’art” ibidem: 23-36; Bergmans, Simone “Léo van Puyvelde (1882-1965)” Revue Belge d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’Art; Belgisch tijdschrift voor Oudheidkunde en Kunstgeschiedenis 35, 1-2 (1966): 118-120; Roemans, Rob. and Van Assche Hilda “Leo van Puyvelde (Sint-Niklaas (Waas), 30 juli 1882 – Ukkel, 27 oktober 1965)” Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden 1969-1970. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1971: 171-175; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, pp. 502-503.

Contributors: Monique Daniels

Puttfarken, Thomas

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Puttfarken, Thomas

Other Names:

Thomas Puttfarken

Gender: male

Date Born: 19 December 1943

Date Died: 05 October 2006

Place Born: Hamburg, Germany

Place Died: Essex, England, UK

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): art theory, nineteenth century (dates CE), and Renaissance

Overview

Scholar of Renaissance and 19th-century art; professor of art history and theory, University of Essex. Puttfarken’s father, Franz Ferdinand Puttfarken, was a dentist (though the family had made a name in jurisprudence); his mother was Traut Dorothea Bruhn (Puttfarken), He studied art history, philosophy and classical archaeology at the Universities of Innsbruck and Munich, settling on graduate work at the Kunsthistorisches Institute, Hamburg. In 1967 he was named the first, Aby M. Warburg fellow, a single-year fellowship at the Warburg Institute, London. He returned to the institute in Hamburg as a teacher lecturing during the political upheavals which were occurring at Hamburg, as they were at most continental universities in 1968. Despite an incomplete doctorate, Puttfarken was elected chair of a committee which placed him between the conservative faculty and the demonstrating students. He completed his Ph.D. at Hamburg and married Herma Zimmer, both in 1969. His dissertation topic was on scale in Renaissance art. As the Hamburg situation became more untenable, Puttfarken was recruited by the newly founded art history department at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom in 1971. Though he returned to Hamburg–for family reasons–and to lecturing at the University the same year, he rejoined the Essex faculty in 1974 as a senior lecturer. He remained at Essex the rest of his career, rising to Reader in 1978. The same year as his divorce, 1981, he married to Elspeth Crichton Stuart. Puttfarken was appointed to the professor of art history and theory chair and dean of the School of Comparative Studies in 1984 (though 1986). The following year his book on Roger de Piles, the late 17th-century French art theorist, appeared. In the book he contrasted de Piles, who stressed visual impact and color, with academic writers such as André Félibien, who emphasized drawing and decorous representation of its subject matter. He was made pro vice-chancellor, beginning 1987 (through 1990). He delivered the Durning Lawrence lectures given at University College London, which appeared in 2000 as Discovery of Pictorial Composition. Puttfarken wrote that modern notions of pictorial composition–overall pictorial order of space–were just that, i.e., modern, and had no equivalent in the Italian Renaissance. The book also posited a theory as to why geometrical optics, known for centuries, were applied only in painting of the 15th century. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003. Puttfarken published his final book, Titian and Tragic Painting, in 2005. It was a revision of traditional views that painters strove to rise in social status by linking their painted works to literature. In it, he argued that depictions of violence in Titian’s work relate to the painter’s interest in Aristotle’s sense of tragic drama, an interest he shared with the writers of the age. He was researching a book on the representation of violence in Caravaggio when he suffered an aneurysm at the age of 62 and died. Puttfarken employed literary and rhetorical theory to analyse painting. He focused on the conflicting concepts of pictorial unity as a theme of his study. His Titian book examined the status of artists and writers in the Renaissance, theorizing why the artist referred to his canvases as poems. Titian he contended was most unique for his depictions of suffering rather than his “Titianesque” women.

Selected Bibliography

Roger de Piles’ Theory of Art. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985; The Discovery of Pictorial Composition: Theories of Visual Order in Painting, 1400-1800. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000; Titian & Tragic Painting: Aristotle’s Poetics and the Rise of the Modern Artist. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.

Sources

[obituaries:] Podro, Michael. “Thomas Puttfarken: An Art Historian of the Renaissance and Pivotal Figure at Essex University.” Guardian (London). October 21, 2006, p. 39; “Professor Thomas Puttfarken.” The Times (London), October 27, 2006, p. 79.

Contributors: Lee Sorensen

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