D

Dehio, Georg

November 8, 2023April 9, 2024

Full Name: Dehio, Georg

Other Names:

Georg Gottfried Julius Dehio

Gender: male

Date Born: 1850

Date Died: 1932

Place Born: Tallinn, Harjumaa, Estonia

Place Died: Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Home Country/ies: Germany

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

Overview

Art and architectural historian; Professor at University of Königsberg and later Strasbourg; author of Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler. He was born in Reval, Russian Empire, which is present-day Tallin, Estonia. Like many art historians, Dehio began as an historian. He studied history at Dorpat (Tartu) and 1869-71 in Göttingen with Georg Waitz (1813-1886), head of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. In 1872 Dehio attained his doctorate in Munich, writing on the Archbishop Hartwig von Stade. His habilitation, on the history of the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen, was granted in 1877 in Munich under Wilhelm von Giesebrecht (1814-1889). Dehio’s interest in art history was sparked after a trip to Italy 1876-77. Initially Dehio wrote essays on Alberti, Raffael and the early Basilica. In 1883 he became an assistant professor and later full professor of art history in Königsberg. In 1892 Dehio succeeded Hubert Janitschek as the head of the Strassburger Institute, at that time connected to the Christian Archaeology Institute of Henry Kraus. Dehio was one of the first to recognize the talent and potential of the young art historian Wilhelm Vöge, suggesting Vöge’s habilitation topic in 1894. One of his first publications was Die kirchliche Baukunst des Abendlandes (atlas, 1887, text 1892-1901), written with Gustav von Bezold. For Die kirchliche Baukunst, Dehio and Bezold sketched out the plans and outlines of the buildings by hand. Dehio viewed architecture as symbolic form relevant as part of art-historical analysis. Wilhelm Pinder praised Dehio’s vocabulary for the precision it lent to art history. Dehio’s devotion, like Pinder’s, was to German art. In 1899 Dehio finished the outline for his Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler (Handbook of German Cultural Monuments), published beginning in 1901. The survey, based on the official inventories of the German states, appeared in five volumes between 1905-12. It has remained through newer editions, the standard survey of German architecture. Dehio’s dedication to things German, driven by his conservatism and nationalism, deepened. Although Germanic art histories had been previously authored by Wilhelm Bode, Karl F. A. von Lützow and Jakob Falke, Dehio wanted a truly synthetic survey of German art history. Beginning in 1908, Dehio drafted a text, Deutsche Kunstgeschichte und deutsche Geschichte, incorporating political and economic history to show the relationship between the nation and the art. World War I prevented its appearance. The three-volume Geschichte der deutschen Kunst appeared between 1919-26. By then, Dehio was teaching in Tübingen, a result of Alsace’s annexation by France in 1918. During the war years and after the war he spoke critically about the western democracies, that did not recognize the people as a body, Kleine Aufsätze (1930). Shortly after Dehio’s death in 1932, a fourth volume to Geschichte der deutschen Kunst was written by Gustav Pauli. In 1941 the architectural historian Ernst Gall founded the “Vereinigung zur Herausgabe des Dehio-Handbuchs” (Association for the Revision of Dehio’s Handbook) to further the publication and updating of the Handbook of German Cultural Monuments. In 1958 the organization was renewed as “Dehio-Vereinigung” (Dehio Society), and in 1976 as the “Dehio-Vereinigung: Wissenschaftliche Vereinigung zur Fortführung des kunsttopographischen Werkes von Georg Dehio” (Dehio Society: the Intellectual Foundation for the Furthering of the Artistic/Topographical Work of Georg Dehio), headquartered in Bamburg, Germany. Both Geschichte der deutschen Kunst and Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler argue for the autonomy of German art. Previous art histories had often seen German art as derivative from other countries. Dehio’s art history is that of a people, rather than the prevailing conception of art created by “Great Masters.” The “hero” of German art was the youth of Germany. Dehio saw Gothic, Romantic and baroque as essentially the same thing. Geschichte der deutschen Kunst ends with the late 18th century, because, Dehio declared, German art ended there. The remaining years of art in Germany or elsewhere, he contended, could only be conceived of as stories of artists, not art history. A prominent member of the architectural conservation community, Dehio advocated “conservation, not restoration” for projects such as the Friedrichsbau of Heidelberg Castle (1895-1903) and Meissen Cathedral (1903 ff.) against the overzealous conjectural restorations advocated by Carl Schäfer (fl. 1878-1896) and others. Together with Aloïs Riegl, he espoused the concept of Alterswert (the value of aging) for monuments. Robert Hedicke in his Methodenlehre der Kunstgeschichte (1924) considered Dehio an historian rather than an esthetician, one who avoided the generalities and methodologies of others.

Selected Bibliography

and Bezold, Gustav von. Die kirchliche Baukunst des Abendlandes. Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, [text published 1892-1901; atlas, 1887-1901], vol. 2 of text and v. 5 of atlas published, Stuttgart: A. Bergsträsser; Ein Proportionsgesetz der antiken Baukunst und sein Nachleben im Mittelalter und in der Renaissance. Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner, 1895; and Winter, Franz. Kunstgeschichte in Bildern: systematische Darstellung der Entwickelung der bildenden Kunst vom klassischen Altertum bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts. Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1898-1902; Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler. 5 vols. Berlin: E. Wasmuth, 1905-1912; Kunsthistorische Aufsätze. Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1914; Geschichte der Deutschen Kunst. 3 vols in 6. Berlin and Leipzig: Vereinigung wissenschaftlicher verleger, 1919-26; Das strassburger Münster. Munich: R. Piper, 1922; Der bamberger Dom. Munich: R. Piper & Co., 1924; Kleine Aufsätze und Ansprachen. s.l.: s.n., 1930 [typewritten manuscript of collected speeches].

Sources

Hedicke, Robert. Methodenlehre der Kunstgeschichte. Strassbourg: Heitz, 1924; Dvorák, Max. Idealism and Naturalism in Gothic Art. Translated and noted by Randolph J. Klawiter. Preface by Karl Maria Swoboda. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1967, pp. 187-8; Panofsky, Erwin. “Wilhelm Vöge: A Biographical Memoir.” Art Journal 28 no. 1 (Fall 1968): 31; Wölfflin, Heinrich. Heinrich Wölfflin, 1864-1945: Autobiographie, Tagebücher und Briefe. Joseph Ganter, ed. Basel: Schwabe & Co., 1982, p. 490; Hubala, Erich. “Georg Dehio 1850-1932: Seine Kunstgeschichte der Architektur.” Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte 46 no. 1 (1983): 1-14; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986 p.152, 532 [listed as “Gustav Dehio”]; Kultermann, Udo. The History of Art History. New York: Abaris, 1993, pp. 137-8; Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1999, pp. 54-57; Dictionary of Art; Greulich, A. “Dehio, Georg.” vol. 25. Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. Munich: K.G. Saur, 2000, pp. 255-6; Betthausen, Peter. Georg Dehio: ein deutscher Kunsthistoriker. Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2004; [obituaries:] Scheffler, Karl. “Georg Dehio.” Kunst und Kunstler 31 (April 1932): 144; Gall, Ernst. “Georg Dehio.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 1 no. 1 (1932): 2-4; Pantheon 9 (May 1932): 176.

Contributors: HB and Lee Sorensen

Art and architectural historian; Professor at University of Königsberg and later Strasbourg; author of Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler. He was born in Reval, Russian Empire, which is present-day Tallin, Estonia. Like many art histor

Deichmann, Friedrich Wilhelm

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Deichmann, Friedrich Wilhelm

Gender: male

Date Born: 1909

Date Died: 1993

Place Born: Jena, Thuringia, Germany

Place Died: Mentana, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre), Late Antique, and sculpture (visual works)

Overview

Architectural historian of the late antique era. Deichmann was one of the art historians who worked at the DAI in Rome during the height of the Nazi doctrine, when others, like Ludwig Curtius, had been force to resign.

Selected Bibliography

Studien zur Architektur Konstantinopels im 5. und 6. Jahrhunder nach Christus. Baden-Baden: 1956; Ravenne: Hauptstadt des Spätantiken Abendlandes. 3 vols. Weisbaden: 1969.

Sources

Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Modern Perspectives in Western Art History: An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, pp. 39, 50 mentioned, 87 mentioned; Duval, Noel. “In Memoriam Fr. W. Deichmann 1909-1993.” Antiquité tardive 2 (1994): 7-11; Farioli Campanati, Raffaella. “Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann, Jena 17 XII 1909-Mentana (Roma) 13 IX 1993.” Corso di cultura sull’arte ravennate e bizantina 41 (1994): 10-16; Feld, Otto. “Commemorazione di Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann.” Corso di cultura sull’arte ravennate e bizantina 41 (1994): 17-32; Feld, Otto. “Friedrich Wilhelm Deichmann 17.12.1909-13.9.1993.” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Römische Abteilung 101 (1994): 7-17.

Deknatel, Frederick B.

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Deknatel, Frederick B.

Other Names:

Frederick Deknatel

Gender: male

Date Born: 1905

Date Died: 1973

Place Born: Chicago, Cook, IL, USA

Place Died: Boston, Suffolk, MA, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Medieval (European) and Modern (style or period)

Overview

Modernist and Medievalist art historian at Harvard. Deknatel attended the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, N. J., before graduating from Princeton in History in 1928 where the lectures of Charles Rufus Morey greatly impressed him. He entered Harvard Law School but changed his mind, switching to the Graduate school of Arts and Sciences. At Harvard, Deknatel studied under both A. Kingsley Porter and Chandler R. Post who suggested his dissertation topic on Spanish art to him. He married Virginia Herrick in 1931 and the following year began teaching as an instructor and tutor at Harvard. His dissertation on thirteenth-century sculpture was accepted in 1935. As a tutor for the museum classes of Paul J. Sachs, Deknatel became increasingly interested in the art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Though he supervised some students in medieval art, particularly after the retirement of Wilhelm Reinhold Walter Koehler in 1953, Deknatel focused his teaching on modern art. In 1940 he was appointed associate professor. He served as Associate Dean of Harvard College during World War II (1942-1945). In 1944 he was named chair of the Department of Fine Arts. He was appointed full professor in 1946. He served on the Board of the College Art Associate and was president 1947-1948. Deknatel published one of the early accounts in English of the painter Edvard Munch. He was succeeded as chair of the department in 1949 by Leonard E. Opdycke, Jr. In 1953 he was made William Dorr Boardman professor. His students included Kermit S. Champa, Theodore Reff and Linda Seidel. Deknatel published comparatively little as a scholar. He influence derives as an educator in modern art areas at Harvard. His scholarship, outside the modern, was in studying the influence of French Romanesque style in Spain.

Selected Bibliography

[disssertation] The Thirteenth Century Gothic Sculpture of the Cathedral of Burgos and Leon. Harvard University, 1935; “The Thirteenth Century Gothic Sculpture of the Cathedral of Burgos and Leon” Art Bulletin. September 1935. 243-389; Edvard Munch. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1950.

Sources

Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986 p. 276-277; Coolidge, John, et al. “Frederick Brockway Deknatel.” Fogg Art Museum Annual Report, 1972-74: 33-36; Freedberg, Sydney. [same text:] “Tribute to Frederick Deknatel.” Art Journal 33 no, 3 (Spring 1974): 238.

Delaborde, Henri, vicomte

November 8, 2023April 9, 2024

Full Name: Delaborde, Henri, vicomte

Gender: male

Date Born: 1811

Date Died: 1899

Place Born: Rennes, Brittany, France

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

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): prints (visual works)

Career(s): curators

Overview

Curator, painter, and early authority on prints. Delaborde was a son of Henri-François Delaborde, a general in the French army who was honored in 1809 with the title comte de l’Empire (Count of the Empire). The young Delaborde attended high school at the Lycée Charlemagne and the Lycée Bourbon in Paris. After graduation he wanted to become an artist, but his parents decided that he study law. Soon after his enrollment, however, with the permission of his father, Delaborde entered the studio of the history painter Paul Delaroche, where he practiced painting between 1829 and 1834. He then traveled to Florence where he copied paintings of Fra Angelico as well as works of Masaccio and other painters of the Quattrocento. In 1839 he visited Ravenna and Venice and again for an extended stay in Italy from 1842 to 1845. He married in 1846. An acclaimed painter in France, his works were shown at the Paris Salon and he received official commissions for the execution of paintings for churches and other places. His career considerably changed around 1850, when due to poor health he had to give up painting. He instead became an art writer for Revue des deux mondes, in which periodical he published articles on the history of engraving. He also contributed to the Gazette des Beaux-Arts. In 1864 his collected articles were published as études sur les beaux-arts en France et en Italie. In 1855 his thirty-year career at the Print Room of the Paris Bibliothèque Nationale began, first as adjunct curator, rising to chief curator in 1858. He wrote entries for the Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles, edited by Charles Blanc. In 1865 he edited the Lettres et pensées (letters and thoughts) of the portrait- and history painter Hippolyte Flandrin, who had died the year before. His Mélanges sur l’art contemporain appeared in 1866. In 1868 he became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. From 1874 onwards, he served this institution as secrétaire perpétuel. A monograph on Ingres appeared in 1870 as Ingres, sa vie, ses travaux, sa doctrine, which he dedicated to the painter’s widow. In 1882 he wrote an essay on the origins, the techniques, and the history of engraving in Western Europe, La gravure: précis élémentaire de ses origines, de ses procédés et de son histoire. His later writings include a study on the Flemish engraver Gérard Edelinck (1886) and a major work on Marcantonio Raimondi: Marc-Antoine Raimondi: étude historique et critique suivie d’un catalogue raisonné des œuvres du maître (1888). Delaborde’s essay, La gravure, is a very informative introduction into the field, even though references to scholarly literature are lacking, while his Raimondi study offers a critical contribution to the research on this engraver.

Selected Bibliography

études sur les beaux-arts en France et en Italie. Paris: J. Renouard, 1864; Lettres et pensées d’Hippolyte Flandrin, accompagnées de notes et précédées d’une notice biographique et d’un catalogue du maître. Paris: H. Plon, 1865; Mélanges sur l’art contemporain. Paris: J. Renouard, 1866; Ingres, sa vie, ses travaux, sa doctrine, d’après les notes manuscrites et les lettres du maître. Paris: H. Plon, 1870; La gravure: précis élémentaire de ses origines, de ses procédés et de son histoire. Paris: A. Quantin, 1882; La gravure en Italie avant Marc-Antoine (1452-1505). Paris: Librairie de l’art, 1882; Marc-Antoine Raimondi: étude historique et critique suivie d’un catalogue raisonné des œuvres du maître. Paris: Librairie de l’Art, 1888.

Sources

Larroumet, G. Notice historique sur la vie et les travaux de M. le comte H. Delaborde, 1900; Blumer, M.-L. “Delaborde (Henri), peintre et écrivain d’art.” Dictionnaire de Biographie Française 10 (1965): 598-599; [obituary:] Michel, é. Gazette des Beaux-Arts 2 (1899): 71-81.

Delaissé, Léon M. J. Bob

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Delaissé, Léon M. J. Bob

Other Names:

Léon Marie Joseph Bob Delaissé

Gender: male

Date Born: 1914

Date Died: 1972

Place Born: Herzele, East Flanders, Flanders, Belgium

Place Died: Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK

Home Country/ies: Belgium

Subject Area(s): connoisseurship, manuscripts (documents), and Medieval (European)

Career(s): curators

Overview

Connoisseur of illuminated manuscripts; assistant curator at the Department of Manuscripts of the Royal Library in Brussels. He was born in Herseaux, Belgium. which is present day Herzele. Delaissé attended high school at Tournai, Belgium, and studied Romance Philology at the Catholic University of Louvain. During World War II, when Belgium was under German occupation, Delaissé joined the resistance and later fled to Spain, where he was arrested. He subsequently escaped to England, where he trained in the tank corps for the Belgian Army of Liberation. He was wounded at the invasion of Normandy and lost a leg. After his recuperation in England and return to Belgium he obtained an internship in 1946 at the Royal Library in Brussels. In 1947 he became librarian of the manuscripts department. His interest in the history of the medieval book, in particular of illuminated manuscripts, led to a number of important publications. In 1949, his study of the Book of Hours of Mary van Vronensteyn, preserved in the Royal Library, appeared. In 1954 he obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Louvain with a dissertation on an important autograph manuscript of Thomas a Kempis (c. 1380-1471). The dissertation was published in 1956 as Le manuscrit autographe de Thomas a Kempis et ‘L’imitation de Jésus-Christ’. This study shows Delaissé’s interest in the material and technical aspects of manuscripts. This archaeological approach is also found in his studies on manuscript illumination. In 1956 he was appointed assistant curator of the department of manuscripts in the Brussels Royal Library. He wrote the catalog for the exhibition of Flemish illuminated manuscripts produced under the reign of Philip the Good, which was held in Brussels and in Amsterdam in 1959. He classified the manuscripts according to the workshops of the miniaturists as well as to the publishing houses. In 1959 he was given a leave to do research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He remained for an extended period in the United States, during which he lectured at the University of California at Berkeley, and subsequently became visiting lecturer at the Fine Arts Department of Harvard University. In 1964 he resigned his position in Brussels and moved to Oxford where he stayed for the rest of his life, working as a research fellow at All Souls College. As a teacher he attracted students from different disciplines. In 1968 his book, A Century of Dutch Manuscript Illumination, appeared in which he pointed to the originality of the illuminators in the Northern Netherlands and their remarkable sense for the reproduction of nature and reality. From 1967 until his death in 1972, Delaissé, in collaboration with James Marrow, thoroughly studied the 26 manuscripts of the Rothschild collection, dating from the mid thirteenth to the mid-sixteenth century. After his death, the study was completed by John De Wit and edited by Anthony Blunt. In this 1977 publication, Illuminated Manuscripts: the James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, Delaissé’s strong commitment to the archaeology of the book clearly appears. Delaissé often stated that manuscript illumination needed to be studied in relation to all other aspects of the manuscript, in a comprehensive approach which he defined as the archaeology of the medieval book. He also focused on the iconology of the miniatures and on their stylistic characteristics.

Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Le manuscript autographe de Thomas a Kempis et ‘l’imitation de Jésus-Christ’; examen archéologique et edition diplomatique du Bruxellensis 5855-61. University of Louvain, 1954, published, Paris: éditions érasme, 1956; [complete bibliography:] Dogaer, G. and König, E. A Bibliography of L. J. M. Delaissé and a Note on the Delaissé Papers Deposited in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Quaerendo 6 (1976) : 352-359; Le livre d’heures de Mary van Vronensteyn, chef-d’œuvre inconnu d’un atelier d’Utrecht, achevé en 1460. Scriptorium 3 (1949): 230-245; Les ‘Chroniques de Hainaut’ et l’atelier de Jean Wauquelin a Mons, dans l’histoire de la miniature flamande. Miscellanea Panofsky, Bulletin Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts 4 (1955): 21-56; La miniature flamande à l’époque de Philippe le Bon. Milan: Electa editrice, 1956; Le siècle d’or de la miniature flamande: le mécénat de Philippe le Bon., [Dutch: De gouden eeuw der Vlaamse miniatuur: het mecenaat van Filips de Goede 1445-1475.] Brussels: Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, 1959; An Exhibition of Netherlandish Book Illumination. Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin 17 (1960): 94-113; Medieval Miniatures from the Department of Manuscripts (formerly the Library of Burgundy) the Royal Library of Belgium. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1965; A Century of Dutch Manuscript Illumination. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968; and Marrow, James, De Wit, John, and Blunt, Anthony ed. Illuminated Manuscripts: the James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor. Fribourg: Office du livre, 1977.

Sources

L. M. J. Delaissé, Authority on Manuscripts. The Times (Jan. 21, 1972): 14; Gilissen, L. In memoriam L. M. J. Delaissé 1914-1972. Quaerendo 2 (1972): 83-86; Boon, K. G. L. M. J. Delaissé. Burlington Magazine 114 (1972): 246-247; Gazette des Beaux-Arts 80 (1972): sup. 56; Dogaer, G. Delaissé, Léon M.J., kunsthistoricus, conservator, lector. Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek 8 Brussel: Paleis der Academiën, 1979, pp. 221-224.

Contributors: Monique Daniels

Delbrueck, Richard

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Delbrueck, Richard

Other Names:

Richard Delbrück

Gender: male

Date Born: 1875

Date Died: 1957

Place Born: Jena, Thuringia, Germany

Place Died: Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Home Country/ies: Germany

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

Institution(s): Deutsches Archäologisches Institut

Overview

Architectural historian and archaeologist, who stood aloof from the historicization of art history into questions of styles, preferring instead to emphasize the aesthetic uniqueness and impact of classical and medieval art. As a student, he traveled to Rome studying art with Ernst Pfuhl. Professor at Giessen University, 1922-1928, and Bonn University 1928-1940.

Selected Bibliography

Die Consulardiptychen und verwandte Denkmäler. 2 vols. Berlin: 1929; Hellenistische Bauten in Lautium. 2 vols. 1907, 1912; Antike Porphyrwerke. Berlin: 1932; Spätantike Kaiserportäts von Constantinus Magus bis zum Ende des Westreichs. Berlin and Leipzig: 1933.

Sources

Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Modern Perspectives in Western Art History: An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, p. 46 mentioned; Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassichen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Reinhard Lullies, ed. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1988: 188-189.

Contributors: Lee Sorensen

Dangibeaud, Charles

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Dangibeaud, Charles

Other Names:

Charles Dangibeaud

Gender: male

Date Born: unknown

Date Died: unknown

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): Medieval (European) and Romanesque

Overview

Medievalist and Romanesque scholar. Dangibeaud was part of the debate which took nationalistic overtones on the origin of the Romanesque. It had been launched by the American A. Kingsley Porter when he posited that pilgrimage and monastic reform explained the stylistic progress of the Romanesque, eminating not from France, but from Spain. The French academy rejected Porter’s thesis in favor of their regional hierarchy. The attack was led by Paul Deschamps who published the most virulent corrections (Maxwell) to Porter’s evidence. Dechamps was joined by François Deshoulières, Dangibeaud and Eugène Lefèvre-Pontalis who wrote essays attempting to defend the academy’s classification.

Sources

Maxwell, Robert. “Modern Origins of Romanesque Sculpture.” in, Rudolf, Conrad, ed. A Companion to Medieval Art : Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006, pp. 338-339.

Davies, Martin

November 8, 2023April 5, 2024

Full Name: Davies, Martin

Gender: male

Date Born: 1908

Date Died: 1975

Place Died: London, Greater London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: United Kingdom

Subject Area(s): Netherlandish and Northern Renaissance

Overview

Netherlandish scholar, National Gallery, London, Director 1968-1973. Davies was the son of Ernest Davies (1873-1946), a sometime novelist. He received no specialized training in art, other than extended family trips to the continent, especially France, where he developed a love for French Gothic architecture. Davies attended Rugby and King’s College, Cambridge where he concentrated in Modern Languages. He joined the National Gallery as an attaché in 1932, rising to assistant Keeper in charge of Netherlandish and German paintings. He began to publish articles and short notices in the Burlington Magazine. Kenneth Clark was appointed director the following year and, from the first, Davies strongly disagreed with his policies; the pre-war years were therefore ones of frustration. Clark insisted on purchasing artwork directly, sometimes with little or no consultation of the curatorial staff. When Clark convinced the Trustees to purchase two purported Giorgiones without the Keepers even looking at them, Davies protested. His reprieve from infighting came when Gallery objects were transferred to Manod, near Blaenau Ffestiniog, Wales in anticipation of German bombing. Davies was essentially sole caretaker of the objects in Wales. At this he shone. With the War’s conclusion, Clark resigned the directorship (replaced by Philip Hendy) and Davies began authoring the first of his catalogs for the Museum, Early Netherlandish School, 1945 to replace those of 1929. Other painting school catalogs followed. In the post-War years, Davies eschewed the social and lecture circuit, but paid an interest in the Gallery Library, encouraging the collecting of guidebooks, auction catalogs and ephemera, unfortunately at the expense of monographs, for which he held little value (!). The sudden death of the Gallery’s picture keeper William Pettigrew Gibson in 1960 seemed noticeably to soften Davies; his succession to Gibson’s office refocused Davies into more of a cohesive colleague. When Hendy retired as Director, Davies succeeded him in 1968. Davies spent the few years of his directorship planning and implementing an addition to the Gallery building. The painting “Death of Actaeon” by Titian was acquired during his tenure after a successful public appeal in 1972. When a Roger van der Weyden was discovered, Davies acquired it for the Gallery, writing his only monograph on it in 1973. That same year he retired as Director, succeeded by Michael Levey. As a scholar, Davies brought healthy if extreme suspicion to the operation of the museum world. He was part of what Denys Sutton called the generation of museum scholars who emerged in the 1930s replacing “slapdash working methods” with skepticism for all but established fact. According to Clark, Davies doubted even the authenticity of the Giotto frescos in the Arena Chapel because they lacked documentation. Fundamentally conservative, Davies “placed under a Puritan ban” on the acquisition of Rococo art (Levey), though he purchased a Tintoretto for the Gallery during his tenure. His row with Clark was open and long-lasting. His successor, Levey, wrote that with Davies, “a good deal of caprice was displayed. [He possessed] strangely violent prejudices and a tartness veering at times towards the cruel…”. His catalogs of the Gallery were his major publishing venue and established him as a scholar. He was that brand of scholar/civil servant whose entire life was his job.

Selected Bibliography

The Early Netherlandish School. London: National Gallery, 1945; The Earlier Italian Schools. vols. London : National Gallery, 1951-; The National Gallery. 3 vols. Primitifs flamands. I, Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pays-Bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle. Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1953-1970; and Gould, Cecil. French School: Early 19th Century, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists etc. London: National Gallery, 1970; Rogier van der Weyden; an Essay, with a Critical Catalogue of Paintings Assigned to Him and to Robert Campin. London: Phaidon, 1972.

Sources

Clark, Kenneth. The Other Half: a Self Portrait. New York: Harper & Row, 1977, pp. 7-8; Secrest, Meryle. Kenneth Clark: a Biography. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985, pp. 141-142; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 515; [obituaries:] Levey, Michael. “Sir Martin Davies.” Burlington Magazine 117, no. 872 (November 1975): 729-731; S[utton], D[enys]. “Sir Martin Davies.” Apollo 101 (May 1975): 417.

Davis, Howard McP.

November 8, 2023April 5, 2024

Full Name: Davis, Howard McParlin

Other Names:

Howard McParlin Davis

Gender: male

Date Born: 1914

Date Died: 1994

Place Born: Baltimore, Baltimore Independent City, MD, USA

Place Died: New York, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Career(s): educators

Overview

Influential undergraduate professor of art history at Columbia University. Davis graduated from Princeton University in 1936 with a degree in French languages and literatures. He received a Carnegie Fellowship in 1937, studying summers at the Institut d’Art et d’Arch’ologie in Paris and in Brussels on a Belgian-American Educational Foundation Fellowship, 1938. His master’s degree in fine arts was granted in 1939. He joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art the same year as a curator in first the medieval art department (through 1942) and then prints and drawings (through 1944). He lectured in art history at Hunter college for two years before joining Columbia University in 1944. He became an assistant professor in 1947.

Davis was hired to teach Columbia’s “Art Humanities” course, an interdisciplinary offering, but when the Italian Renaissance course suddenly needed to be filled the same year, Davis obliged. He taught a northern Renaissance continually thereafter as well as the Art Humanities course, which also spanned forty years. He received a Fulbright Senior Research Grant to Italy in 1950-51, where he focused on Bernini. In 1954 he advanced to associate professor. He served the board of directors of the College Art Association as secretary between 1957 and 1960 and as vice-president for 1959-1960. He was named full professor in 1962. In 1968 he received the Mark van Doren Award at Columbia College for teaching. He served as chair of the Department of Art and Archaeology from 1969 to 1972. He was named Moore Collegiate Professor of Art History in 1980. In 1984 he was awarded a distinguished teaching award by the College Art Association and retired in 1985. He continued to teach the Art Humanities course until 1991. He died of heart failure at age 79. His daughter, Alison McParlin Davis-Murphy, is a photographer. Davis published almost nothing during his career; his reputation was as a teacher. His classes in Italian Renaissance painting and on Northern European painting were among the most popular undergraduate courses at Columbia. Although his lack of a Ph.D. prevented him from advising graduate students, many eminent art historians, however, first learned of the topic through Davis, among them David Rosand, now professor at Columbia.

Selected Bibliography

Florine Stettheimer: an Exhibition of Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings. New York: Columbia University, 1973;
“Fantasy and Irony in Peter Bruegel’s Prints.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 1 (June 1943): 291-5.

Sources

Rosand, David. “Introductory Note.” Source: Notes in the History of Art 5 no. 1 (Fall 1985): 1;
Rothstein, Mervyn. “A Classic Teacher Nears Career’s End at Columbia” The New York Times October 15, 1984, p. B3;
[obituaries:] Grimes, William. “Howard McParlin Davis, 79, Taught Art History at Columbia.” New York Times September 17, 1994, p. 12;
Art News 93 (November 1994): 48; “Howard Davis, Art Historian, Dies at 79.” Columbia University Record 20 no. 3 (September 23, 1994).

Davy, M.-M.

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Davy, M.-M.

Other Names:

Marie-Madeleine Davy

Gender: unknown

Date Born: 1903

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): Medieval (European) and Romanesque

Overview

Medievalist, specialist in Romanesque.Davy’s essay Essai sur la symbolique romane dealt with the creative power of the eleventh century (Sypher).

Selected Bibliography

Essai sur la symbolique romane (XIIe siècle). Paris: Flammarion, 1955.

Sources

Sypher, Wylie, ed. Art History; an Anthology of Modern Criticism. Gloucester, MA: P. Smith, 1975, p. 117, mentioned; Davy, Marie-Madeleine. Traversée en solitaire. Paris: A. Michel, 1989

Medievalist, specialist in Romanesque.Davy’s essay Essai sur la symbolique romane dealt with the creative power of the eleventh century (Sypher).

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