Full Name: Weisbach, Werner
Gender: male
Date Born: 1873
Date Died: 1953
Place Born: Berlin, Germany
Place Died: Basel, Basle-Town, Switzerland
Home Country/ies: Switzerland
Overview
Professor of art history, Basel [1933]; Heinrich Wölfflin friend; Vienna School; contributed to an early-twentieth century re-evaluation of the Baroque style. Weisbach was a student of Robert Vischer. In 1924 Weisbach wrote the volume for the prestigious Propyläen Kunstgeschichte on baroque art, which he dedicated to theologian Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923). Weisbach was one of the first to write an analysis of Italian Mannerism. While he did not appreciate it as an art movement (as Walter F. Friedländer, would beginning in his 1914 inaugural lecture at Freiburg), he made the connection with the abstracting and stylizing techniques of his own era, German Expressionism. His students included Richard Krautheimer, who wrote his dissertation under him.
Selected Bibliography
Der Barock als Kunst der Gegenreformation. Berlin: P. Cassirer, 1921. Religiöse Reform und mittelalterliche Kunst. Zürich: Benziger, 1945; Trionfi. Berlin: G. Grote, 1919; Francesco Pesellino und die Romantik der Renaissance. Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1901; Manierismus in mittelatterlicher Kunst. Basel: Verlag Birkhäuser, 1942; Die Kunst des Barock in Italien, Frankreich, Deutschland und Spanien. Propyläen-Kunstgeschichte 11. Berlin: Propyläen-Verlag, 1924; Der Meister der Bergmannschen Officin und Albrecht Dürer’s Beziehungen zur Basler Buchillustration. Studien zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte 1, part 6. Baden-Baden: V. Koerner, 1971; Die Baseler Buchillustration des XV. Jahrhunderts. Studien zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte 1, part 8. Baden-Baden: V. Koerner, 1971; Spanish Baroque Art: Three Lectures Delivered at the University of London. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1941; Französische malerei des XVII. jahrhunderts im rahmen von kultur und gesellschaft. Berlin: H. Keller, 1932; Impressionismus: ein Problem der Malerei in der Antike und Neuzeit. Berlin: G. Grote’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1910-1911; Der Manierismus.” Zeitschrift für bildenden Kunst 30.
Sources
Watkin, David. The Rise of Architectural History. London: Architectural, Press, 1980, p. 495; Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Research Guide to the History of Western Art. Sources of Information in the Humanities, no. 2. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982, p. 153 mentioned; 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. 98; Belting, Hans. The End of the History of Art? [translation of Das Ende der Kunstgeschichte?] 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987, p. 37; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire d l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 185; Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon: zweihundert Porträts deutschsprachiger Autoren aus vier Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, pp. 458-61; 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. 728-732; Posner, Donald. “Introduction.” Friedlaender, Walter. Mannerism and Anti-Mannerism in Italian Painting. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1965, pp. xii; Dodgson, Campbell. “Two Versions of the Prodigal Son: Summary of Prof Weisbach’s Arguments.” Burlington Magazine 74 (May 1939): 228-9ff.