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Max Dvořák, Rudolf Carnap and the question of Weltanschauung vs. Weltauffassung
Get PDFThis paper takes a comparative approach to the later work of Max Dvořák (Czechia 1874–1921) and the early writings of Rudolf Carnap (Germany 1891–USA 1970). The texts will be viewed in their context, with a particular eye to the historical conditions that shaped the problems tackled by both thinkers. My starting point is the dispute around the concepts of Weltanschauung (world-view) and wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung (scientific world-conception) that took place in the 1920s. On the basis of this dispute, it would be easy to conclude that Dvořák’s Geistesgeschichte (often translated as “history of ideas” or “intellectual history”) is the direct opposite of Carnap’s Wissenschaftstheorie (theory of science). However, as this study will prove, such a view is inadequate.
The first section concerns the intellectual starting situation of the two thinkers under discussion. The situation in which Dvořák and Carnap operated was shaped by currents rooted in the Enlightenment and in Romanticism. The second section will address what is usually called the nineteenth-century German Bildungstradition (roughly, “educational tradition”; see below), which is relevant to both Dvořák and Carnap, approaching it as a variant of Enlightenment culture. The third section will describe those aspects of the philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey—whose own work was rooted in this specifically German tradition—which was a common source of inspiration for both thinkers, and forms a connection between their respective bodies of work. Building on this, the fourth section will look in detail at Dilthey’s reception in Dvořák and Carnap. Finally, I will demonstrate that Carnap and Dvořák’s approaches are not opposed at all. Rather, they complement and complete one another
Plan S briefing for Academic Staff - December 2020
Get PDFBriefing for academic staff who are likely to be impacted by the introduction of Plan S associated Open Access policies from January 2021. Provides guidance for complying with policies when submitting to journals and specific local advice to apply for funding of Ariticle Processing Charge
Convenient misunderstandings: Winckelmann’s History of Art and the reception of meteorocultural models in Britain
Get PDFThis essay deals with two much misunderstood aspects of Winckelmann’s work, his notion of the relations between art and climate and the fierce disputes his environmental model of culture engendered in Britain. Revisiting present-day suspicions towards Winckelmann’s climate language as a reductive and determinist ‘curiosity’, this essay aims to restore its historical significance as an interactive way of exploring the interconnectedness between the development of art and its changing material contexts, and to reveal its special place in the birth of art history as a discipline.
The study of the British reception of Winckelmann’s climate theory remains a rich resource in the critical understanding and historiographical evaluation of his contribution in art history. The controversies it generated produced a mixed and fragmented picture. This essay retrieves the many social, professional, and national interests embedded in these climate-related controversies in art and suggests that such competing motivations marked indelibly understandings of Winckelmann’s art historical model as well as his standing in Britain
A higher architectural unity”: Max Dvořák on new buildings in historical settings
Get PDFIn the early 20th century, heritage conservation in Central Europe extended the focus of its interest to old towns seen as a whole. Around the same time, the first buildings in the Modernist style began to be introduced into these historical urban settings, and so the question of their ‘contextuality’ arose for the first time. Several texts written by Max Dvořák reacted to both these processes. Dvořák was an opponent of Historicism, and so he did not object to the introduction of Modernism into old towns, but only on condition that a ‘higher architectural unity’ or ‘internal unity’ of old and new was created. Otto Wagner’s designs for the Karlsplatz in Vienna did not meet with Dvořák’s approval because they broke away too radically from the old architectural culture and did not work towards a ‘higher unity’. Dvořák cooperated with the Club for Old Prague on the conservation of heritage sites in Prague. However, the Club had a greater predilection for Modernism than he did. The problem with the terms used by Dvořák lies in their aesthetic nature. This means that they are too open to subjective interpretations
Nomadic arts in emigration: Russian diaspora, Czechoslovakia, and the broken dream of a borderless Europe (1918–45)
Get PDFIn 1925, Nikodim Kondakov died in emigration in Prague. During his last years in Czechoslovakia, the Byzantinist had been asked to teach on nomadic art, a topic to which he had devoted only his early career. This essay aims to understand why Kondakov returned to these interests. Kondakov was indeed not the only scholar drawn to the material culture of nomadic peoples, a topic which became fundamental in Czechoslovakia, a new “nation-state” seeking its identity. This movement was further fostered by the presence of numerous Russian émigrés in Czechoslovakia, who developed the idea of “Eurasia”. These notions came to be explored by scholars from diverse backgrounds, living in Mitteleuropa, a space then shattered by the rise of totalitarianisms and WWII
The many meanings of a gestural motif
Get PDFIn an insightful 1887 essay, the Danish art historian Julius Lange explored the many meanings of a common but overlooked gesture—that of bringing a hand to one’s chest. Through a close study of how this motif changed across centuries of European art, he raised questions about the nature of bodily meaning, its multiplicity, and the forces that shape it—questions that contemporary gesture researchers still grapple with. His essay also raised questions—tantalizing if perhaps unanswerable—about how gesture in art compares to gesture in life
First Steps in Urban Heat for Built Environment Practitioners
Get PDFFuture summer temperatures are projected to increase, with hotter and more frequent heatwaves. This will increase heat mortality, impact infrastructure performance, and increase demand for air conditioning at a time when councils need to reduce energy demand to meet Net Zero obligations. Urban areas need to be resilient to future warmer summers and increasing overheating risks. This guide explains urban heat, the role of green infrastructure, and how to undertake heat sensitive planning and design
Introduction: ‘Historic libraries and the historiography of art’: articles arising from sessions held at the 107th College Art Association Annual Conference, New York, 13-16 February 2019, and the 108th College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, 12-15 February 2020
Get PDFHow libraries have shaped the writing and reception of art history and criticism was explored in two sessions held at the College Art Association’s 2019 and 2020 annual conferences. The papers, revised and presented in the following pages, employ a range of methodologies to analyse key collections of books, prints and manuscripts. In so doing, their authors shed new light on the collections’ creation, organisation, and use. At the same time, the authors demonstrate that libraries constitute underutilized but vital resources for understanding the social, intellectual, and geo-political frameworks that have informed the development of art history as a discipline
On spectacles and magnifying glasses: the connoisseur in action
Get PDFThe development of optical devices in the course of the seventeenth century had a profound impact on the history of science, leading disciplines such as physics, astronomy, and biology to a major experimental and visual revolution. The introduction of such instruments in the field of connoisseurship has, strangely enough, attracted less scholarly attention. Yet, as Watteau’s famous Enseigne de Gersaint (1720) testifies, the practice of looking through a lens to scrutinise artworks was already well-established at the beginning of the eighteenth century and considered an important tool of expertise. The present article focuses on the beginning of this tradition, aiming to examine the changes it generated in the reception of artworks as well as to explore its repercussions on early modern art theory. In this context, the role played by vision aids in the art expert’s discourse will be a par
“Il più bello gabinetto delle stampe che esiste”: a (failed) project for the Ortalli collection of prints at the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma
Get PDFAfter having been valued mainly as conveyors of visual information, prints in nineteenth-century western Europe came to be recognised as works of art. In some cases this led to a reconsideration of the location of print collections in public institutions, but moving them was not always easy. This article reconstructs Paul J. Kristeller’s (failed) project to hand over Ortalli albums of prints from the Biblioteca Palatina to the royal art museum in Parma (1893–1898) by tracing arguments used to support or oppose the relocation. By studying local events in the context of a national plan designed to reorganise print collections following foreign examples, the article shows the extent to which the status of prints and print collections grounded the Palatina director’s opposition to the project, and how this contributed to the preservation of the collection’s historical memory and the shaping of current frameworks of public print collections in Italy
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