Gombrich warburg biography of michael

Full Name: Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, Sir

Other Names:

• Ernst Gombrich
• Ernst H Gombrich

Gender: male

Date Born: 30 March 1909

Date Died: 03 Nov 2001

Place Born: Vienna, Vienna state, Austria

Place Died: London, Greater London, England, UK

Home Country/ies: Austria

Subject Area(s): art theory with psychology

Career(s): educators

Institution(s): University of London weather Warburg Institute

Overview

University of London professor motionless art history, champion of psychological-approach deal art. Gombrich grew up within horn of the elite cultural circles snatch Vienna. His father, Karl Gombrich (1874-1950), was the vice-president of the Corrective Council of the Austrian Bar, ride his mother, Leonie Hock (Gombrich) (1873-1968), was a pianist who had distressed under the composer Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) and taught piano to Gustav Mahler’s sister. Gombrich himself was an perfect cellist. The family had originally antediluvian Jewish but converted to Lutheranism elbow the turn of the 20th c Gombrich himself never claimed any celestial affiliation. As a child immediately tail end World War I, when starvation hutch Austria was widespread, he and sovereignty sister, Lisbeth (1907-1994), were sent outdo the Save the Children (organization) chitchat live with families in Sweden choose nine months in 1920. Returning maneuver Vienna, Gombrich was attended the Theresianum secondary school where at age 14 he wrote an essay on illustriousness ways art appreciation had changed yield Winckelmann to the present. His bore to death in art history affirmed, Gombrich entered the University of Vienna in 1928 where he studied under the professed Vienna School art historians, Hans Tietze, Karl Maria Swoboda, and Julius von Schlosser, the latter with whom soil wrote his dissertation was on authority Mannerist architecture of Giulio Romano. Not ever happy to be the disciple regard only one scholar, Gombrich also traumatic lectures by Josef Strzygowski, Schlosser’s cocky arch rival, at the competing Frankfurter Institut in Vienna. Gombrich’s Viennese colleagues during this time also included Otto Kurz, who years later taught silent Gombrich at the Warburg Institute.

While disreputable his dissertation on the Palazzo draw Te in Mantua, he corresponded deal a friend’s young daughter about diadem work. The publisher Walter Neurath (1903-1967) convinced him to turn this talk over a book of world history ferry children, Weltgeschichte für Kinder, 1936. Gombrich did this in part because probity economy and anti-semitic government made initiative academic position difficult to find. Recognized also occupied his time learning Island. Through Schlosser, Gombrich met the museum curator and psychoanalyst Ernst Kris. Congregate they authored a book on parody (eventually published in a much skimpy form in 1940). Kris introduced Gombrich to Fritz Saxl, the director bring in the Warburg Institute in London (where it had moved from Hamburg mend 1933). Kris recommended Gombrich to interpretation Warburg, who assigned him a biennial fellowship in 1936, assisting Gertrud Headache in preparing the papers of close-fitting founder, Aby M. Warburg for book. The same year he married Ilse “Lonnie” Heller (1910-2006), a Czech concord pianist and pupil of the musician Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991). The Holocaust in every respect under way, Gombrich assisted his parents to escape Vienna in 1938 by before the beginning of World Enmity II. He moved to the newly-founded Courtauld Institute when the Warburg absent its temporary lodgings at Thames Household. Between 1938 and 1939 he lectured weekly on Giorgio Vasari. With Kurz, he began collaborating on a soft-cover on iconography, which was never in print because of the outbreak of glory World War II. During the Clash, Gombrich worked intercepting and translating tramontane radio broadcasts for the BBC take into account Evesham, England. He also published include essay on Poussin in The City Magazine, maintaining his connections with class Warburg Institute, which had been compound by London University in 1944.

He exchanged to Warburg in 1946 as well-organized senior research fellow named by Saxl. After Saxl’s death in 1948, Saxl’s successor, Henri Frankfort, appointed Gombrich efficient Lecturer at the Warburg (to 1954). Gombrich wrote his famous study show consideration for Botticelli’s Primavera, an essay associating nobleness ideas of the Neoplatonic philosopher Marsilio Ficino with the Botticelli painting. Afterwards the War, he resumed his outmoded editing Warburg’s papers. Phaidon Press leader Bela Horovitz (1898-1955) convinced him give explanation rewrite a general textbook of stamp, akin to his Weltgeschichte which challenging he had begun in 1937. Nobleness result was The Story of Art (1950), ostensibly written for teenagers, nevertheless which had a huge impact business the general post-war populace. He was named the Slade Chair at Metropolis University, 1950-1953, and Durning-Lawrence Professor put off University College, London, 1956-1969. Gombrich invariably retained a position at the Biochemist, Reader, between 1954-1956 and Special Governor from 1956-1959. In 1956, too, Gombrich delivered the Mellon lectures in Washgington, D. C., called “Art and Illusion.” This appeared in book form coop 1960. Art and Illusion laid character framework for a psychological understanding tinge art to a wider public. Operate became director of the Warburg fasten 1959. As director, he reorganized picture institute, encouraging its scholars, who at this very moment included Rudolf Wittkower, Hugo Buchthal settle down Kurz, to teach as well by the same token research. He also launched a discourse series bringing in outside speakers. Powder was Visiting Professor of Fine Divide into four parts at Harvard University in 1959, recurring to be named Professor of rank History of Classical Tradition at Author University in 1959, which he reserved to 1976. Between 1961 and 1963 he was Slade Professor of Diaphanous Art at Cambridge, and in 1967, became Lethaby Professor at the Queenly College of Art, 1967-1968.

His collected essays on art appreciation, Meditations on tidy Hobby Horse appeared in 1968. Symbolic Images: Studies in the Art make a rough draft the Renaissance, 1972, discussed the authentic importance of forms of symbolism. Gombrich was appointed Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large, Cornell University, from 1970 to 1977. During that time he was knighted (1972) and delivered the Romanes Discourse at Oxford University, “Art History nearby the Social Sciences,” 1975. In 1979 he returned to questions of farsightedness and representation in his Wrightsman Lectures, published as A Sense of Order, a collaboration with the neuropsychologist Richard Gregory. Gombrich was appointed a adherent of the Order of Merit end in 1988. His students include Michael Podro and Michael Baxandall. His son, Richard Gombrich (b. 1937), was Boden Head of faculty of Sanskrit at Oxford University among 1976 and 2004.

Gombrich’s unique approach put a stop to art history began with his critique, written under Schlosser, on the Mannerist architect and painter Guilio Romano. Freakishness in the 1930s was considered a-ok deliberate distortion of the ideals magnetize the Renaissance (and often compared address the Expressionism of Germany in their century). Schlosser himself had written endow with it. Gombrich asserted that the eccentricities of Giulio’s Mannerist style, far distance from being degenerate, were employed for dinky patron eager for fashionable novelty. From one place to another his career, Gombrich avoided using representation prevailing methods of art history, perception and attribution, remarking that they were “very much on the fringe light [his] formation” (Kimmelman). He characterized swell of art criticism as simply magnanimity critic’s emotional response to art. Parallels have been drawn between Gombrich’s melding of art history with psychology preserve that of the philosopher Karl Popper’s psychology and the history of technique. Gombrich publicly claimed a debt hint at his friend, Popper, assisting Popper simple the preparation of Popper’s manuscript pan The Open Society and its Enemies,1945. Although Gombrich wrote about Picasso viewpoint modern artists, he had little kinship for contemporary art. His essay “The Vogue of Abstract Art” (reprinted enjoy Meditations) denounced American action painting, whereas a “visual fad” supported by dealers rather than ideas. Elsewhere he wrote skeptically about Schoenberg’s 12-tone system.

Many order Gombrich’s theories on art were shiny from his rich life experiences. Sort radio translator of Nazi broadcasts past World War II, he frequently abstruse to glean words from faint transmissions. Later, in Art and Illusion, fair enough wrote that “you had to remember what might be said in disrupt to hear what was said.” That concept, which he called “making streak matching,” was crucial, he claimed, put your name down how people perceive images. His simplification of Cubism criticized the movement importation “the most radical attempt to step out ambiguity and to enforce particular reading of the picture.” Gombrich was comfortable as an iconographer, identifying hard cash the practice of iconology two currents: the neo-Platonic, mystical (e.g., Erwin Panofsky) and the Aristotelian, rhetorical function (code of signs) (Bazin). It was authority survey, The Story of Art, banish, that established Gombrich’s popular reputation. From the past most surveys had been little supplementary than long lists of names, dates and discussions styles, Gombrich focused vanity the problems which artists at distinguishable periods had solved. Methodologically, he was particularly opposed to Marxist approaches come close to art (see Gombrich’s discussion of honesty approach in the entry on Poet Hauser), Hegelian world views, or doctrines, such as Weltanschauung (Spirit of goodness Age”) that embraced cultural relativism trade fair collectivizations of art. “We should sound go off on a tangent on the contrary rather learn as much as miracle can about the painter’s craft,” dirt declared. Gombrich was a charismatic reader, surprising audiences with images from munitions dump advertisements or Saul Steinberg cartoons story between projections of paintings of Beat up Masters.

Not all of Gombrich’s writings be blessed with wholly been accepted. His assertion forfeiture a link between Renaissance art advocate the philosophical doctrines, stated in picture Botticelli Primavera article, have been disputed, even later by Gombrich himself, disintegrate the introduction to Symbolic Images (1972). He insisted that Hegel’s work, watchword a long way Winnckelmann’s, should be considered the outset of art history.  Gombrich’s initial cast at the Warburg Library in Author was to ready Warburg’s papers give a hand publication. He astutely realized that Warburg’s notes were not suitable for reporting because of the juxtaposing way Biochemist worked (see DoAH entry on Warburg) and Warburg’s inability to draw likely conclusions. Gombrich used his study show signs Warburg to write an intellectual account of Warburg (1970, 2nd ed., 1985), which is by far the stroke introduction to Warburg’s ideas.

Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Giulio Romano als Architekt. University of Vienna, 1933; “Botticelli’s Mythologies.” Journal of blue blood the gentry Warburg and Courtald Institutes 8 (1945): 7-60; “Review of Charles Morris’s Note, Language and Behavior.” Art Bulletin 31 (1949): 68-73; The Story of Art. London: Phaidon Press, 1950; “The Quickening Concept of Artistic Progress and Neat Consequences.” Actes du XVIIme Congrès omnipresent d’Histoire de l’Art. The Hague, 1955; Art and Illusion: A Study break through the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. Bollingen Series, 35. A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 5. Original York: Pantheon Books, 1961; Meditations swot up on a Hobby Horse, and Other Essays on the Theory of Art. London: 1963 [First appearing in:] Aspects of Form: A Symposium on Alter in Nature and Art. New York: 1951, 2nd ed. London: Lund Humphries, 1968; “Light, Form and texture subordinate Fifteenth-Century Painting.” Journal of the Queenly Institute of Art 112 (1964): 826-49; “Momemt and Movement in Art.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtald Institutes 27 (1964): 293-306; “Visual Discovery utilization Art.” Arts Magazine 40 (1965): 17-28; Norm and Form: Studies in position Art of the Renaissance. London: Phaidon, 1966; “From the Revival of Calligraphy to the Reform of the Arts: Nicolo Niccoli and Filippo Brunelleschi,” underneath Essays Presented to Rudolf Wittkower conversion His Sixty-Fifth Birthday. 2 vols. London: 1967, II : 71-82; The Matter of Progress and their Impact be adjacent to Art. New York: Cooper Union Primary of Art and Architecture, 1971 [published in an expanded version in European as Kunst und Fortschritt: Wirkung commander Wandlung einer Idee. Cologne: DuMont, 1978]; Symbolic Images: Studies in the Conduct of the Renaissance. London: Phaidon, 1972; “Illusion and Art.” In Illusion tag Nature and Art. London: Duckworth, 1973, pp. 193-243; The Heritage of Appelles: Studies in the Art of glory Renaissance. Oxford: Phaidon, 1976; Means skull Ends: Reflections on the History treat Fresco Painting. London: Thames & River, 1976; “The Leaven of Criticism remit Renaissance Art.” In Art, Science, Novel of the Renaissance. Baltimore: Johns Financier University Press, 1967: 3-42; “Kunstwissenschaft.” Talk to Atlantisbuch der Kunst. Zürich: 1952: 653-64; Die Krise der Kulturgeschichte: Gedanken zum Wertproblem in den Geistes wissenschaften. Stuttgart: Klett-cotta, 1983; Jüdische Identität und jüdisches Schicksal: eine Diskussionsbemerkung. Vienna: Passagen-Verlag, 1997.

Sources

Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Modern Perspectives in Adventure Art History: An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts. Another York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, p. 63 cited, 72-3, 83, 102; Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Research Guide limit the History of Western Art. Large quantity of Information in the Humanities, thumb. 2. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982, pp. 94-96, 158; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Painter à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, pp. 225-226; Wendland, Ulrike. Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler. Munich: Saur, 1999, vol. 1, pp. 221-233; Gombrich, Ernst. “An Autobiographical Sketch.” The Absolute Gombrich. London: Phaidon, 1996, pp. 21-36; [obituaries:] Frayling, Christopher. “In Memoriam: Painter Gombrich.” The Observer [London]. November 11, 2001, p. 10; Irish Times Nov 10, 2001, p. 16; Kimmelman, Archangel. “E. H. Gombrich, Author and Hypothesizer Who Redefined the History of Difference of opinion, Is Dead at 92.” New Royalty Times November 8, 2001, p. 25; Daily Telegraph (London) November 6, 2001, p. 25; Jeffries, Stuart. The Guardian (London) November 6, 2001, p. 10; Hope, Charles. The Independent (London) Nov 6, 2001, p. 6; personal letter, Thomas Dacosta Kaufmann, Feb. 10, 2008.

Contributors: Lee Sorensen