Kunstgeschichte

History of Art: In Austria the academic discipline of history of art developed from the study of history and devised an autonomous methodology. There are university departments of art history in Graz, Innsbruck, Salzburg and Vienna; the Institute of Art History at the University of Vienna being the largest and the oldest. The Vienna School of art history has always had an important influence on the international development of the discipline; close connections to institutions of monument preservation and to museums, as well as to contemporary culture have played an important role in this process. The scholars E. Melly (1814-1854) and G. Heider (1819-1897), as well as the artist and collector J. D. Böhm are among the forerunners and founding fathers of the discipline. Art history was fully recognised with the establishment of a professorship for R. Eitelberger von Edelberg in 1852. M. Thausing paved the way for scientific methods, which gained worldwide reputation through the work of F. Wickhoff, A. Riegl, M. Dvorák, J. von Schlosser, J. Strzygowski, H. Tietze and other representatives of the "old" Vienna School. H. Sedlmayr, K. M. Swoboda, F. Novotny and above all O. Pächt had a decisive influence on it's development after 1945, as did E. Gombrich, who had emigrated to England. O. Demus and W. Sas-Zaloziecky studied Byzantine art, R. Wagner-Rieger was renowned for his research in architecture and Historicism, H. Fillitz and G. Schmidt devoted themselves mainly to the Middle Ages. The universities of Vienna and Salzburg both have chairs of art history.

Literature: J. von Schlosser, Die Wiener Schule der Kunstgeschichte, 1934; S. Krenn and M. Pippal (ed.), Wien und die Entwicklung der kunsthistorischen Methode, 1984; E. Lachnit, Die Wiener Schule und die Gründerzeit der Kunstgeschichte, in: Das Zeitalter Kaiser Franz Josephs, vol. 1, 1984.