- Department of Art History
Masaryk University, Brno
Veveří 470/28
602 00 Brno
Matthew Rampley
Masaryk University, Art History, Faculty Member
- History of Art, Vienna School of Art History, Alois Riegl, Aby Warburg, Critical Theory, Wittgenstein, and 21 moreHistoriography (in Art History), The Cultural History of Austria-Hungary, Modernism, Iconography, Museum Studies, Aesthetics, Erwin Panofsky, Habsburg Studies, World Art History, Central and Eastern Europe, Nationalism, Immanuel Kant, Creativity studies, Renaissance, Social Memory, Vienna, Papua New Guinea (Pacific Islands art), El Greco, Aby Warburg. Mnemosyne-Atlas, Museum for Art and Industry, and Wilhelm Exneredit
Liberalism, Nationalism and Design Reform in the Habsburg Empire is a study of museums of design and applied arts in Austria-Hungary from 1864 to 1914. The Museum for Art and Industry (now the Museum of Applied Arts) as well as its design... more
Liberalism, Nationalism and Design Reform in the Habsburg Empire is a study of museums of design and applied arts in Austria-Hungary from 1864 to 1914. The Museum for Art and Industry (now the Museum of Applied Arts) as well as its design school occupies a prominent place in the study. The book also gives equal attention to museums of design and applied arts in cities elsewhere in the Empire, such as Budapest, Prague, Cracow, Brno and Zagreb. The book is shaped by two broad concerns: the role of liberalism as a political, cultural and economic ideology motivating the museums’ foundation, and their engagement with the politics of imperial, national and regional identity of the late Habsburg Empire. This book will be of interest for scholars of art history, museum studies, design history, and European history.
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The surge of evolutionary and neurological analyses of art and its effects raises questions of how art, culture, and the biological sciences influence one another, and what we gain in applying scientific methods to the interpretation of... more
The surge of evolutionary and neurological analyses of art and its effects raises questions of how art, culture, and the biological sciences influence one another, and what we gain in applying scientific methods to the interpretation of artwork. In this insightful book, Matthew Rampley addresses these questions by exploring key areas where Darwinism, neuroscience, and art history intersect.
Taking a scientific approach to understanding art has led to novel and provocative ideas about its origins, the basis of aesthetic experience, and the nature of research into art and the humanities. Rampley’s inquiry examines models of artistic development, the theories and development of aesthetic response, and ideas about brain processes underlying creative work. He considers the validity of the arguments put forward by advocates of evolutionary and neuroscientific analysis, as well as its value as a way of understanding art and culture. With the goal of bridging the divide between science and culture, Rampley advocates for wider recognition of the human motivations that drive inquiry of all types, and he argues that our engagement with art can never be encapsulated in a single notion of scientific knowledge.
Taking a scientific approach to understanding art has led to novel and provocative ideas about its origins, the basis of aesthetic experience, and the nature of research into art and the humanities. Rampley’s inquiry examines models of artistic development, the theories and development of aesthetic response, and ideas about brain processes underlying creative work. He considers the validity of the arguments put forward by advocates of evolutionary and neuroscientific analysis, as well as its value as a way of understanding art and culture. With the goal of bridging the divide between science and culture, Rampley advocates for wider recognition of the human motivations that drive inquiry of all types, and he argues that our engagement with art can never be encapsulated in a single notion of scientific knowledge.
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... Works by Nietzsche A The Antichrist BGE Beyond Good and Evil BT The Birth of Tragedy CW The Case gf Wagner D Daybreak EH Ecce Homo GS The Gay Science HAH Human All lbo Human KSA Werke, Kritische Studienausgabe NC W Nietzsche contra... more
... Works by Nietzsche A The Antichrist BGE Beyond Good and Evil BT The Birth of Tragedy CW The Case gf Wagner D Daybreak EH Ecce Homo GS The Gay Science HAH Human All lbo Human KSA Werke, Kritische Studienausgabe NC W Nietzsche contra Wagner OGM On the ...
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The artistic and cultural life of Austria after World War I has often been presented in a gloomy light. As one contributor to a recent multivolume history of Austrian art commented, “the era between the two world wars is for long periods... more
The artistic and cultural life of Austria after World War I has often been presented in a gloomy light. As one contributor to a recent multivolume history of Austrian art commented, “the era between the two world wars is for long periods a time of indecision and fragmentation, of stagnation and loss of orientation … the 20 years of the First Republic of 1918–1938 did not provide a unified or convincing image.” For many this sense of disorientation and stagnation is symbolized poignantly by the deaths in 1918 of three leading creative figures of the modern period, Otto Wagner, Gustav Klimt, and Egon Schiele, two of whom succumbed to the influenza epidemic of that year. According to this view, war not only led to the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy (and a dramatic political caesura), it also caused or, at the very least coincided with, a profound interruption to artistic life and brought Vienna's cultural preeminence in central Europe to an end. The inhabitants of the newly cons...
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Experiment with Two Negatives represents a time in the life of Irena Blühová that allowed a more light-hearted use of the camera compared to her photo-activism in Czechoslovakia.
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This review offers a critical summary of Bredekamp's Image Acts. Identifying Bredekamp's theory of the image act as an attempt to provide a general Warburg theory of the image, it argues that despite the impressively wide-ranging... more
This review offers a critical summary of Bredekamp's Image Acts. Identifying Bredekamp's theory of the image act as an attempt to provide a general Warburg theory of the image, it argues that despite the impressively wide-ranging and ambitious scope of the study, it is theoretically undetermined. Agency is a central term, but the book lacks a theory or even working definition of agency, which makes it different to understand the force of some of Bredekamp's claims. The review contrasts Bredekamp with Alfred Gell, whose Art and Agency focused on anthropological study of the ascriptions of agency to images in different cultures and the structure of such ascriptions. It argues that Image Acts ends up being neither a fully worked-out theory of visual agency nor a historical or anthropological account of attributions of agency, and its purpose and focus consequently remains ambiguous.
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The development of art in Austria after 1918 remains little explored; the main focus of research continues to be fin-de-siècle Vienna. Where interwar Austrian modernism is studied at all, interest is mostly limited to the municipal... more
The development of art in Austria after 1918 remains little explored; the main focus of research continues to be fin-de-siècle Vienna. Where interwar Austrian modernism is studied at all, interest is mostly limited to the municipal housing sponsored by the Social Democratic council. The main concern of this essay is to examine the reasons for this inconsistency and comparative neglect. It explores the ways in which the historiography of Austrian post-war modernism has been informed by wider historical assumptions, about the role of the First World War as a cultural-political caesura, for instance, or by ambivalence about interwar Austrian history and its slide into fascism, or valorization of the avant-garde. A comparison is also drawn with accounts of art in interwar Czechoslovakia, where modernist practices are much celebrated since they have assumed a legitimating function for Czech and Slovak culture in the present.
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Rudolf von Eitelberger: Netzwerker der Kunstgeschichte was an important first step in gathering together the diverse array of projects that, different ways, refer to or focus on Eitelberger. Nevertheless, as with the best gatherings of... more
Rudolf von Eitelberger: Netzwerker der Kunstgeschichte was an important first step in gathering together the diverse array of projects that, different ways, refer to or focus on Eitelberger. Nevertheless, as with the best gatherings of this kind, it also highlighted how much more work there is to be done.
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Practices of periodization and the reliance on linear notions of time have been an object of sustained critique in recent times. Not only have they been said to impose uniformity on the complex and multi-stranded course of art, they have... more
Practices of periodization and the reliance on linear notions of time have been an object of sustained critique in recent times. Not only have they been said to impose uniformity on the complex and multi-stranded course of art, they have also been accused of enabling an ideological agenda that privileges the art and culture of Western Europe and North America. In their place it has been suggested that art historians embrace alternative ideas of time, including notions of time as entangled, heterochronic and anachronic. This chapter examines the basis of such criticisms. It argues that while they highlight important issues, they also misrepresent art historical practice, including the heuristic function of the idea of periods. The chapter also argues that such alternative metaphors conflate historical narratives with temporal horizons. Without shared temporal horizons, it is impossible to make meaningful judgements of difference when comparing the art historical trajectories of different cultures. Consequently, the chapter suggests, the project of entangled, heterochronic and anachronic art history may end up being counterproductive.
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The recent call to decolonize art history and the institutions of art have largely focused on the legacies of the major European and American colonial powers, such as Britain, France, Spain and the United States. Positioning Europe at the... more
The recent call to decolonize art history and the institutions of art have largely focused on the legacies of the major European and American colonial powers, such as Britain, France, Spain and the United States. Positioning Europe at the heart of modernity/coloniality prompts questions to do with how to place the states and cultures of east central Europe, none of which had colonial territories or engaged in projects of expropriation and colonial exploitation. It was along assumed that states such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were little touched by the debate over decolonization, precisely because they had no overseas colonial empires. Belief in ‘colonial innocence’ was an important aspect of national self-definition. This article examines this conviction with reference to the specific case of the Czech lands and Czechoslovakia. Looking at practices of cultural representation, museum collecting and architecture in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it suggests that the idea of colonial innocence is open to interrogation
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ABSTRACTThis article examines the work of the Austrian architect Clemens Holzmeister. A leading representative of Austrian architecture between the wars, and a significant figure in the i95os and i96os as teacher of the new generation of... more
ABSTRACTThis article examines the work of the Austrian architect Clemens Holzmeister. A leading representative of Austrian architecture between the wars, and a significant figure in the i95os and i96os as teacher of the new generation of Austrian architects including Hans Hollein and Gustav Peichl, Holzmeister presents a perplexing image. In the i920s, he played an important role in the early architectural projects of Red Vienna, but in the following decade he endorsed the Austrofascist regime of Engelbert Dollfuß and Kurt Schuschnigg of i934-38. This article argues that his work presents other interpretative challenges too, for he was a prolific designer of churches, which have seldom been integrated into wider narratives of modern architecture. However his work is viewed, it was an important barometer of wider cultural and political currents in inter-war Austria, in particular the country's attempt to construct a meaningful identity after the collapse of the Habsburg empire. T...
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The Church of St. Anthony of Padua by Gyula Rimanóczy is one of the more striking examples of interwar modernist architecture in Hungary.
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Preface and Acknowledgements, Thierry Lenain, Hubert Locher, Andrea Pinotti, Matthew Rampley, Charlotte Schoell-Glass and Kitty Zijlmans Introduction, Matthew Rampley PART I: METHODS, DEBATES AND PARADIGMS Art History, Aesthetics and Art... more
Preface and Acknowledgements, Thierry Lenain, Hubert Locher, Andrea Pinotti, Matthew Rampley, Charlotte Schoell-Glass and Kitty Zijlmans Introduction, Matthew Rampley PART I: METHODS, DEBATES AND PARADIGMS Art History, Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Antonio Somaini The Idea of the Canon and Canon Formation in Art History, Hubert Locher European Heritage: Unity in Diversity?, Brian Graham Contemporary Art and the Concept of Art History: Influence, Dependency and Challenge, Peter J. Schneemann Formalism and the History of Style, Andrea Pinotti Visual Culture and Visual Studies, Jan Baetens Theories of the Image in France: Between Art History and Visual Anthropology, Ralph Dekoninck Bildwissenschaft: Theories of the Image in German-language Scholarship, Matthew Rampley Computerisation, Digitisation and the Internet, Antonella Sbrilli Technical Art History: The Synergy of Art, Conservation and Science, Erma Hermens Dimensions of Dialogue: Art History and the Discourse of Economics, Victo...
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Místo modernismu středovýchodní Evropy v širším kontextu moderního umění se v posledních třiceti letech opakovaně stávalo námětem diskusí. Dlouhodobé strukturální nerovnosti a ideologicky ovlivněné navyklé způsoby myšlení způsobily, že... more
Místo modernismu středovýchodní Evropy v širším kontextu moderního umění se v posledních třiceti letech opakovaně stávalo námětem diskusí. Dlouhodobé strukturální nerovnosti a ideologicky ovlivněné navyklé způsoby myšlení způsobily, že vědecký zájem o projevy modernismu ve státech střední a východní Evropy je v mezinárodním měřítku stále jen okrajovou záležitostí. Přes intenzivní snahu o překonání zakořeněných nerovností se scéna modernismu stále příliš nemění a nadále jí dominuje Paříž, Berlín, Londýn, New York a Moskva. Článek zkoumá několik nedávných pokusů, které se v rámci širšího projektu překreslení mapy moderního umění snažily přístup k modernismu přehodnotit. Tyto pokusy často vedly k pozoruhodným závěrům využívajícím teze propojenosti, horizontality a transnacionální analýzy. Zároveň si článek klade následující otázky: Nakolik je jejich koncepce koherentní a nakolik jsou účelné jako základ pro alternativní narativy? Nakolik jsou konkrétní případové studie z dějin moderního umění v Čechách, Československu a Maďarsku přesvědčivé? Článek naznačuje, že takové modely mohou historickou situaci zkreslovat. Pokud se však mají stávající hierarchie rozbít, je nezbytné se zabývat spíše pragmatickými faktory v jejich pozadí než se zaměřovat pouze na nové teoretické modely interpretace.
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This article examines the work of the Austrian architect Clemens Holzmeister. A leading representative of Austrian architecture between the wars, and a significant figure in the 1950s and 1960s as teacher of the new generation of Austrian... more
This article examines the work of the Austrian architect Clemens Holzmeister. A leading representative of Austrian architecture between the wars, and a significant figure in the 1950s and 1960s as teacher of the new generation of Austrian architects including Hans Hollein and Gustav Peichl, Holzmeister presents a perplexing image. In the 1920s, he played an important role in the early architectural projects of Red Vienna, but in the following decade he endorsed the Austrofascist regime of Engelbert Dollfuß and Kurt Schuschnigg of 1934-38. This article argues that his work presents other interpretative challenges too, for he was a prolific designer of churches, which have seldom been integrated into wider narratives of modern architecture. However his work is viewed, it was an important barometer of wider cultural and political currents in inter-war Austria, in particular the country's attempt to construct a meaningful identity after the collapse of the Habsburg empire. The aim of the article is not to rehabilitate or recover Holzmeister, but to consider the light his work casts on inter-war cultural politics in Austria, as well as the broader questions over the implicit value judgements that inform histories of modern architecture.
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The greater part of critical attention devoted to the contours of art history has focused on the Austro-German tradition and its legacy. Tracing the development of institutionalised art history in Germany, Switzerland and Austria-Hungary... more
The greater part of critical attention devoted to the contours of art history has focused on the Austro-German tradition and its legacy. Tracing the development of institutionalised art history in Germany, Switzerland and Austria-Hungary from the late nineteenth century onwards, ...
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Introduction: the legacy of Josef StrzygowskiIt has become increasingly evident that perhaps the most influential Viennese art historian of the interwar period was Josef Strzygowski. Although a decisive figure, whose appointment as... more
Introduction: the legacy of Josef StrzygowskiIt has become increasingly evident that perhaps the most influential Viennese art historian of the interwar period was Josef Strzygowski. Although a decisive figure, whose appointment as Ordinarius in 1909 led factional rivalries and an institutional split, Strzygowski's work achieved a far greater audience than his contemporaries. This was particularly the case in central Europe, where his work was adopted as a model in territories as disparate as Estonia and Yugoslavia.In part his influence was due to his sheer industriousness and the volume of his output, both in terms of research publications and students. Between 1909, when he took up his appointment at the Institute in Vienna, and 1932, when he retired, nearly 90 students graduated under his tutelage; this compares with 13 under Thausing and 51 under Riegl and Wickhoff combined. As one subsequent commentator has noted: 'Looking back at Strzygowski's career with the hinds...
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The standard narrative of the Vienna school of art history has cast its authors as cosmopolitan, progressive, and aesthetically liberal. Few have focused on the interrelation of the Vienna school and the Cultural politics of... more
The standard narrative of the Vienna school of art history has cast its authors as cosmopolitan, progressive, and aesthetically liberal. Few have focused on the interrelation of the Vienna school and the Cultural politics of Austria-Hungary. An exploration of the ...
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Recent years have seen a notable growth of interest in the operations of affect and agency in art. Works of art are said to have agency, primarily through their impact on the affectivity of the spectator. This turn is an inflection of a... more
Recent years have seen a notable growth of interest in the operations of affect and agency in art. Works of art are said to have agency, primarily through their impact on the affectivity of the spectator. This turn is an inflection of a wider phenomenon in the humanities, motivated by interest in the theory of affect. Although it has only recently gained visibility, one can trace an art historical interest in affect back to Aby Warburg, whose work emphasised the non-rational, emotional engagement with works of art. This article explores some of the claims that have been made in relation to affect and agency in art, but it also subjects them to critical scrutiny. What does it mean to talk about art having agency? What is its purported significance for art historical inquiry? To what extent does affect theory provide a convincing theoretical basis for the idea of artistic agency? Indeed, what is understood by the idea of agency in such accounts? The article argues that while there are many attested historical cases in which works of art are said to act as if they were agents, these have to be understood in terms of culturally framed attributions of agency, rather than a general theory of affect, which may have a purely tangential significance for art historical analysis.
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Rampley, M. (1996) 'Spectatorship and the historicity of art. Re-reading Alois Riegl's historical grammar of the fine arts', Word & Image, 12 (2), pp.207-217. ... There are no files associated with this item. ...... more
Rampley, M. (1996) 'Spectatorship and the historicity of art. Re-reading Alois Riegl's historical grammar of the fine arts', Word & Image, 12 (2), pp.207-217. ... There are no files associated with this item. ... Del.icio.us LinkedIn Citeulike Connotea Facebook Stumble it!
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... the West wing housed Britain, France, Italy, America, and Brazil; the East wing, Russia, the ... 42 The observations of foreign observers echoed Schröer's attitude, and the press played no ... An unnamed correspondent of The Times... more
... the West wing housed Britain, France, Italy, America, and Brazil; the East wing, Russia, the ... 42 The observations of foreign observers echoed Schröer's attitude, and the press played no ... An unnamed correspondent of The Times noted that the Galician cottage revealed “a highly ...
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This essay examines the early history of the Vienna School of Art History. It focuses in particular on the role of Rudolf von Eitelberger in establishing the parameters of art-historical inquiry, and the ideological, social and political... more
This essay examines the early history of the Vienna School of Art History. It focuses in particular on the role of Rudolf von Eitelberger in establishing the parameters of art-historical inquiry, and the ideological, social and political forces that shaped his ideas. It interprets Eitelberger and his contemporaries in the light of positivist definitions of scientificity (Wissenschaftlichkeit) in the mid-nineteenth century. It considers the development of art history in Vienna at this time in terms of the processes of institutionalization, highlighting not only questions of method, but also the formation of disciplinary protocols and the institutional infrastructure for the discipline.
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Review of: Peter Noever, Artur Rosenauer and Georg Vasold, eds, Alois Riegl Revisited. Beiträge zu Werk und Rezeption. Contributions to the Opus and its Reception. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010. Michael S.... more
Review of: Peter Noever, Artur Rosenauer and Georg Vasold, eds, Alois Riegl Revisited. Beiträge zu Werk und Rezeption. Contributions to the Opus and its Reception. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010. Michael S. Falser, Wilfried Lipp, Andrzek Tomaszewski, eds, Conservation and Preservation. Interactions between Theory and Practice. In Memoriam Alois Riegl (1858-1905). Proceedings of the International Conference of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee for the Theory and the Philosophy of Conservation and Restoration, 23-27 April 2008, Vienna. Florence: Polistampa, 2010. This review examines two recent publications concerned with the legacy of Alois Riegl. It considers these books as examples of the changing landscape of Riegl scholarship, in which the traditional concern with issues of methodology (notably the meaning and function of Riegl's concept of the Kunstwollen) has given way to an engagement with his place in the wider cultural and academic ...
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When Ernst Gombrich published his intellectual biography of Aby Warburg it became immediately clear that there was a vast archive of material that revealed not only biographical details but also a range of intellectual preoccupations of... more
When Ernst Gombrich published his intellectual biography of Aby Warburg it became immediately clear that there was a vast archive of material that revealed not only biographical details but also a range of intellectual preoccupations of which Warburg’s published writings offer only a glimpse.1 While Warburg was highly regarded in his own lifetime, there is little in the books and articles to suggest that he was wrestling with the deeper philosophical and moral concerns Gombrich explored. Only the lecture on the serpent ritual, published in the later 1930s, gives a hint of the fact that the cultural historian apparently dealing with the arcana of Renaissance culture in fact had much wider interests.2 Gombrich’s biography thus pointed towards a corpus of writings that remained hidden away, even though they contained some of the most intriguing ideas of all. The one that drew the most attention was the unfinished picture atlas Mnemosyne and, slowly, parts of this project entered the pu...
What bearing should considerations of human nature have on the study of art? Many might disagree with the basic premise of this question. There is no such thing as ‘human nature,’ they might state, for we are shaped by multiple social,... more
What bearing should considerations of human nature have on the study of art? Many might disagree with the basic premise of this question. There is no such thing as ‘human nature,’ they might state, for we are shaped by multiple social, cultural and linguistic determinations. This rules out the very possibility of talking about human nature in the first place. As Hannah Arendt suggested in a much discussed argument, when stripped of the ‘external’ predicates of culture and society, what is revealed is not the essence of human being, but something that is hardly human at all, what Giorgio Agamben has since referred to as ‘bare life.’ 1 Yet the matter is not so easily resolved. Arendt and other promoters of constructionist theories of the self are, after all, offering a thesis about human nature (that it is socially constructed). Moreover, there are many aspects of human being that would hardly be disputed. We are the outcome, it is generally agreed, of biological evolution. The detail...
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This review considers Michela Passini's study of the intertwining of nationalism and art history in France and Germany between 1870 and 1933. It emphasises the importance of Passini's work on casting light on the neglected field... more
This review considers Michela Passini's study of the intertwining of nationalism and art history in France and Germany between 1870 and 1933. It emphasises the importance of Passini's work on casting light on the neglected field of French art historiography, and the striking parallels it throws up between the two countries. Commending the insights generated by this comparative analysis, it also draws attention to some of the questions that remain to be answered. In particular, while nationalism in German art history in particular is a well known phenomenon, it presents a narrative that parallels that elsewhere in Europe. As such, the question has to be asked whether and in what way German and French art history was distinctive. Were their nationalistic politics merely episodes of a larger story, or did they present a separate story?
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This article reviews the latest volume in the collected works of Aby Warburg published by Akademie Verlag. The volume consists of exhibitions and plates of images Warburg compiled to illustrate lectures in the period between 1925-1929.... more
This article reviews the latest volume in the collected works of Aby Warburg published by Akademie Verlag. The volume consists of exhibitions and plates of images Warburg compiled to illustrate lectures in the period between 1925-1929. The review focuses on two key issues raised by the publication: the light it casts on the Mnemosyne Atlas Warburg was working on at the same time, and, in particular, how it helps shape perceptions of the broader intellectual direction of Warburg's thinking in the final half decade of his life.
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This review discusses Vlad Țoca's outline of Romanian art history from 1919 to 1947. It considers the value and significance of scholarship on Romanian culture and the historiography of art, but also identifies a number of critical... more
This review discusses Vlad Țoca's outline of Romanian art history from 1919 to 1947. It considers the value and significance of scholarship on Romanian culture and the historiography of art, but also identifies a number of critical deficits in Țoca's study, including a lack of concrete detail, a reluctance to engage with the cultural politics shaping the development of interwar Romanian art history, and an overly descriptive approach. Despite such flaws, the book remains, it argues, valuable for its role in opening up a new field of research and providing a useful introduction to its topic.
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This review analyses the study of the Paris World's Fair of 1889 by Beat Wyss. It considers the strengths and weaknesses of Wyss's interpretation, but also examines it in the larger context of literature on world fairs. It argues... more
This review analyses the study of the Paris World's Fair of 1889 by Beat Wyss. It considers the strengths and weaknesses of Wyss's interpretation, but also examines it in the larger context of literature on world fairs. It argues that Wyss's book exemplifies a common pattern in scholarly studies of world fairs during the nineteenth century, namely, a tendency to focus on their function as forms of cultural representation, i.e. their role in advancing specific notions of regional, national and imperial identity. The review does not dispute that this was a central aspect of the world fairs, but it also points towards the omissions in such studies. Not only were the world fairs founded as a means of promoting liberal ideas of free trade, they were also used to display the latest technologies in a wide array of activities, such as industrial manufacturing, forestry and farming. These subjects are almost never examined in any depth in the literature on world fairs, the result...
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This review offers a critical summary of Bredekamp’s Image Acts. Identifying Bredekamp’s theory of the image act as an attempt to provide a general Warburg theory of the image, it argues that despite the impressively wide-ranging and... more
This review offers a critical summary of Bredekamp’s Image Acts. Identifying Bredekamp’s theory of the image act as an attempt to provide a general Warburg theory of the image, it argues that despite the impressively wide-ranging and ambitious scope of the study, it is theoretically undetermined. Agency is a central term, but the book lacks a theory or even working definition of agency, which makes it different to understand the force of some of Bredekamp’s claims. The review contrasts Bredekamp with Alfred Gell, whose Art and Agency focused on anthropological study of the ascriptions of agency to images in different cultures and the structure of such ascriptions. It argues that Image Acts ends up being neither a fully worked-out theory of visual agency nor a historical or anthropological account of attributions of agency, and its purpose and focus consequently remains ambiguous.
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Translator's introduction: El Greco in Prague: modernism and the reception of an Old MasterEmil Filia (1882-1953) was one of the leading modernist painters working in Prague before the First World War. Following a conventional... more
Translator's introduction: El Greco in Prague: modernism and the reception of an Old MasterEmil Filia (1882-1953) was one of the leading modernist painters working in Prague before the First World War. Following a conventional artistic training at the Academy of Fine Art in the city at the beginning of the twentieth century he was, like many of his generation, deeply impressed by an exhibition of work by Edvard Munch in Prague staged in 1905 by the Manes Union of Fine Artists, the leading artistic association of the time. The impact of Munch was evident almost immediately, and starting from 1907, when he painted The Reader of Dostoyevsky, Filia produced a series of works that mirrored the visual lexicon and formal language of the Norwegian artist, intensifying the gloomy symbolist themes of the latter to an almost unbearable degree. Anxious to avoid the limitations of the provincial art world of Prague, he avidly consumed the most advanced artistic practices of the major art cen...
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The history of architecture is littered with designers who, for various reasons, have disappeared from the record or have remained on the margins. One of the unfortunate architects to have suffered this fate was Bedřich Feuerstein... more
The history of architecture is littered with designers who, for various reasons, have disappeared from the record or have remained on the margins. One of the unfortunate architects to have suffered this fate was Bedřich Feuerstein (1892–1936), who is known primarily for the crematorium he designed in Nymburk. The exhibition of his work now at the Technical Museum in Prague is a welcome and long overdue event. The curator, Helena Čapková, has already published a book on Feuerstein’s work, and this exhibition is a crystallisation as well as a development of her earlier research on him.