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The Cultural Historian Karl Lamprecht: Practitioner and Progenitor of Art HistoryAuthor(s): Kathryn BrushReviewed work(s):Source: Central European History, Vol. 26, No. 2 (1993), pp. 139-164Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of Conference Group for Central European History ofthe American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4546329 .Accessed: 20/10/2012 08:05

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The Cultural Historian Karl Lamprecht:

Practitioner and Progenitor of Art History

Kathryn Brush

KARL

Lamprecht (1856-1915), the most prominent cultural histo?

rian in late-nineteenth-century Germany, has not figured in the

annals of art history. Remembered principally as the author of

the twelve-volume Deutsche Geschichte (1891-1909) and three-volume

Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben im Mittelalter (1885-86), Lamprecht and his

scholarly writings have been studied exclusively by historians.1 In his

own day, however, Lamprecht made considerable forays into art history while constructing the theoretical scaffolding for his cultural historical

program. He undertook these art historical studies during the 1880s?

remarkably, the very years in which art history was first being shaped as

a discipline at German universities. Though Lamprecht scholars have

A preliminary version of this essay was presented at the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies at Harvard University. I wish to thank the following institutions and individuals for facilitating my access to the archival materials on which this study is based: Historisches Archiv der Stadt Koln; Gesellschaft fur Rheinische Geschichtskunde, Cologne; Universi- tatsbibliothek Bonn, Handschriftenabteilung; Universitatsarchiv Bonn; Warburg Institute, University of London; Landesamt fur Denkmalpflege Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle; Professor J. B. Trapp; Dr. Joachim Deeters; Dr. Hans-Joachim Krause; Klaus Dziobek, and Ursula Hausen. An Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellowship in the Humanities at Harvard Uni? versity and a Research Time Stipend from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada made the research and writing of this article possible. I am very grateful to Professors Roger Chickering, John Shearman, and Walter Simons for their insightful readings of this essay; special thanks are due to Professors Bryce Lyon and Joanna Ziegler, whose critical questioning contributed significantly to the genesis and shaping of my argument.

1. Karl Lamprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, 12 vols. (Berlin, 1891-1909); idem, Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben im Mittelalter. Untersuchungen uber die Entwicklung der materiellen Kultur des platten Landes au/Grund der Quellen zundchst des Mosellandes, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1885-86). For a complete list of Lamprecht's writing, see Herbert Schonebaum, "Zum hundertsten Geburtstag Karl Lamprechts am 25. February 1956," Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Karl- Marx Universitat Leipzig, Gesellschafts- und sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe, 5 (1955/56): 7-16. For the major historical studies, see Luise Schorn-Schutte, Karl Lamprecht. Kulturge- schichtsschreibung zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik (Gottingen, 1984), 345-67. After this article was completed, Roger Chickering published an intellectual biography of the histo? rian, Karl Lamprecht: A German Academic Life (1856-1915) (Atlantic Highlands, N.J., 1993).

139

140 KARL LAMPRECHT

long acknowledged the art historical component in his Kultur geschichte,

they have not considered that Lamprecht's art historical endeavors may have affected the professional development of art history. Art historians, on the other hand, have forgotten Lamprecht's art historical work,

associating cultural history in the second half of the nineteenth century almost exclusively with the towering figure of Jacob Burckhardt

(1818-97).2 Yet close study of Lamprecht's art historical publications and of related archival materials suggests that Lamprecht's vision, in

the 1880s, of an interactive dynamics between art and culture had a

formative impact on art history comparable to that of his older

contemporary Burckhardt. In certain respects it may have been more di?

rectly relevant for art history's later development.

Lamprecht's art historical studies derive great importance from their

historical positioning. In contrast to Burckhardt, whose work in art

history spanned a fifty-year period extending from his Die Kunstwerke der

belgischen Stddte (1842) to his assumption ofthe first chair of art history at

the University of Basel (from 1886), young Lamprecht's art historical

practice was concentrated in the 1880s. This was the decade that im?

mediately preceded the emergence in Germany and Austria of a founding

group of art historians, including Heinrich Wolfflin (1864-1945) and

Alois Riegl (1858-1905), who elaborated systematic principles for the

newly independent discipline during the 1890s. The increasing auton?

omy of art history in the 1880s and 1890s was accompanied by a move?

ment toward specialization, which advocated a drawing of territorial

boundaries between art history and neighboring disciplines, including cultural history.3 Wolfflin, for instance, who had studied under Burck?

hardt in the early 1880s, consciously turned away from the broad

cultural perspectives of his teacher in the years around 1890, and focused

instead on the study of the internal dynamics of art, especially as they related to stylistic properties.4 Lamprecht's dual activities as both an

2. See, for instance, the recent article by Lionel Gossman, "Jacob Burckhardt as Art Historian," The Oxford Art Journal 11 (1988): 25-32. To my knowledge, the only art historian to date who has begun to consider Lamprecht's importance for the discipline of art history is Sir Ernst Gombrich (see note 13 below). For an early discussion of Lam? precht's study of art history by a historian, see Alfred Doren, "Karl Lamprechts Geschichts- theorie und die Kunstgeschichte," Zeitschrift fur Aesthetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft 11 (1916): 353-89.

3. For brief critical accounts see Willibald Sauerlander, "Alois Riegl und die Entstehung der autonomen Kunstgeschichte am fin de siecle," in R. Bauer, ed., Fin de Siecle. Zu Literatur und Kunst derJahrhundertwende (Frankfurt a.M., 1977), 125-39, or Michael Podro, The Critical Historians of Art (New Haven and London, 1982), esp. part 2.

4. For a discussion of Wolfflin's studies with Burckhardt and his gradual turning away from cultural history, see Meinhold Lurz, Heinrich Wolfflin. Biographie einer Kunsttheorie (Worms, 1981), esp. 53-58. Lurz, part 3, discusses Wolfflin's intellectual development

KATHRYN BRUSH 141

interpreter of art and interpreter of culture in the 1880s, therefore, stood

at an important crossroads in the definition of art historical practice. Not

only were these activities happening at a formative moment in the

genesis of art history, but also at the same moment in which the profes? sional definition of art history as cultural history, or art history versus

cultural history, was being debated in scholarship and in the university classroom.

Lamprecht's conception of Kulturgeschichte diverged, however, in

several important respects from that of the older generation of scholars

writing cultural history. During the 1880s Lamprecht articulated a dis-

tinctly more "modern" position for cultural history than Burckhardt. He

strove to incorporate into his conceptual scheme the latest scientific

findings of disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, and

art history, fields which were then in the process of becoming institu-

tionalized at German universities.5 Although Burckhardt had drawn on a

broad spectrum of knowledge for publications such as Der Cicerone

(1855) or Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (first published in 1860), his

study of non-historical areas of inquiry was less programmatic and less

comprehensive in scope than Lamprecht's. Burckhardt's cultural histor?

ical writings, like those of Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl (1823-97), or the

cultural studies published by art historians such as Anton Springer (1825-91), were directed principally toward a humanistic ideal of educa?

tion (Bildung).6 Lamprecht, on the other hand, stressed a more systematic and "scientific" approach to interdisciplinary research. Thus, at a time when German art historians were debating the proper relationship of cultural to art history, Lamprecht's updated conception of cultural

during the 1880s, 1890s, and later. See also Joseph Gantner, ed., Jacob Burckhardt und Heinrich Wolfflin. Briefwechsel und andere Dokumente ihrer Begegnung 1882-1897, 2d ed. (Basel, 1989).

5. For a comparative discussion ofthe disciplines that Burckhardt and Lamprecht's work embraced, see Schorn-Schutte, Karl Lamprecht, part A, sections 1-3, esp. 36-37; Herbert Schonebaum, "Karl Lamprecht: Leben und Werk eines Kampfers um die Geschichtswis? senschaft 1856-1915," unpublished ms. (1956), 27-68, copies of which are deposited at the university libraries in Leipzig and Bonn, as well as at the Historisches Archiv der Stadt Koln (hereafter HASK). Schonebaum based his study on documentary evidence as well as on his personal knowledge of Lamprecht, for he was Lamprecht's last assistant in Leipzig. For a useful treatment in English, see Karl J. Weintraub, Vision of Culture (Chicago and London, 1966), chap. 4, 161-207.

6. Riehl, who taught at the University of Munich, was an important representative of a popular, folkloristic approach to cultural history. See Woodruff D. Smith, Politics and the Sciences of Culture in Germany 1840-1920 (New York and Oxford, 1991), 40-44. Anton Springer's cultural historical studies included Kunsthistorische Briefe. Die bildenden Kiinste in ihrer weltgeschichtlichen Entwicklung (Prague, 1857) and his celebrated Handbuch der Kunstge? schichte (Stuttgart, 1855), which appeared in many later editions. See Springer's memoirs, Aus meinem Leben (Berlin, 1892); Paul Clemen, "Anton Springer," Allgemeine deutsche

142 KARL LAMPRECHT

history as a genuine interdisciplinary enterprise was pioneering. Fur?

thermore, in contrast to Burckhardt, Lamprecht's studies of art and

cultural history in the 1880s focused on the Middle Ages. This was not

simply a chronological preference over the more popular Renaissance.

The Middle Ages was an era that, Lamprecht believed, afforded vital

glimpses into the youthful life ofthe German people and nation.7

Lamprecht taught in the History Seminar at the University of Bonn

during the 1880s.8 His presence at Bonn coincided with the arrival, in the

second half of the decade, of the first group of students to concentrate

their study on art history at the Rhenish university. Among them were

three exceptional and highly inquisitive students who registered in Lam?

precht's courses between 1887 and 1889: Aby Warburg (1866-1929), Wilhelm Voge (1868-1952), and Paul Clemen (1866-1947). This for-

tuitous circumstance had far reaching consequences because Warburg,

Voge, and Clemen, like their contemporaries Wolflhn and Riegl, were to

become pioneers in the discipline of art history during the 1890s.

Lamprecht's simultaneous investigations of cultural history and art

history during the 1880s, therefore, acquire great significance not only

by virtue of their placement during the years in which the professional? ization of art history was occurring, but also because Lamprecht's inter?

disciplinary and scientific understanding of Kultur geschichte was in the

vanguard of cultural historical scholarship at the time. Furthermore,

Lamprecht's teaching at the University of Bonn had important implica- tions for his three art history students, Warburg, Voge, and Clemen, who went on to prominent careers in the field.

Biographie, vol. 35 (1893): 315-17; and Wilhelm Waetzoldt, Deutsche Kunsthistoriker, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1924), 106-30. See also the comments on Springer below.

7. Lamprecht articulated this idea, for instance, in Initial-Ornamentik des VIII. bis XIII. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1882), 3 ("sicher aber ist es, dass mit der Stammesbildung eine neue Epoche deutscher Geschichte begann, welche bis zur politischen Einheit Deutschlands im 10. Jahrhundert und bis zur volkstumlichen Erkenntnis der eigenen Nationalitat in den folgenden Jahrhunderten gefiihrt hat"). See also his Deutsche Geschichte, vol. 12 (Berlin, 1909), 4, for his statement that the Middle Ages afford "deutliche und in ihrer Art einzige Einblicke in das Jugendleben eines Volkes, in die Werdezeit nationalen Lebens und Wir- kens." His belief in the medieval sources of "national" German culture had its ideological origins in the Romantic era, a period during which Gothic architecture had been cham- pioned as a typically "German" art form. Lamprecht's concentration on the Middle Ages in his 1880s work was significant for the fledgling discipline of art history, for it was not until this decade that medieval monuments of painting and sculpture began to be studied intensively in Germany.

8. Historical accounts of Lamprecht's activities in the Rhineland include Ursula Lewald, "Karl Lamprecht und die Rheinische Geschichtsforschung," Rheinische Vierteljahrsblatter 21 (1956): 279-304; idem, "Karl Lamprecht, 1856-1915," Bonner Gelehrte. Beitrdge zur Ge? schichte der Wissenschaften in Bonn, Geschichtswissenschaften (Bonn, 1968), 231-53. See also Schorn-Schutte, Karl Lamprecht, esp. 40-54.

KATHRYN BRUSH 143

Lamprecht received his university education between 1874 and 1879 at

the universities of Gottingen, Leipzig, and Munich, where his work

concentrated on political and economic history.9 He also attended

courses outside of history, including lectures on philosophy given by Hermann Lotze in Gottingen and by Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig. Lam?

precht's Leipzig dissertation of 1878, which examined the French econ?

omy during the eleventh century, demonstrated early on his special interest in the Middle Ages.10 He continued his extradisciplinary explora- tions during the summer of 1878 at the University of Munich, were he

studied art history for the first time. Between 1880 and 1890 Lamprecht

taught in the History Seminar at the University of Bonn, first as Privatdo?

zent and then as Extraordinarius.11 His elaboration of a comprehensive

theory of culture led him to devote considerable efforts to art history

during his years in the Rhineland. He was named Ordinarius in history at

Marburg in 1890, and moved the following year to Leipzig, where he

later founded the Institut fiir Kultur- und Universalgeschichte. He re?

mained in Leipzig until his death in 1915.

Lamprecht's view of history diverged from the research paradigms

governing the field in Germany at the time.12 He rejected the conserva?

tive "normative" form of history espoused by Leopold von Ranke

(1795-1886) and his followers who concentrated on narrating the events

of political history and the roles played by great individuals. Lamprecht aimed instead for a broader, more comprehensive understanding of the

collective mentality (Mentalitat) of a civilization?German civilization in

particular?as it evolved and changed over time. Lamprecht's wide-

ranging approach and his belief that the history of a particular moment

must be studied in all of its manifestations encouraged him to investigate

parallels between forms of material culture?the realm he understood to

comprise demography, law, and social and economic structures?and

the manifestations of intellectual culture, which in his view embraced

artistic and literary phenomena, music, philosophic reasoning, and the

9. Discussions of Lamprecht's student years include Schonebaum, "Karl Lamprecht," 27-68; Schorn-Schutte, Karl Lamprecht, 21-40; and Roger Chickering, "Young Lamprecht: An Essay in Biography and Historiography," History and Theory 28 (1989): 198-214.

10. Karl Lamprecht, Beitrage zur Geschichte des franzosischen Wirtschaftslebens im elften Jahrhundert, Staats- und sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen, 1, vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1878). Lamprecht's interests in economics were also developed during his student years.

11. Lamprecht's Habilitationsschrift on the chronicler Dietrich Engelhus (d. 1434), a study which Lamprecht never published, was approved by the History Seminar at the University of Bonn in July of 1880. He became extraordinary professor in 1885.

12. See Weintraub, Visions of Culture, for a succinct summary. For the development of German historical methodology, see Georg G. Iggers, The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present, rev. ed. (Middletown, 1983).

144 KARL LAMPRECHT

like. Of particular relevance here is the role of the visual arts in Lam?

precht's method.13 During the 1880s he came to see the visual arts as the

manifestation of intellectual culture that could offer privileged access to

the mentality of a period.

Lamprecht was by no means the first historian to construct a picture of

a particular historical period through its art. Many precedents existed in

the writings of men such as Carl Schnaase (1798-1875) and Hippolyte Taine (1828-93), and above all in the work of Jacob Burckhardt that

influenced Lamprecht from the early years of his intellectual develop? ment. In a manner akin to these scholars, Lamprecht saw works of art as

crystallizations in visual form of the central outlooks or sensibilities of

the society in which they were produced. Art served as a supreme indicator of human history and behavior during a given era. Drawing on

a system of analogies, Lamprecht contended that the study of artistic

phenomena could lead to an understanding ofthe politics, law, and social

and economic institutions of a certain period because the essential men?

tality behind all of these activities must be the same.14 Lamprecht's

prioritizing of the visual arts, especially during the 1880s, can also be

linked to the nature of his historical research during these years, for much

of it concentrated on the early Middle Ages, an era for which compre- hensive written documentation was lacking.15 Given the nature of

Lamprecht's metier, it is not surprising that, during this decade, he con?

centrated his work in the visual arts on the study of illuminated

manuscripts.16 In its day, Lamprecht's all-embracing study of the collective psyche,

which drew not only on art history, but also on psychology, religion,

philosophy, and anthropology, was regarded with suspicion by academic historians in Germany, because it did not conform to the

established conceptual boundaries of the historical discipline. So dis-

quieting were these ideas that a bitter methodological dispute (Methoden-

streit), waged within the German historical community during the 1890s,

13. Ernst Gombrich referred to the place of the visual arts in Lamprecht's cultural historical program in In Search of Cultural History (Oxford, 1969), 26, and developed this argument further in Aby Warburg. An Intellectual Biography, 2d ed. (Chicago and London, 1986), 30-37.

14. For Lamprecht's vision ofthe interdependence ofthe visual arts and other realms of activity, see the recent critical discussion by Chickering, Karl Lamprecht, 53-55, 79-80.

15. See Lamprecht's related comments in Initial-Omamentik, 1 ("Fiir keinen Zweig der geistigen Kultur unseres Volkes lasst sich die Entwickelung von verhaltnismassig friiher Zeit bis in die Jahrhunderte einer schon ausgedehnteren Uberlieferung besser (iberschauen, wie fiir die Kunst").

16. The reciprocity between Lamprecht's studies of historical documents, such as char- ters and tax records, and his studies of illuminated manuscripts is clear from statements he made in the preface to Initial-Ornamentik.

KATHRYN BRUSH 145

pivoted on Lamprecht's work, and especially on his Deutsche Geschichte, in which he portrayed German civilization over the centuries as an

orderly progression through successive stages of cultural development, or what he termed Kulturzeitalter.17 Lamprecht's combative personality, as well as his limitless energies, which caused him to work quickly?and often carelessly?also contributed to the polemics, for his opponents were quick to point to his numerous factual and conceptual errors. These

controversies were only just beginning to surface during the 1880s. But

although German historians considered Lamprecht's work in the visual

arts unusual, their attacks were not directed toward it specifically. In?

stead it was the overall theoretical conception of Lamprecht's broadly based approach to the study of history, as well as the inconsistencies and

documentary mistakes in his work, that they criticized most vehemently.

Lamprecht's Research and Publications in Art History

Although Lamprecht's study and pursuit ofthe visual arts can be associ-

ated chiefly with his stay in the Rhineland, the semester he spent at the

University of Munich in 1878 formed an important prelude to these

activities. The exact circumstances surrounding Lamprecht's decision to

study in the Bavarian capital are unknown, but it appears that the

semester was encouraged by his history professors, and perhaps also by Anton Springer, who was professor of art history at Leipzig.18 Springer held one of eight chairs for full professors of art history (Ordinarien)

existing at German and Austrian universities during the 1870s, a cir-

cumstance that demonstrates that the discipline of art history was very much in its infancy at that time.19 Springer, who had a broad humanistic

background in philosophy and history, was well known in Germany for

his art historical handbooks and for his double biography of Raphael and

17. The literature on the Methodenstreit in 1890s Germany is vast. See most recently Chickering, Karl Lamprecht, esp. part 2, 108-283, with bibliography. Iggers, New Directions in European Historiography, rev. ed. (Middletown, 1984), 80-85, sketches how the institu? tional structure of the German historical profession in the nineteenth century ensured ideological and scholarly conformity. It was inevitable that Lamprecht's work would be perceived as a threat to the established order. See also Iggers, The German Conception of History, 197-200.

18. Chickering, "Young Lamprecht," 210, states that the Leipzig historian Georg Voigt introduced Lamprecht to the writings of Burckhardt and encouraged the young student to study art history. Schonebaum, "Karl Lamprecht," 58-68, discusses Lamprecht's studies in Munich and raises the possibility that Springer may have played a role in encouraging Lamprecht's studies there. For Springer, see note 6 above.

19. See Heinrich Dilly, Kunstgeschichte als Institution. Studien zur Geschichte einer Disziplin (Frankfurt a.M., 1979), 237. The eight universities were Berlin, Bonn, Prague, Vienna, Leipzig, Strasbourg, Giessen, and Konigsberg. See ibid., 236-37, for statistics regarding the teaching of art history at German-speaking universities as an adjunct to disciplines such as aesthetics or theology.

146 KARL LAMPRECHT

Michelangelo, if less for his research on medieval manuscripts begun in

the late 1870s.20 Regardless of whether he played a role in recommending the Munich semester to Lamprecht, Springer's interests in manuscripts and in cultural studies in general were to cause him to follow Lam?

precht's art historical work closely during the 1880s.

In Munich Lamprecht familiarized himself with the many art collec?

tions in that city, and especially with the manuscript holdings of the

Hof- und Staatsbibliothek. He undertook to fine-tune his skills in paleo-

graphy, textual analysis, and iconography, and produced a number of

tracings and drawings ofthe images.21 In the Munich libraries Lamprecht also read the specialized literature on the history of costume, as well as art

historical scholarship.22 Historians who have considered this phase of

Lamprecht's intellectual development have suggested that this intensive

study and comparison of historical sources and illuminated manuscripts

encouraged Lamprecht to ponder the conceptual world of the Middle

Ages and its role in the developing national consciousness ofthe German

people (Volk)23 In 1879 Lamprecht became a private tutor for a prominent family in

Cologne. It was in the Rhenish metropolis that he met a man of great wealth and influence who was to become his most avid supporter and

patron during his ten years in the Rhineland. This individual was Gustav

von Mevissen (1815-99), an enlightened businessman, banker, and rail-

way magnate, who was passionately interested in promoting and financ-

ing the study of Rhenish medieval history and culture?a history whose

survival, he feared, was endangered by the increasing industrialization in

20. Compare note 6. In 1880 Anton Springer summarized the then-current state of research on medieval manuscript illumination in "Die Miniaturmalerei im friihen Mittelal? ter," Zeitschrift fiir bildende Kunst 15 (1880): 345-53, a review ofthe first volume of Alfred Woltmann's Geschichte der Malerei (Leipzig, 1879). Springer's article makes clear that German scholarship on medieval manuscripts was in a very preliminary stage by 1880. Springer, 353, called for intensive study of manuscripts. He responded to this manifesto in his own 1880s publications, which included Die Psalter-Illustrationen im friihen Mittelalter mit besonderer Rucksicht auf den Utrechtpsalter (Leipzig, 1880), Die Genesisbilder in der Kunst des friihen Mittelalters mit besonderer Rucksicht auf den Ashbumham-Pentateuch (Leipzig, 1884), and Der Bilderschmuck in den Sacramentarien des friihen Mittelalters (Leipzig, 1889).

21. Schonebaum, "Karl Lamprecht," 61. See also notes 30 and 35 below. 22. Schonebaum, "Karl Lamprecht," reports that Lamprecht read studies such as Hein?

rich Otte's Handbuch der kirchlichen Kunst-Archaologie des deutschen Mittelalters (Leipzig, 1850) and was especially interested in the writings of the architect and theorist Gottfried Semper (1803-79). Lamprecht must have read Semper's Der Stil in den technischen und tektonischen Kiinsten, 2 vols. (Frankfurt and Munich, 1860-63), a treatise dealing with the material and technical determinants of art production.

23. See, for instance, Schonebaum, "Karl Lamprecht," 62-67. During his stay in Munich Lamprecht also wrote a lengthy essay on the idea of individual identity in the Middle Ages ("Uber die Individualitat und das Verstandnis fur dieselbe im deutschen Mittelalter"), which he published for the first time in the twelfth and final volume of Deutsche Geschichte (Berlin, 1909), 3-48. Conceptually, Lamprecht's essay owed a great deal to Burckhardt. In

KATHRYN BRUSH 147

the Rhineland.24 Von Mevissen saw that Lamprecht possessed the energy and abilities to fulfill his ambitions, and moved quickly to secure a

position in history for the young man at the University of Bonn. In 1881, with the help of Lamprecht, von Mevissen founded the Gesellschaft fur

Rheinische Geschichtskunde, a society which aimed to further the study of Rhenish history and culture, within both regional and European contexts, through the publication of chronicles, cartularies, tax records,

land-registers, and manuscripts of Rhenish provenance.

Shortly after his arrival in Bonn Lamprecht delivered a public lecture

that demonstrated clearly the absence of boundaries between his histori?

cal and art historical practice.25 Rather than addressing a strictly historical

topic, Lamprecht devoted the lecture to a comparative study of two

luxury manuscripts from the Ottonian period. These were the Codex

Egberti in Trier, made in Reichenau during the late tenth century for

Egbert, archbishop of Trier (977-93), and the early-eleventh-century Golden Evangeliary of Echternach, owned in Lamprecht's time by the

dukes of Saxe-Coburg in Gotha.26 These Ottonian manuscripts had, of

course, been mentioned in earlier surveys of art and painting, such as

Franz Kugler's Handbuch der Geschichte der Malerei (second edition, 1847), Carl Schnaase's Geschichte der bildenden Kunste im Mittelalter (1854; second

edition, 1871), and Alfred Woltmann's Geschichte der Malerei (1879).27 However, it was Lamprecht who conducted the first in-depth art

its tracing of progressive stages in the development of individual identity the essay also anticipated the periodization scheme employed in Lamprecht's Deutsche Geschichte. Chick? ering, "Young Lamprecht," 211-12, points to a strong autobiographical element in Lam? precht's essay. Schorn-Schutte, Karl Lamprecht, 37, summarizes the ways in which Lamprecht's concept of intellectual culture differed from those of Burckhardt.

24. Seejoseph Hansen, Gustav von Mevissen. Ein rheinisches Lebensbild 1815-1899, 2 vols. (Berlin 1906). For the intellectual and personal bonds between von Mevissen and Lam? precht, see Lewald (as in note 8) and Herbert Schonebaum, "Gustav Mevissen und Karl Lamprecht. Zur rheinischen Kulturpolitik von 1880-1890," Rheinische Vierteljahrsbldtter 17 (1952): 180-96.

25. The lecture was given on the occasion of a Winckelmannfeier staged by the Verein von Altertumsfreunden in Bonn. Schonebaum, "Karl Lamprecht," 94-95, indicates that the audience was surprised by Lamprecht's choice of topic.

26. Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Ms. 24 (Codex Egberti). In 1955, upon the death ofthe last duke of Saxe-Coburg, the Golden Evangeliary of Echternach entered the collections ofthe Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg (Hs 156 1423). Lamprecht's lecture was prompted by an 1880 exhibition in Dusseldorf where the manuscripts had been displayed.

27. Franz Kugler, Handbuch der Geschichte der Malerei, 2d ed., vol. 1 (Berlin, 1847), 140-41; the second edition of Kugler's Handbuch was prepared by Jacob Burckhardt. See also Carl Schnaase, Geschichte der bildenden Kunste, vol. 4, part 2, Das eigentliche Mittelalter (Dusseldorf, 1854), 467-68; Alfred Woltmann, ed., Geschichte der Malerei (Leipzig, 1879), 250-56. Woltmann (1841-80), who was professor of art history at Strasbourg, based his study of medieval painting on notes made earlier by Gustav Friedrich Waagen (1794-1868), director of the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin.

148 KARL LAMPRECHT

historical analysis of these two codices, considered today to be among the key monuments of the Ottonian period.

A lengthy article resulting from Lamprecht's lecture was published in

1881.28 He began by discussing the circumstances ofthe patronage in

relation to historical sources, and then proceeded to examine and de?

scribe in detail the condition ofthe manuscripts and the character of their

script, and to compare their texts. He also analyzed and compared the

relationship of text to image in both codices, as well as the ordering,

iconography, and style of their illuminations. This study demonstrated

not only Lamprecht's acute powers of observation, but also his concern

to embed the study of specifics within a broad historical and cultural

milieu.29 At the time, this type of comprehensive questioning of indi?

vidual medieval artistic monuments was virtually unparalleled in art

historical circles.

Lamprecht's studies of medieval manuscripts also led him to publish a

book, equally synthetic, in 1882 on Initial-Ornamentik des VIII. bis XIII.

Jahrhunderts.30 Historians who have analyzed this work have drawn

attention to the ways in which Lamprecht's concern with the psychologi- cal implications of artistic ornamentation between the eighth and thir?

teenth centuries anticipated his later and more elaborated theories of

cultural history.31 Although this assessment is undoubtedly correct, it

represents only one side of a far more complex situation, because the

28. Karl Lamprecht, "Der Bilderschmuck des Cod. Egberti zu Trier und des Cod. Epternacencis zu Gotha," Jahrbucher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande 70 (1881): 56-112, plates 3-10 (line drawings). Almost immediately Lamprecht's article provided important directives for art historical study of the manuscripts. Compare, for instance, Franz Xaver Kraus, Die Miniaturen des Codex Egberti in der Stadtbibliothek zu Trier (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1884). For a historiographical account of the literature on the manuscript with further references, see Giinther Franz and Franz Ronig, Codex Egberti. Teilfaksimile-Ausgabe des Ms. 24 der Stadtbibliothek Trier (Wiesbaden, 1983), Text, 14-21. Rainer Kahsnitz, Ursula Mende, and Elisabeth Riicker, Das goldene Evangelienbuch von Echternach. Eine Prunkhandschrift des 11. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt a.M. 1982), 198-99, place Lamprecht's article within the "most important scholarship" on the Golden Evangeliary of Echternach. Ofthe sixteen books and articles they cite, Lamprecht's 1881 study is the only one from the nineteenth century, except for a description appearing in the 1835 catalogue of the ducal gallery in Gotha.

29. See Lamprecht, "Der Bilderschmuck," 56-61, esp. 61, for his outline ofthe need to consider both art historical and cultural historical dimensions of the manuscripts. He identified and compared their specific Carolingian-Germanic, Italo-Roman and Byzantine elements (his terms), and then, 112, raised the issue ofthe "individuality" of those who executed the medieval manuscripts in relation to the broader Weltanschauungen of their day.

30. Lamprecht, Initial-Ornamentik. His text was accompanied by 44 pages of black-and- white plates showing many decorated initials from Rhenish manuscripts. Lamprecht stated in the preface that the illustrations were made after his drawings, and particularly after his tracings made over the original images.

31. See, for instance, Schonebaum, "Karl Lamprecht," 95-101, Lewald, "Karl Lam? precht," 244-45, and Schorn-Schutte, Karl Lamprecht, 37, n. 121, who also relates Initial- Ornamentik to Lamprecht's 1878 essay on medieval individuality.

KATHRYN BRUSH 149

book also had significant implications for the "separate" discipline of

art history. Leading historians of art in this period, including Anton

Springer and Karl Woermann, director of the prints and drawings

department at the Gemaldegalerie in Dresden, wrote very favorable reviews of Initial-Ornamentik in art historical and other scholarly

periodicals such as the Zeitschriftfur bildende Kunst, the Gottingische gelehr- te Anzeigen and the Repertoriumfur Kunstwissenschaft, in which they drew

attention to Lamprecht's ability to extract a global vision of artistic and

cultural developments from seemingly insignificant details.32 The re-

viewers also praised Lamprecht's work for the picture it gave, for the first time, of the evolution of a specifically German ornamental sensibil-

ity from the time of the tribal wanderings to the era of the

Hohenstaufen.33

In addition, Lamprecht's book on decorated initials was instrumental

in disseminating information about medieval manuscripts held in

Rhenish archives. When Lamprecht arrived at the archives he often found that the manuscripts were poorly catalogued, if at all, and had not been

studied in any serious way. Thus, in Initial-Ornamentik Lamprecht pub? lished a preliminary inventory of what he termed "art historically sig? nificant manuscripts" (illuminated manuscripts) located in archives and

libraries in the Rhineland. He saw that it was imperative to make these

manuscripts more widely accessible in order to encourage their study.34 Moreover, both prior to and following the publication of Initial-

Ornamentik, Lamprecht maintained a list of illuminated manuscripts he

32. Anton Springer's lengthy review appeared in the Gottingische gelehrte Anzeigen (1883): 769-84. Schonebaum, "Karl Lamprecht," 100, reports that in a personal letter of 12 November 1882 to Lamprecht the Leipzig art historian praised the young man's work ("Ihre Kulturgeschichte setzt wohl fortwahrend Keimbluten an. Das gibt ein prachtiges Werk, das ich gern noch zu erleben wunschte"). Karl Woermann's review was published in the Zeitschrift fur bildende Kunst 18 (1883): 414-15. Woermann (1844-1933) had become acquainted with Lamprecht in the Rhineland, for he had been professor of art history at the Art Academy in Dusseldorf before moving to Dresden in late 1882. Schonebaum, "Karl Lamprecht," 100, reports that Woermann immediately asked the historian to send him some ofthe tracings. Jaro Springer, son of Anton Springer, wrote a positive evaluation of Lamprecht's book in the Repertorium fiir Kunstwissenschaft 6 (1883): 398-400. Another review by an art historian, Woldemar von Seidlitz of the Dresden Museums, appeared in the Historische Zeitschrift 50, N. F. 14 (1883): 489-92.

33. In this connection, it is important to point out that the history of ornament occupied a central position in the thought of major German-speaking art theorists, such as Gottfried Semper (see above note 22), Alois Riegl, and many others, during the second half ofthe nineteenth century. Indeed Lamprecht's pathfinding exploration of medieval manuscript ornament contributed significantly to this larger topical debate which engaged art histo? rians, ethnologists, and anthropologists alike.

34. Lamprecht, Initial-Ornamentik, 26-32 ("Kunstgeschichtlich wichtige Handschriften des Rheinlandes vom 8.-13. Jahrhundert"). Lamprecht published a second, less detailed list in "Kunstgeschichtlich wichtige Handschriften des Mittel-und Niederrheins," Jahrbucher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande 74 (1882): 130-46.

150 KARL LAMPRECHT

encountered randomly in the course of conducting archival work.35 The

list grew considerably during the preparation of the monumental Deut?

sches Wirtschaftsleben im Mittelalter of 1885-86, a project for which he

sorted through some 30,000 documents of a legal and contractual sort.36

Lamprecht's publication record during his years in Bonn, which

evinces much crisscrossing between history and art history, must be

considered extraordinary when measured by any scholarly yardstick. Other art historical studies published by him in this period included an

article on Cologne cathedral and an article on pictorial cycles in late

medieval manuscripts.37 Significantly, this article appeared in the Reper-

toriumfur Kunstwissenschaft, the principal organ for the dissemination of

serious art historical scholarship in Germany during the 1880s and 1890s.

Also during the early 1880s Lamprecht served as a reviewer for a number

of manuscript publications by other scholars.38

In 1882, with the financial help of his patron Gustav von Mevissen,

Lamprecht was able to launch a journal of history and art, the Westdeut-

sche Zeitschrift fur Geschichte und Kunst. The ten volumes edited by Lam?

precht prior to his departure from the Rhineland bear the distinctive

imprint of his interdisciplinary interests.39 Under Lamprecht's direction,

35. These materials (S 2713 [Rh 5, 1-8]) are among Lamprecht's papers (hereafter NL Lamprecht) deposited at the Universitatsbibliothek Bonn, Handschriftenabteilung. They include Lamprecht's notebooks and index cards recording the locations and call numbers of each manuscript he encountered, as well as correspondence with directors ofthe archives. The two notebooks comprising Lamprecht's "Notizen iiber illustrierte Handschriften" (S2713 [Rh 7]), for instance, provide valuable insights into Lamprecht's working process. They record not only his observations (iconographic features, descriptions of the colors employed for the illuminations, etc), but also contain sketches that Lamprecht made of ornamental and figural elements.

36. Lamprecht, Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben (as in note 1). In this pioneering study Lam? precht explored the development of material culture (materielle Kultur) in the Mosel region during the Middle Ages. He sought a total view ofthe interactive dynamics of topography, settlement patterns, and economic and religious structures in the region. Documents, rather than the deeds of individuals, served as the focal point of Lamprecht's study. See most recently Chickering, Karl Lamprecht, 80-83, for an account of the significance of Lamprecht's study and the reactions of German historians to it.

37. Karl Lamprecht, "Der Dom zu Koln, seine Bedeutung und seine Geschichte," printed in brochure form, Bonn, 1881, republished in Lamprecht's Skizzen zur Rheinischen Geschichte (Leipzig, 1887), 213-45; "Verse und Miniaturen aus einer Evangelienhandschrift des 10. Jahrhunderts der Kolner Dombibliothek (jetzt Darmstadter Hofbibl. Nr. 1948)," Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft fiir altere deutsche Geschichtskunde 9 (1883): 620-23; "Bilder- cyclen und Illustrationstechnik im spateren Mittelalter," Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft 1 (1884): 405-15.

38. Lamprecht reviewed Oskar von Gebhardt and Adolf Harnack, Evangeliorum codex graecus purpureus Rossanensis (Leipzig, 1880) in Jahrbiicher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande 69 (1880): 90-98; and L. Scheibler, Die hervorragenden anonymen Meister und Werke der Kolner Malerschule von 1480?1500 in Mitteilungen aus der historischen Literatur 10 (1883): 155ff.

39. Lamprecht was responsible for editing the first ten issues of the Westdeutsche Zeit? schrift (1882-91) with Felix Hettner, director of the Provincial Museum in Trier. In the

KATHRYN BRUSH 151

the Westdeutsche Zeitschrift became a unique kind of historical journal? one in which studies of an art historical nature, such as an article by Anton

Springer on German tenth-century art (1884), could be published alongside a discussion of the organization of historical studies in Belgium by the

young Belgian historian Henri Pirenne (1885).40 In addition, Lamprecht devoted considerable space in each issue to informing readers about recently discovered medieval artifacts, as well as about art exhibitions and newly

published museum catalogues and studies in art history.41 The nature of Lamprecht's research, as well as his studies as coeditor of

the Westdeutsche Zeitschrift and secretary ofthe Gesellschaft fiir Rheinische

Geschichtskunde, led to frequent professional contacts with art histo?

rians. The positive reviews that his work received from art history

specialists, as well as his correspondence from this period, now held in

archives in Bonn and Cologne,42 indicate that although Lamprecht's

colleagues in history may have found his work unorthodox, it was held

in great esteem by art historians. In this regard it is important to empha- size that unlike the venerable discipline of history, "norms" for art

history had not yet been fixed during these years. The respect that

Lamprecht enjoyed in art historical circles is also suggested by the fact

preface to the first volume (n. p.) the editors outlined thejournal's comprehensive scope of

inquiry. In the accompanying Korrespondenzblatt 11 (1882, n. p.) Lamprecht and Hettner also announced a plan to publish a guide to the manuscript holdings of Rhenish archives. The project bore the imprint of Lamprecht's art historical interests, and indeed might be

regarded as a sort of appendix to them, for considerable efforts were to be devoted to

cataloguing and studying illuminated manuscripts. The materials discussed in note 35 above were also linked to this undertaking, which, however, came only to partial fruition in a catalogue ofthe manuscripts held in the Stadtarchiv in Diisseldorf: Theodor Ilgen, ed., Wegweiser durch die fiir die Geschichte des Mittel-und Niederrheins wichtigen Handschriften, I. Teil: Der Niederrhein, Westdeutsche Zeitschrift fiir Geschichte und Kunst, supplement 2 (Trier, 1885). For a discussion ofthe importance ofthe Westdeutsche Zeitschrift, see Chickering, Karl Lamprecht, 77-78. See also Lamprecht's assessment of the achievements of the

journal in his notice "An die Leser der Zeitschrift," Westdeutsche Zeitschrift fiir Geschichte und Kunst 10 (1891): 413-14. Lamprecht's withdrawal from the editorial post was necessitated

by his transfers to the universities of Marburg and Leipzig. 40. Anton Springer, "Die deutsche Kunst im zehnten Jahrhundert," Westdeutsche Zeit?

schrift fur Geschichte und Kunst 3 (1884): 201-27; Henri Pirenne, "De l'organisation des etudes d'histoire provinciale et locale en Belgique," ibid., 4 (1885): 113-38. The relationship between Pirenne and Lamprecht and its significance for their work is discussed by Bryce Lyon, Henri Pirenne. A Biographical and Intellectual Study (Ghent, 1974), esp. 63, 128-36; idem, "The Letters of Henri Pirenne to Karl Lamprecht (1894-1915)," Bulletin de la Commission Royale d'Histoire 32 (1966): 161-231. See also Schorn-Schutte, Karl Lamprecht, 320-28.

41. Much of this information appeared in the detailed Korrespondenzblatter which accom-

panied each issue of the Westdeutsche Zeitschrift. 42. The principal sources are Lamprecht's papers held at the Universitatsbibliothek

Bonn (see above note 35); Lamprecht's correspondence with Gustav von Mevissen in the von Mevissen papers (hereafter NL von Mevissen), HASK, Best. 1073 Nr. 119; and the records of the Gesellschaft fiir Rheinische Geschichtskunde, also deposited at the HASK.

152 KARL LAMPRECHT

that in 1883 he was considered for a position in art history at the Art

Academy in Dusseldorf.43

Some of the prominent scholars in the field of manuscript studies

with whom Lamprecht was in frequent contact during the 1880s in?

cluded Leopold Delisle of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Anton Springer, and Hubert Janitschek (1846-93) at the University of Strasbourg.44 Lam?

precht must have made the acquaintance of Janitschek, who was coeditor

ofthe Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft, in 1883 or 1884 when he pub? lished an article in that journal.45 It is significant for the continued

exchange between Lamprecht and Janitschek that in 1883 Janitschek, whose earlier work had centered on the Italian Renaissance, embarked on

a long-term project to write a history of German painting.46 Many of

Janitschek's publications in the 1880s concentrated on manuscript illu-

mination, and certainly it was these interests which led to Janitschek's inclusion in a major collaborative project initiated by Lamprecht later in

the decade.47

This project was a detailed investigation of the so-called Ada manu?

script in Trier, an evangeliary connected with the court school of

Charlemagne in the years around 800.48 For this study, which required four years of preparation, Lamprecht enlisted the skills of five other art

historians and historians to explore the historical and cultural dimensions

of this important manuscript.49 His goal was to combine the fruits ofthe

43. See Schonebaum, "Karl Lamprecht," 148-49; idem, "Gustav Mevissen und Karl Lamprecht," 190. Lamprecht was considered for the position vacated by Karl Woermann (see above note 32), who moved to the Dresden Museums. See Schorn-Schiitte, Karl Lamprecht, 54, and esp. Lewald, "Karl Lamprecht," 241-44, for a discussion ofthe other posts for which Lamprecht was considered during his years in the Rhineland. He was among those considered for Jacob Burckhardt's history chair in Basel when Burckhardt assumed the first chair of art history there in 1886.

44. Lamprecht thanked Delisle (1826-1910), an international authority on manuscripts, in the introduction to Die Trierer Ada-Handschrift, Publikationen der Gesellschaft fiir Rheinische Geschichtskunde, 6 (Leipzig, 1889), discussed below. For Springer, see notes 6 and 20; for Janitschek, see note 46.

45. See note 37. 46. Huber Janitschek, Geschichte der deutschen Malerei (Berlin, 1890). Janitschek, trained

in Graz, Vienna, and Prague, had been called to Strasbourg in 1881 as the successor to Alfred Woltmann (see note 27). His earlier publications included Leone Battista Albertis kleinere kunsttheoretische Schriften (Vienna, 1877) and Die Gesellschaft der Renaissance in Italien und die Kunst (Stuttgart, 1879).

47. For instance, Janitschek, "Zwei Studien zur Geschichte der carolingischen Malerei," Strassburger Festgruss an Anton Springer zum 4. Mai 1885 (Berlin and Stuttgart, 1885), 1-30.

48. Lamprecht, ed., Die Trierer Ada-Handschrift. The Carolingian manuscript is held in Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Ms. 22.

49. As director and coordinator of the project, Lamprecht carried on an extensive correspondence, now deposited at the HASK (Acta der Gesellschaft fiir Rheinische Ge? schichtskunde, Publikationen VI. Betreffend Antrag Janitschek, Herausgabe der Trierer Adahandschrift. Korrespondenz des Geschaftsfuhrers Lamprecht, 1886 bis 1890, Nr. 56/ 1-4). These papers contain Lamprecht's exchange with scholars such as Delisle, Janitschek, and Springer.

KATHRYN BRUSH 153

scholarly labors of these specialists in order to reach the most compre? hensive understanding of the manuscripts possible. He intended this

major exploration to shed new light on a particularly formative moment

in the genesis of the German nation.

Janitschek, for instance, discussed the art historical significance of the

manuscript in relation to the various schools of Carolingian painting. Other participants in the project, including Karl Menzel, a professor of

history at Bonn, and Alexander Schmitgen, a prominent member of the

Cologne cathedral chapter?his collection of medieval art now forms the

nucleus of the Schmitgen Museum in Cologne?considered the Ada

manuscript from the perspectives of the text, the script, and the place of

its manufacture, and then situated these specifics in relation to Charle-

magne's broader liturgical and educational reforms.50 With the aid of

subsidies from Gustav von Mevissen and the Gesellschaft fiir Rheinische

Geschichtskunde, Lamprecht produced a monumental tome, accompa- nied by full-scale chromolithographs and photographs, which remains

overwhelming today not only in terms ofthe scope of its ambitions, but

also in terms of its luxury and physical scale.51 This remarkable opus met

with enthusiastic reception from scholars of art history, for they recog? nized that it provided an outstanding methodological exemplar and

highly visible stimulus for the developing field of manuscript studies.

Lamprecht considered Die Trierer Ada-Handschrift of 1889, which was

reviewed in periodicals such as the Gottingische gelehrte Anzeigen, the

Rep ertorium fiir Kunstwissenschaft and the Zeitschrift fur bildende Kunst, to be

among the most important achievements of his years in the Rhineland.52

Lamprecht's Teaching and Students in Bonn

Lamprecht's practice and understanding of art history during the 1880s

was of considerable import for his teaching in the History Seminar at the

50. Janitschek's art historical discussion of the Ada manuscript, 63-111, formed the largest section of the book. The two other members of Lamprecht's scholarly team were Peter Corssen, who discussed the particularities of the Biblical text, and Felix Hettner (see note 39), who amplified Schmitgen's comments on the bookcover by discussing its Roman cameo. Lamprecht outlined the goals of the project, vii-viii. To my knowledge, Lam? precht's method of using specialists from different fields for a monographic study of a manuscript represents the first endeavor of this sort.

51. The publication is physkally large (approximately 46 X 35 cm.) and contains 38 full-scale reproductions, 35 of which were made from high-quality photographic plates. The luxury publication also contained three chromolithographs. Lamprecht's Die Trierer Ada-Handschrift was an outstanding representative of a new genre of manuscript studies combining in-depth scholarly analysis with high-quality techniques of reproduction.

52. For Lamprecht's view ofthe project, see Schonebaum, "Karl Lamprecht," 173-74. Reviews included those by Anton Springer in Gottingische gelehrte Anzeigen (1890): 633-51; Joseph Neuwirth in Repertorium fiir Kunstwissenschaft 13 (1890): 196-210; and by Theodor Frimmel in Zeitschrift fiir bildende Kunst, N. F. 1 (1890): 83.

154 KARL LAMPRECHT

University of Bonn. Not surprisingly, Lamprecht's courses reflected his

dominant research concerns during these years, and were often as much

about art history as about "conventional" history. Along with courses

treating topics such as constitutional law and Carolingian and German

economic history, he offered more broadly conceived courses examining the development of German culture in the Middle Ages (summer semes-

ter 1882 and winter semester 1887-88), Rhenish art history and culture

(summer semesters 1885 and 1887), as well as the history of German

painting during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (winter semester

1881-82).53 These courses included excursions on Saturdays to museums

in Cologne and Bonn and to relevant historical monuments, such as the

cathedral and its treasury in Cologne.

Surviving accounts of these excursions, as well as the memoirs of men

who attended Lamprecht's classes in Bonn, provide vivid testimony of

Lamprecht's talents as an engaging and thought-provoking lecturer.

Though he later became one of Lamprecht's fiercest opponents, the

historian Friedrich Meinecke (1862-1954), who attended Lamprecht's courses in Bonn between 1883 and 1884, acknowledged the "gripping" character of Lamprecht's lectures, as well the "richness and multiplicity of viewpoints" offered by the young Privatdozent.54 Certainly Lam?

precht's pedagogical zeal, as well as the broad scope of his knowledge and his boundless energies, left a deep impression upon his students, who

were only about ten years younger than he was. In this connection, it is

also important to point out that university enrollments were very small

in this era. Lamprecht's courses ranged in size from approximately three

to ten students, a situation which further encouraged lively intellectual

and social exchanges between teacher and students.55

This leads to a second, and arguably more critical, issue in relation to

Lamprecht's teaching: the formative impact that Lamprecht's investiga-

53. Verzeichnis der Vorlesungen an der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat zu Bonn, Winterhalbjahr 1881/82, "Geschichte der deutschen Malerei wahrend des Mittelalters und der Renaissance"; Sommerhalbjahr 1882, "Grundziige der deutschen Kulturgeschichte im Mittelalter"; Sommerhalbjahr 1885, "Geschichte der rheinischen Cultur mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Kunst"; Sommerhalbjahr 1887, "Ausgewahlte Kapitel aus der rheini? schen Kunstgeschichte"; Winterhalbjahr 1887/88, "Grundziige der deutschen Kulturent- wickelung im Mittelalter."

54. Friedrich Meinecke, Erlebtes 1862-1901 (Leipzig, 1941), 106, admitted to being "gepackt durch Lamprechts stromenden und anschauungsreichen Vortrag" on economic history in the winter semester 1883-84. See his further comments, 104, on Lamprecht's teaching.

55. Ibid., 104. Meinecke stated that there were three students in Lamprecht's economic history class during the winter semester of 1883-84. Lewald, "Karl Lamprecht und die Rheinische Geschichtsforschung," 292, quoting Lamprecht, asserts that there were ten history majors at Bonn during the early 1880s. These students included, most notably, Georg von Below (1858-1927) and Friedrich Meinecke.

KATHRYN BRVSH 155

tions of art history and cultural history had upon his students, and

particularly upon the future art historians Aby Warburg, Wilhelm Voge, and Paul Clemen, who enrolled in his courses in the years between 1887

and 1889.56 Archival materials indicate that the most important progeny of Lamprecht's Rhenish years, when viewed within the matrix of human?

ities scholarship at large, were not so much historians as these three art

historians.57 The later work of these individuals shows that, although

Lamprecht was not the only influential figure in their intellectual back-

grounds, their art historical careers were grounded significantly in Lam?

precht's teachings.

Aby Warburg, perhaps the best known of the three today, kept most

ofthe papers he accumulated in the course of his lifetime. His notebooks

from the courses he, Voge, and Clemen took from Lamprecht offer rare

glimpses into the sorts of ideas and methodological perspectives that

Lamprecht imparted to his young listeners at this formative stage in their

intellectual development.58 Warburg's lecture notes for Lamprecht's course on the development of German cultural history (winter semester,

1887-88) show that Lamprecht began the course by surveying "antiqua- rian" understandings of Kulturgeschichte formulated during the "human-

istic" period (Renaissance to 1830/40) by figures such as Descartes,

Rousseau, Hegel, and Herder, and during the ensuing "naturalistic"

period by men such as Taine, Buckle, and Darwin. Lamprecht then

56. Immatriculation records, Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat in Bonn, Uni- versitatsarchiv. Aby Warburg (Anmeldebuch, Nr. 63 des Universitatsalbums, winter 1886- 87 to winter 1887-88, and Anmeldebuch, Nr. 467 des Universitatsalbums, summer 1889) took four courses from Lamprecht: selected chapters in Rhenish art history (summer 1887), the development of German culture during the Middle Ages (winter 1887-88), German constitutional and economic history (winter 1887-88), as well as German history from the end ofthe Hohenstaufen to Kaiser Maximilian (summer 1889). Voge (Anmeldebuch, Nr. 439 des Universitatsalbums, summer 1887 to summer 1888) enrolled in seven of Lamprecht's courses, including the first three above. His other courses were: German economic history (summer 1887), tutorial in economic history (summer 1887), German history until the

Treaty of Verdun (summer 1888) and a course on the Germania of Tacitus (summer 1888). Clemen spent the winter semester 1887-88 and summer semester 1888 in Bonn. Although the course records in his Anmeldebuch have been lost, it is clear from surviving correspond- ence that he enrolled in Lamprecht's classes during those two semester. I discuss these three men's studies at Bonn in greater detail in a book I am completing on the pioneering German medieval art historical scholarship between 1885 and 1914.

57. Although historians such as Meinecke or von Below took Lamprecht's classes, their historical work did not bear the imprint of Lamprecht.

58. Warburg's lecture notes from Lamprecht's courses on "Ausgewahlte Kapitel aus der rheinischen Kunstgeschichte" (13 pages, summer 1887), "Grundziige der deutschen Kul-

turentwickelung im Mittelalter" (95 pages, winter 1887-88) and "Deutsche Geschichte vom Ausgang der Staufer bis auf Kaiser Max" (146 pages, summer 1889) are preserved at the Warburg Institute (see below).

156 KARL LAMPRECHT

constructed a theoretical edifice for studying cultural history in which he

surveyed the current state of knowledge of fields relevant to that task.

Drawing on an extensive bibliography, Lamprecht outlined the disci?

plines that complemented cultural history, such as constitutional history,

linguistics, the history of literature, art history, economic history,

anthropology, and the comparative study of the mental patterns of

different peoples (Volkerpsychologie). For the remainder of the course,

Lamprecht examined the various phases that he perceived in the progres? sive unfolding ofthe German national consciousness.59

It was Lamprecht's comprehensive approach to the interpretation of

culture that left a significant imprint on the thought of Warburg, who

devoted his career to investigations ofthe art and cultural behavior ofthe

classical and Renaissance worlds. As the eldest son of a prominent

banking family in Hamburg, Warburg was able to become a private scholar and to establish a celebrated research library, which reflected his

complex and idiosyncratic approaches to Kulturwissenschaft, or the study of culture. Transferred to England prior to World War II, the Kulturwis-

senschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg now forms the nucleus of the Warburg Institute at the University of London, a celebrated research institute

devoted to cross-disciplinary cultural investigation. Lamprecht's inter-

weaving of historical, literary, and artistic evidence with the study ofthe

rituals and customs of a given period must have prompted young War?

burg to reflect upon how art was permeated with the habits, social

attitudes, and mentality of its time. In his intellectual biography of

Warburg, Ernst Gombrich has discerned the enduring impact of Lam?

precht's teachings in Warburg's willingness to investigate the totality of

culture, as well as in Warburg's overriding concern with the psycholog- ical dimensions of art and culture.60 Lamprecht's influence on Warburg is also demonstrated by the fact that it was on Lamprecht's advice that

Warburg completed his doctoral work at the University of Strasbourg under Hubert Janitschek.61 Warburg's correspondence and papers show,

too, that he kept in touch with Lamprecht and with the later develop-

59. Warburg's notes show that Lamprecht's morphological scheme for the Kulturzeitalter discussed later in his Deutsche Geschichte was well developed by this time.

60. Gombrich, Aby Warburg, 30-37. 61. Ibid., 54. Gombrich noted that Lamprecht referred to Janitschek's work in his classes

and suggested that the choice of Janitschek had been "encouraged by Lamprecht." Gom? brich, however, does not appear to have been aware of the ongoing collegial relationship between Lamprecht and Janitschek during the 1880s. Correspondence from the Die Trierer Ada-Handschrift project (see note 49), Nr. 56/2, Korrespondenz, 1889-90, confirms Gom- brich's suggestion. In a letter of 15 October 1889 from Venice, Janitschek thanked Lam? precht for referring the young students Warburg and Clemen (see below) to him.

KATHRYN BRUSH 157

ment of his theoretical ideas until well into the second decade of the

twentieth century.62 The resonance of Lamprecht's 1880s research on medieval art was

perhaps greatest in the work of Wilhelm Voge and Paul Clemen, who

were among the most prominent medieval specialists in German

academic and museum circles at the turn of the century. Wilhelm Voge in particular should be considered a disciple of Lamprecht. He had

moved to Bonn from Leipzig where he had studied art history under

Springer. Voge's letters to his family and friends reveal that Springer had

recommended Lamprecht highly to his students.63 In addition, the cor?

respondence conveys Voge's excitement about Lamprecht's novel

approach to history. In a letter written shortly after his arrival in Bonn in

the late spring of 1887, Voge related that he found Lamprecht's view of

the historical process "fresh" and "invigorating" for his work in art

history, since Lamprecht did not concentrate on a mere accumulation of

facts and data but rather on cross-sectional and interdisciplinary avenues

of inquiry.64 Significantly, Voge's transcripts show that he took seven

courses in economic, cultural, and art history with Lamprecht between

1887 and 1888, a number far exceeding the courses he took from the art

historians then teaching in Bonn.65

Lamprecht's work and publications on medieval manuscripts had a

particularly strong influence on Voge who followed in Lamprecht's

62. See Dieter Wuttke, "Die Emigration der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek War? burg und die Anfange des Universitatsfaches Kunstgeschichte in Grossbritannien," in Horst Bredekamp et al., eds., Aby Warburg. Akten des internationalen Symposions Hamburg 1990 (Weinheim, 1991), 145-47. Wuttke provides a general discussion of Warburg's interest in Lamprecht's theories of culture in relation to Warburg's participation in the planning of the university in Hamburg (founded 1919). See also Wuttke, "Aby M. Warburgs Kulturwissenschaft," Historische Zeitschrift 256, no. 1 (1993): 1-30.

63. Letter to his family of 14 May 1887 from Poppelsdorf bei Bonn, in which he described his courses for the coming semester: "Der Dritte im Bunde ist Professor Lam? precht . . . Er liest deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte; ich mache auch seine Ubungen mit. Er halt ausserdem eine einstundige Vorlesung iiber rheinische Kunst, dies mit kleinen Excur- sionen. Wie ich von Clemen hore hat ihn auch Springer sehr gelobt."

64. Voge described his response to Lamprecht's work in letters sent during the summer semester of 1887 to Clemen, who was still studying in Leipzig at the time. In a letter of 16 May 1887, for instance, Voge stated: "Meine Nebenfacher sind also Geschichte?und zwar vor allem Geschichte der Wirtschaft und Verfassung, der ausseren Kultur, wenn man will; auf historische Facta werde ich mich weniger einlassen; es mussen ja solche Neigungen doch auch bei Examen beriicksichtigt werden. Auch hat gerade diese Seite, die Lamprecht hervorhebt?fiir mich besonderen Reiz. Ich fmde, dass es so ganz ungemein mehr bildet und den Gesichtskreis erweitert." Cited with permission ofthe Landesamt fiir Denkmal- pflege Sachsen-Anhalt.

65. I discuss Voge's work with the Bonn art historians Henry Thode (1857-1920) and Carl Justi (1832-1912) in my book. In the meantime, see my article, "Wilhelm Voge and the Role of Human Agency in the Making of Medieval Sculpture: Reflections on an Art Historical Pioneer," Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 62 (1993): 78-93.

158 KARL LAMPRECHT

footsteps and spent two semesters in Munich studying the manuscripts at

the Hof- und Staatsbibliothek. In addition, Lamprecht encouraged

Voge?as he had Warburg?to write his dissertation at the University of

Strasbourg under the direction of Janitschek.66 Voge's brilliant disserta?

tion, still considered fundamental today, established the identifying char-

acteristics ofthe group of Ottonian manuscripts now associated with the

scriptorium at Reichenau.67 This dissertation exhibits a comprehensive

approach to issues of historical context, paleography, and textual analysis that bespeaks the influence of Lamprecht. Voge himself acknowledged the debt in the preface to his study, stating that he took Lamprecht's

publication on the Carolingian Ada manuscript as his point of

departure.68

Lamprecht was more than casually interested in championing the

efforts and interests of one of his most promising art history students. So

concerned was Lamprecht with Voge's unfolding career that he con-

vinced his patron, Gustav von Mevissen, to give the very generous sum

of 1,000 Reichsmark toward the publication of Voge's dissertation, which appeared as a supplementary volume ofthe Westdeutsche Zeitschrift in 1891.69 Although Lamprecht had left the Rhineland by that time to

take up his new posts in Marburg and later Leipzig, his correspondence shows that he continued to be responsible for all ofthe details of produc? tion for Voge's dissertation.70

66. In Die Trierer Ada-Handschrift correspondence (as in note 49), Nr. 56/2, Korrespon- denz, 1889-90, is a letter of 10 November 1889 from Janitschek in Strasbourg in which he thanked Lamprecht for sending Voge to him. Referring also to Clemen (see below), Janitschek remarked that "mit der Zeit werden dann doch tuchtige Arbeiter fur die Kunstgeschichte des Mittelalters herangezogen sein."

67. Wilhelm Voge, Eine deutsche Malerschule um die Wende des ersten Jahrtausends. Kritische Studien zur Geschichte der Malerei in Deutschland im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert, Westdeutsche Zeitschrift fur Geschichte und Kunst, supplement 7 (Trier, 1891).

68. Ibid., 1. 69. In order to promote publication relating to the study of Rhenish history and culture,

von Mevissen made funds available to Lamprecht on a discretionary basis. These funds were administered separately from monies that von Mevissen gave to support publications ofthe Gesellschaft fiir Rheinische Geschichtskunde. The studies ofthe so-called Mevissian- er appeared as supplementary volumes of the Westdeutsche Zeitschrift. All of these studies were of a historical nature, with the exception of Voge's dissertation and a later study by Edmund Braun, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Trierer Buchmalerei im friihen Mittelalter, West? deutsche Zeitschrift fiir Geschichte und Kunst, supplement 9 (Trier, 1896).

70. NL von Mevissen, Best. 1073, Nr. 119, letter of 23 January 1891 from Marburg in which Lamprecht confirmed that he had received 2,000 Reichsmark, 1,000 of which were destined for Voge's study and 1,000 for an inventory ofthe Koblenz archive. In a letter of 10 October 1891 from Leipzig, Lamprecht outlined delays in the production of Voge's book. On 23 December 1891 he stated that he had paid the Lintz'sche Buchhandlung in Trier. Lamprecht's correspondence with the publishers (NL Lamprecht, S 2713 [Z 2b]) also shows that he assumed full responsibility for the production of Voge's dissertation.

KATHRYN BRUSH 159

Lamprecht's interests in promoting Voge's manuscript studies as well

as the study of Rhenish art and culture are also evident in the plans he

initiated between 1890 and 1892 for a second manuscript publication

comparable to Die Trierer Ada-Handschrift. The extensive correspondence connected with this project shows that the Golden Evangeliary of

Echternach, which Lamprecht had treated in an earlier publication, was

to be the centerpiece of the study. Voge was charged with the

investigation.71 During 1892 Lamprecht paid a personal visit to the Duke

of Saxe-Coburg in Gotha, who owned the codex, in order to solicit his

permission for the undertaking, and also obtained estimates for the costs

of chromolithographs and photographic plates in Berlin.72 Lamprecht submitted his rationale for the project, together with supporting mate?

rials, which included his evaluation of Voge's scholarship, to the Gesell?

schaft fiir Rheinische Geschichtskunde in late 1892. Although the project was turned down for reasons of cost on 3 December 1892,73 it demon-

strates that in the years immediately following his move to Leipzig

Lamprecht continued his interests in both art history and in Voge. When plans for this publication were abandoned Voge redirected his

energies to the study of monuments of medieval art and architecture in

France. In 1894 he published his second book, Die Anfdnge des

monumentalen Stiles im Mittelalter, which presented the first comprehen? sive account ofthe genesis of Gothic sculpture.74 Voge's influential study ofthe origins and nature of Gothic sculpture in France is remarkable both

for its breadth of vision and for its precise stylistic and iconographic observations. In recognition of Gustav von Mevissen's generosity in

71. In a letter to von Mevissen of 10 November 1891 from Leipzig (NL von Mevissen, Best. 1073, Nr. 119), Lamprecht outlined his ideas for the publication, naming Voge as the specialist best suited for the undertaking. Lamprecht's correspondence with von Mevissen over the next year contains numerous references to the project. For further documentation held at the HASK, see Gesellschaft fiir Rheinische Geschichtskunde, Abgelehnte Publika? tionen, Akten, 1882-1906, Nr. 40/1, no. 15 ("Voge, Rheinische Miniaturmalereien des 10. und 11. Jahrhunderts [1892]").

72. NL von Mevissen, Best 1073, Nr. 119, letter to von Mevissen of 24 September 1892 from Friedrichsroda. Detailed estimates of costs are contained in the Gesellschaft fiir Rheinische Geschichtskunde file, ibid., as is Lamprecht's evaluation of Voge's work ("Gutachten des Herrn Prof. Lamprecht") dated 1 June 1892: "Uber den Bearbeiter Voge konnen Janitschek und ich nur das Beste aussagen. Er ist unser beiderseitiger Schiiler, wir kennen ihn als unverdrossen, eindringlich und kritisch."

73. In a letter of 5 December 1892, ibid., Voge was informed ofthe decision reached at a meeting of the Gesellschaft held on 3 December. Documents in the file show that Lam? precht wished to spare no expense on the project, especially for photographs and chromo- lithographs. His tally of the costs totalled 9,310 Reichsmark, making the publication prohibitively expensive.

74. Wilhelm Voge, Die Anfange des monumentalen Stiles im Mittelalter. Eine Untersuchung iiber die erste Blutezeit der franzbsischen Plastik (Strasbourg, 1894). Voge's study receives detailed analysis in my book.

160 KARL LAMPRECHT

sponsoring the publication of his dissertation, Voge dedicated this 1894

opus to him, just as Lamprecht had done with his Deutsches Wirtschafts- leben im Mittelalter in 1885-86. 7d

Surviving correspondence shows that

Voge remained in contact with his mentor during the following decades. In a letter to Lamprecht of 1903, for instance, Voge evoked his memories of Lamprecht's teaching at Bonn and expressed his gratitude for the influence that Lamprecht had exercised upon his work.76

Voge went on to work in the Berlin museums (1899-1908) under Wilhelm von Bode and then became professor of art history at Freiburg im Breisgau (1909-16). His most famous doctoral student there was Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968), a scholar who came to exercise wide influence in both Europe and America. Panofsky, who also worked with

Aby Warburg, can be considered both an art historian and a cultural historian. Without elaborating the ramifications of the intellectual links between Voge, Warburg, and Panofsky, it appears that the vital momen- tum generated by Lamprecht was manifested by later developments of the discipline, in particular by one of the most influential figures in

twentieth-century humanities scholarship, Erwin Panofsky. Like Voge, Paul Clemen, the third art historian who enrolled in

Lamprecht's courses in the late 1880s, had studied earlier in Leipzig with

Springer.77 Clemen's move to the Rhineland proved to be decisive for his career. It was Lamprecht who suggested Clemen's dissertation topic on

images of Charlemagne, and who also recommended that he conduct his doctoral work under Janitschek in Strasbourg.78 In 1893 the ambitious

young man became the first conservator of artistic monuments in the Rhineland. In his capacity as Provincial Conservator, a position he held

75. There are six letters and one visiting card from Voge to von Mevissen in NL von Mevissen, Best. 1073, Nr. 147. In a letter of 16 November 1891 Voge expressed his gratitude for von Mevissen's financial support of his dissertation. In the remaining corres? pondence, dating from June and July 1894, Voge outlined his desire to dedicate Die Anfange des monumentalen Stiles to von Mevissen. For Lamprecht's dedication to von Mevissen, see Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben, vol. 1, v-vii.

76. In 1903 Voge was considered for a teaching position at the University of Leipzig, which, however, he did not receive. In a letter of 19 January 1903 sent to Lamprecht from Hanover (NL Lamprecht, S 2713 [Korr. 51]), he stated: "In manchem bedauere ich es sehr, dass daraus nichts geworden ist. Gar zu gern ware ich insbesondere Ihnen und Ihrem EinfluB wieder nahegeriickt gewesen nach so langer Zeit. Denn immer ist mir Ihre Bonner Lehrtatigkeit in dankbarster Erinnerung geblieben."

77. For recent studies on Clemen, see Paul Clemen, 1866-1947. Erster Provinzialkonserva- tor der Rheinprovinz, exh. cat. (Cologne, 1991); and the collection of essays in Wilfried Hansmann, ed., Paul Clemen. Zur 125. Wiederkehr seines Geburtstages (Cologne, 1991).

78. Paul Clemen, Die Portratdarstellungen Karls des Grofien, part 1 (Aachen, 1889). Cle- men's entire dissertation appeared in the Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsvereins 11 (1889): 185-271; 12 (1890): 1-147. The role played by Lamprecht in Clemen's choice of disserta? tion topic is mentioned in Hansmann, Paul Clemen, 1866-1947, 45.

KATHRYN BRUSH 161

until 1911, Clemen published extensively on Rhenish works of art and

architecture and drew up a series of important inventories entitled Die

Kunstdenkmdler der Rheinprovinz. These inventories could be considered

on a certain level as continuing the projects initiated earlier by Karl

Lamprecht, Gustav von Mevissen, and the Gesellschaft fiir Rheinische

Geschichtskunde. In 1901 Clemen became professor of art history at the

University of Bonn. His professional interests in German medieval art

and culture, and Rhenish art in particular, had a profound influence on

several generations of students at Bonn and elsewhere over the next forty

years.79 Clemen, like his colleagues Voge and Warburg, kept in touch

with Lamprecht in later years. In a letter of 1905, which Clemen sent to

Lamprecht together with a copy of his publication, Die romanischen

Wandmalereien der Rheinlande, Clemen acknowledged that "the intellec?

tual stimuli that I received from you were the most lasting and fruitful

for my own conception and historical understanding of art."80

Although the effects of Lamprecht's publications and teaching in art

history during the 1880s extended far beyond his years in the Rhineland, his art historical practice took a definite backseat to work on the twelve-

volume Deutsche Geschichte from the early 1890s onwards. At Leipzig

Lamprecht no longer offered courses focusing on art history, nor did he

devote articles or monographs to art historical subjects following the

abandonment on the Echternach Evangeliary project in late 1892.81 His

discussions of monuments of art and architecture were absorbed instead

79. Clemen taught at Bonn until his retirement in 1935. Like Warburg and Voge, he had an international reputation in art history. He taught, for instance, at Harvard University during the academic year 1907-8. See Reiner Pommerin, "Paul Clemen in Harvard," Jahrbuch der Rheinischen Denkmalpflege 29 (1983): 13-16.

80. NL Lamprecht, S 2713 (Korr. 17), letter of 23 February 1905, where he stated "dass die Anregungen, die ich bei Ihnen empfangen habe, fur die ganze Art meines geschicht- lichen Denkens der Kunst gegeniiber die nachhaltigsten und fruchtbarsten waren."

81. In the early years of his stay in Leipzig, however, Lamprecht sought contacts with the Art History Seminar. Following the death of Springer in 1891, Janitschek, Lamprecht's colleague in manuscript studies, was named professor of art history at Leipzig. Janitschek died in 1893 and Lamprecht played an instrumental role in securing August Schmarsow (1853-1936), then professor in Breslau, to replace him. Although a cordial relationship existed between the two men at the outset, the memoirs of the art historian Werner Weisbach, "Und alles ist zerstorben." Erinnerungen aus derJahrhundertwende (Vienna, Leipzig, and Zurich, 1937), who studied in Leipzig during the mid-1890s, paint a vivid picture of the tensions that erupted between the two highly competitive Ordinarien (esp. 158-60, 169-70, 173-74). In fact Lamprecht's encouragement of individual art history students at Leipzig was not as great as during the early years of his career in Bonn; this is confirmed by a list of the Leipzig dissertations supervised by Lamprecht (compiled by Schonebaum, "Zum hundertsten Geburtstag," 16-21). Of the 150 dissertations for which Lamprecht served as co-examiner, only four (1891, 1893, 1894, and 1896) were by art history students. In addition, none ofthe 140 dissertations in history and cultural history which Lamprecht supervised at Leipzig treated art historical themes.

162 KARL LAMPRECHT

into his Deutsche Geschichte, the conceptual framework of which he had

worked out in the course of the preceding decade.

Lamprecht: Practitioner and Progenitor of Art History

Lamprecht's attempts to interpret the plot of history during the 1880s

had multiple dimensions for the young discipline of art history taking

shape during these years. On the most immediate level, Lamprecht's research and pioneering publications on medieval manuscripts, such as

the Codex Egberti, the Golden Evangeliary of Echternach, and the

Carolingian Ada manuscript, charted important new territory for the

study of the history of art in general, and for the study of medieval

monuments in particular. His contributions to manuscript studies were

comparable to those made by the handful of German art historians

working in the field at the time, such as Springer and Janitschek. They

suggest that Lamprecht the cultural historian should also be considered a

first-generation medieval art historian.

At this early moment in the formation of art history, however, Lam?

precht's greatest impact was felt on an intellectual level. By viewing artistic monuments as manifestations of the mentality of a given era and

investigating their broader cultural resonances with the aid of then-

emerging fields such as psychology, anthropology, and sociology, Lam?

precht offered the new discipline of art history a broad conceptual frame

in which to operate?and one which was then on the frontiers of knowl?

edge. Despite the criticisms levelled by the historical guild, those art

historians who were exposed to Lamprecht's work during the 1880s?a

relatively small group of manuscript scholars as well as Lamprecht's students at Bonn?found it provocative for their developing notions

of the practice and methods of art history.82 Intellectually, Lamprecht

played a key role as progenitor at a very crucial moment in the develop? ment of the field of art history. This was due not simply to the happy accident of time and place, or to Lamprecht's challenging synthetic

vision, but rather to the fact that some ofthe most influential thinkers in

the field grew in part from the stem of his lectures.

82. This is not to say that the art historians were unaware of the errors in Lamprecht's work. In a letter to Paul Clemen (n. d., probably 1889), Voge complained that he had wasted time making a trip to Trier in search of manuscripts which were not there: "dazu kommt, dass ich hochstwahrscheinlich gar nicht gefahren ware, hatte ich gewusst, dass

Lamprechts Angaben in der Initial-Ornamentik wenigstens zum Teil direkt auf dem alten und schlechten Kataloge beruhen. Lamprecht hat mehrere miniierte Hs. aus Trier angegeben, die sich heute in Paris oder sonstwo befinden, jedenfalls nicht auf hiesiger Stadtbibliothek." Cited with permission ofthe Landesamt fur Denkmalpflege Sachsen- Anhalt.

KATHRYN BRUSH 163

Yet, Lamprecht's generative role in the formation of art history re-

mains virtually unknown and unexplored up to now. Certainly this can

be attributed in large part to the intellectual atmosphere in which Lam?

precht's work was received. In contrast to cultural historians such as

Burckhardt, whose writings were digested broadly by scholars and

disseminated to a general public, the reception of Lamprecht's ex-

perimental probings into art history was confined to a small, if porten- tous, audience in the 1880s. Furthermore, he no longer engaged actively in art historical practice from the 1890s onward. Ultimately, however, it

seems that the "disappearance" of Lamprecht's work from the art histor?

ical landscape in Germany had much to do with Lamprecht's eventual

defeat in the Methodenstreit ofthe 1890s. Indeed the historical commun-

ity's mounting opposition to Lamprecht's theories of culture may have

contributed importantly to a fundamental intellectual shift that accompa- nied the formalization of art historical practice in the 1890s. During this

decade, art history narrowed its field of vision and became inward-

looking onto the object (i.e., concerned with issues of style, hands, and

dating) rather than outward-looking onto the context. In other words, the Methodenstreit among German academic historians, which pivoted on

the work of Lamprecht, may have encouraged art historians to distance

themselves from history and cultural history in favor of formalism. But

whatever the case, Lamprecht's conception of Kulturgeschichte was soon

forgotten by the majority of art historians.83

Wolfflin, Riegl, and their followers constituted the new wave. They

operated largely on the assumption of an autonomous visual tradition. In

the publications of Warburg, Voge, and Clemen from the early 1890s

onward, however, clear tensions were displayed between the reconcilia-

tion of broad cultural visions and art historical methods, such as stylistic

analysis, which aimed at concrete details?tensions that ought to be

reassessed at least in part as the legacy of Lamprecht.84 Given the stature

of Lamprecht's former students and their considerable influence, it may be worth speculating that some of Lamprecht's Kulturgeschichte was more

vital to the development of art history than Burckhardt's. Although final

83. I wish to thank Professor Roger Chickering for suggesting the interdisciplinary impact of Lamprecht's defeat to me in a letter of 10 January 1993. Some later historians of art who considered art as the expression of a collective mentality, such as Wilhelm Worringer (1881-1965), referred to Lamprecht's work. See Worringer's Abstraktion und Einfuhlung (Munich, 1908) and Formprobleme der Gotik (Munich, 1911), especially for discussions of the Northern ornamental sensibility. Since Worringer's studies did not include extensive footnotes, it is impossible to determine whether he was referring to Lamprecht's 1880s art historical work, or to its distillation in Deutsche Geschichte.

84. I address some of these issues within my broader treatment of the intellectual background of 1890s medieval art historical scholarship in my book.

164 KARL LAMPRECHT

judgment on that matter awaits comprehensive analysis, the material

presented here indicates clearly that the critical study of Lamprecht's

place in the development of art history is long overdue. Study of Lam?

precht's cultural historical work may prove especially enriching today when both history and art history are shedding rigorous internalizing

systems while groping toward more synthetic and interdisciplinary

approaches similar to those Lamprecht experimented with just over one

hundred years ago.

The University of Western Ontario

London, Ontario, Canada