Customer Reviews

Vienna School Reader: Politics and Art Historical Method in the 1930s

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Wood has done a fantastic job of assembling a representative group of texts that documents the emergence and impact of a relatively obscure school of art historical research. But its obscurity, thankfully, is now a thing of the past.

What makes this material so fascinating is that wrapped up in an academic debate one would normally consider to be a dry and remote subject - art historical methodology - are enormously important philosophical and political issues that are just as vital today as when the debate originally took place (the 1930s).

Wood does an absolutely singular job of delineating the cast of characters, setting the stage and describing the plot. To his great credit, he has also selected essays for translation, many of which appear for the first time in English, that illustrate the issues in compelling ways. One only wishes that more could have been incorporated - especially translations of Hans Sedlmayr's 1929 introduction to Riegl's Collected Essays, his 1925 piece on "Shaped Vision," and Otto Pächt's article on Michael Pacher.

What Wood demonstrates is that continuing interest in the Vienna School of Art History, and its primary protagonist Alois Riegl (three of whose main books were finally translated into English nearly a century after their original publication), constitutes a curious demand for more translations of these vivid, multivalent texts after decades of relative neglect.

I must confess that Wood does not see the full range of political issues imbedded within these writings. This is somewhat odd, because in a previously edited volume on Otto Pächt's own art historical methods in which these issues are brought right to the surface, Wood avoided a thorough discussion as well. Perhaps he is uncomfortable with this material, or perhaps he is simply "politically tone deaf." All interpretation is through the typically Leftist academic lens, but not surprisingly, the material is far too nuanced for so puerile an instrument. In short, much remains to be said about this material, and why it still fascinates modern collectivists on the political Left.

Read it yourself and see if you agree. You will not regret the time spent. If you are an art history "buff," student or professor, this is simply MUST reading.