Kaleidoscope - art history as science, fairly young and fairly German science

Curious about the history of art?

Wherever they read, at first it is always about the history of the history of art .

Confusing, but logical - art history is a science, and science accompanies us shorter overall when we usually know:

• The Homo Sapiens, Homo, who has a special position as a person (justification of which has become increasingly controversial as a person, has existed for around 200,000 years, but that is again a topic).
• Since about 3,000 BC BC we speak of "beginnings of science", in the old high cultures of the front orientation (Sumer in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Indus culture)
• The "age of science" only lasts a fraction of human history, to this day around 2.5 % ...
• That is around 5,000 years to date, and since the first records come from the "old orientals", historiography also begins here.
• The entire historical library of mankind is only 5,000 years old, astonishing what you can produce in the few years.

Famous men reported a good part of this 5,000 years of historiography about all conceivable ones from their time, also about art - but never only about art.

Sounds like that the art history itself has not yet had a very long history, and that's exactly how it is:

Only a good 500 years ago, in the Renaissance of the 15th + 16th centuries, for the first time famous men wrote "only about art". Artists gave the impetus for this exclusive description of art: Albrecht Dürer and Leonardo da Vinci made sketches after a book by the Roman Vitruvius , the 33/22 BC. Had written about architecture and art.

Leonardo da Vinci drew his “Vitruvian man” according to the proportions specified by Vitruvius; Leonardo da Vinci's championship and his reference to the vitruvian, who appears long before him, suggested the first art historian to the first art history script a little later.

The work that gave the "impetus to art history" know: The "Vitruvian man" is the person in a circle and square, which is talking about when it comes to the "golden cut". A really astonishing work in which Leonardo da Vinci (almost) succeeded in the squares of the circle ...

The first art historian was called Giorgio Vasari , lived in Italy from 1511 to 1574 and was the court painter of the Medici.

In 1550 his first and thus the first art history appeared. He describes the famous Italian artists of his time, from the early naissance (around 1250) to his death in 1574. He gets almost 100 artists together, some (Fra Angelico, Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Giotto, Paolo Ucello, Raphael, Titian, Leonardo da Vinci) still knows every child today today one of his names.

Vasari also shaped the terms Gothic, mannerism and renaissance , which are now part of general language use.

"Gothic" - that was what the supporter of ancient art called the medieval art style because he felt it as "Gothico", Italian for strange, barbaric, he also works confused (even today, the Gothics have their culture from similarly dark and scary sensations).

The history of art history now undertook a geographical swivel, Vasari followed others, to the first German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann , who published his first art historical script in 1755 and in 1764 his main work "The History of Art of Antiquity in 2 volumes" .

Winckelmann was now in Rome and in 1763 by Pope Clemens XIII. The supervisor has been appointed over the Roman antiquities, but art history remained in Germany: The birth of art history as an independent science discipline was on the threshold in the 19th century when the first professorship for art history was set up in Göttingen .

Until 1933, the art history remained shaped by German -speaking scholars and German -speaking universities, there was a Berlin school and a Viennese school , a Munich school and a Hamburg school , with famous scholars, whose names and work still knows every art scientist today.

During National Socialism, many significant art historians were lost in Germany , through whose work abroad has created some important centers of art -historical research: in Great Britain the Warburg Institute, Court Diaige Institute and Oxford, in the United States at the Universities of Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley and Stanford.

Of course, there were and is extremely successful and interesting scientific activity in art history in the rest of the world, but we are the masters of state -funded science of art history:

A few state art historical research institutions outside of Germany are still facing a wealth of public German art history centers. There are 5 German research institutions for art history and fabulous 36 university institutes. If you do not want to do art, but want to explore your past, you are definitely in the right place in Germany.

If you want to make art, by the way, by the way, by the most internationally successful artists - listed at www.artfacts.net, the world -famous "Gallery Guide for Modern, Contemporary and Emerging Art" - are at least a fifth from Germany among the top 100.

For those who fear that too much taxpayers' money will be spent on art and culture, here are a few comparative figures:

In 2013 we had a federal budget of 310 billion, of which 1.2 billion or 0.38 % go to art and cultural support, but that is only around 13 %, because art and culture is primarily a matter for the federal states and communities, we get up to around 9.25 billion government expenditure for art and culture (source: Federal Government.de) .

This is compared to around one trillion euros, which according to European Parliament is lost annually through tax fraud, tax evasion, tax bypass and aggressive tax planning = tax escape as a business model ( www.blaetter.de/ ) .

This is a good 35 billion for Germany, just under a tenth of our household and almost four times the sum that the entire Germany spends on art and culture. Incidentally, also 2000 euros per EU citizen, for every EU citizen, without any private tax evasion, but anyway only a twentieth should be of what companies give us through non-taxation of losses.

The fear that state money becomes scarce has less to do with waste for art (or for other purposes), but with active withdrawal of these funds. In which many of us actively help by buying companies that have their place of business elsewhere and also tax them elsewhere, if at all.

Each consumer can actively act as a tax -procuring manner by buying from smaller companies that cannot afford a business place on beautiful, distant islands and therefore tax their money here; This applies on the Internet and in life.

Whether with or without state funding: art and art history can be quite entertaining, also in the following kaleidoscopes, in which there are initially some looks into art history.