The paper is devoted to transformation of Riegl's, Dvorak's and Schlosser's heritage of methodology in the 1930s. At the same time the pupils of Vienna school of art history Hans Sedlmayr, K. M. Swoboda and Dagobert Frey declared a 'new tasks' of art historiography under an influence of new political situation near closed with the ideology of Nazis. They intentionally attempted to harmonize the diachronic approach to the history of art with the synchronic one, in identification of collective vehicle of evolution of art history and translated focus at systematic research into art historical constants such as geography, territory on one hand and ethnic, nationalism and race on the other hand. These pupils of Vienna school occupied the head posts in the most important universities in Vienna, Prague and Breslau. They believed that a 'new tasks'VIENNA SCHOOL, art history, IDEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS of art history were Riegl's and Dvorak's impersonalitionism harmonised with Schlosser's message of inductionism. Connection of metaphysical determinism of art history with ideology of the geographical and ethnic constants was sophisticated instrument of symbolical legitimization of an expansionist hegemonism. Each of them researched the problem of the relations between knowledge and power particularly. Three cases of Hans Sedlmayr, K. M. Swoboda and Dagobert Frey represented the different variants of the self-imposed ideological subservience of art history. They showed that theory and practice, words and deeds, knowledge and behaviour need not always be in harmony, not even in science. The article is concluded with a question to what measure present attempts to revive geography of art are free of all ideological implications.
The introduction presents basic facts about the work of Max Dvořák, one of the founding fathers of the 20th-century art history, whom the given issue of Ars is dedicated to. It also summarizes how the art historical community perceived ideas of this distinctive Central European scholar in course of the 20th century.
The paper deals with E. H. Gombrich's lifelong polemics against metaphysics in art history and the humanities. They began in 1937 and continued up until his final (posthumous) book The Preference for the Primitives. Analyzing the "fallacies" and "pitfalls" resulting from metaphysical collectivism, essentialism, expressionism, holism and relativism such as a "belief in hypostatized collective personalities" and "style as a super-artist" or "physiognomic fallacy", Gombrich also unmasked their ideological implications. He first targeted nationalism and racialism, then the perils of totalitarianism and finally all forms of relativism. Gombrich's plea for the universality of the "canon of excellence" can be regarded not only as a defence of humanism but also as a form of apology for the values of Western liberal democratic society.
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