Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
gymnasium besucht hat .... Er machte die aupt keme klass1sche B1ldung genossen-weil nie ein
[illegible] Regirungsrath Tichy in Troppau unter der i:otection der Landesschulen
Mensch will mit den griechischen Menchen' feAr!her c w1egervater semes Briiders ist. Und dieser
h I . . au os vertruauten Umgang pfle h .
sc u miiss1g das altgriechische gelernt zu hab .. ("th b gen - o ne Je auch nur
because he never attended a Gyrnn . Hen. e enefit of absolutely no classical education
asmm e passed the gymnasia] M t d
the School of [illegible] Regierungsrat TI h . T aura un er the auspices of
this person wants to establish intimater i'cti y m .rthopthpau, who is the father in law of his brother. And
h . I e a ons w1 e Greek monks on Mt Ath . th
avmg earned ancient Greek in school") R" It Wi os w1 out ever even
Strzygowski's brother-in-law is a clear t o ickhoff, n.d. Wickhoff Nachlaj3. The reference to
74 Eva Frodl-Kraft "Ei A . d d mp .
0
suggest that the Matura was falsified.
' n pone un er Versuch ihrer Deutung Josef St ki .
Wiener Jahrbuch fir Kunstgeschichte
42 0989
):
31
_
32
rzygows -Julius v. Schlosser,"
75 "D pm; ,n.91.
as o sche beherrschte er nur sehr mangelhaft "("ff .
Karasek-Langer, 37. In a note, Karasek-Lan er ex . is was very defective'').
das Deutschwerden der Farni!ie reason for ms1sting on this point: ''Es muB
Seit: noch heute behauptet wird, der Jose;rSso stark werden, da _von polnischer
polmschen Geistesleben zuzuzahlen" ("The fact that the se1.Pole und seme Werke dem
1800 must be firmly emphasized here, because German before
the art historian Josef Strzygowski is a p I fro'." the Pohsh side 't is. mamtamed even today that
life"). Ibid, n. 1. o e and his works are to be attributed to Polish intellectual
76 The letter, signed by Benndorf, Wickhoff and B . .
Universitiitsarchiv, Vienna. Italics in the origina;. errnann, ism Josef Strzgowski, personnel files,
163
presence in that city, and reaffirm Cimabue's importance as a founding artist of a "nation-
al Italian painting."77 It demonstrates Strzygowski 's interest in and appreciation for the
course of events traced by Vasari, which led to Renaissance painting.
But he soon found in Italy that he lacked any motive to cherish the classical
Indeed, If Hofmannsthal characterized Rieg! in reference to the "Nachfolge Roms in Oster-
reich," an admir:er of Strzygowski quoted Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's poem about Ulrich
von Hutten to characterize him: "Ein Deutscher kam nach Rom und wurde klug!" (A
German came to Rome and wised up").78 Meyer's passionately anti-Italian poem relates
how Hutten, traveling to Rome expecting inspiration in the art of rhetoric, found only
priestly corruption.79 Similarly, Strzygowski turned his sights away from_ _art.
Unlike Hutten, however, he did not turn promptly to the Protestant north. His immediate
reaction was to turn his sights eastward, whence he saw the roots of the advances made in
Roman art. By 1902 he had turned against the "Viennese schoor' to which Wickhoff and
Rieg! belonged. In a review of Sptitromische Kunstindustrie, he labelled their Roman his-
toriography "u!tramontane."80
Publishing widely in both scholarly and lay venues, Strzygowski developed an alterna-
tive narrative of antiquity based on the characterization of racial groups. His book Orient
oder Rom seeks to find the source of Early Christian art in the Greek influenced Hellenistic
Orient rather than in Rome. While he traces Hellenistic influence in a variety of social
groups, he also ascribes motifs and monuments on the basisof national character. The orna-
ment on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is the work of "einen liebevoll der
Arbeit hin:gegebenen [ergo Greek] Kiinstler, einen auf das Malerisch-Anziehende
gerichteten Geist, nicht den r6mischen, akademisch gebildeten Ingenieur, der imposant
wirken will" ("an artist devoted with love to his work, a spirit directed to the painterly-
attractive, not the Roman, academically trained engineer").
81
The tasteless, unartistic
Ashburnham Pentateuch cannot be the work of Germanic artists, whose works are "voll
vom feinsten Rhythmus und einer seltenen idealen Einheit der raumlichen Anordnung"
("full of the finest rhythm and an unusual ideal unity of spatial order''). It must be the work
of "jtidischen Christen" ("Jewish Christians").82 The contrast is not between artistic cul-
tures but between races, he argues.83 The book ends by heralding the downfall of the
Orient, crippled by Semites, and the "grosse germanische Kunstbliite im Norden" ("the
great Germanic artistic flowering in the North."84
Strzygowski extended and clarified his narrative of the influence of Hellas and her down-
fall in a response to Wickhoff and Riegl. The passion of the convert expresses itself here in
explicitly racial and <'arnal tones. Strzygowski depicted Hellas as a beautiful maiden. She
77 Josef Strzygowski, Cimabue und Rom: Funde und Forschungen zur Kunstgeschichte und zur
Topographie der Stadt Rom (Wien, 1988), I.
78 Quoted by Karasek-Langer, "Josef Strzygowski: Ein Lebensbild," 46.
79 Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, 'Romfahrt,' Huttens Letzte Tage: Eine Dichtung, in Samtliche Werke (Bern:
Benteli-Verlag, 1970) 8:33-4.
80 Strzygowski, "Hellas in des Orients Umarmung," Miinchener Allgemeinen Zeitung, Beilage, 18 Febru-
ary 1902, 313.
81 Josef Strzygowski, Orient oder Rom: Beitrage zur Geschichte der spatantiken und frUhchristlichen
Kunst (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, 1901), 147.
82 Ibid, 37, 39.
83 Ibid., 39.
84 Ibid., 150.
164
is by the Oriental symphony of volumes, however, but sells herself to an "old
who keeps her as the jewel of his harem, surrounded by the "semiti h
S1ppschaft" (" ti k") sc e
. senu c teeming with silk, gold and jewels.85 He accused Riegl of
lacking any of the "ziihen Rassenkunst des alten Orients" ("tenacious racial
art of the_ ancient Onent"), which he traced along its victorious path from Mesopotamia to
Constantmople. 86
Strzygo:-"'ski the art until it led to proliferations of flat patterns that ''in der
Arabeske nu:e fe1ern" ("celebrated their orgies in the Arabesque").87 The end result
of the narrative anticipated in its opening, which evokes Delacroix's painting,
Massacre at m the of Greek independence is abducted by a
ruthless Turk. To descnbe the tenacity of this race, he cited "der ewige Jude" ("Ete al
Jew").89 m
The very terms suggest fear of miscegenation, and indeed, even at this time, early in the
century, Strzygowski not only lamented the rape of Greek art by Turks he also wo d
threats to the purity of Ge:1anic race. For in the same essay he,also wrote
Metze, . . . deren rrn Mittelalter selbst die sonnigen, griechengleichen
Barbare_n des rncht entz1ehen k6nnen" ("prostitute, whose magic even the sunny,
Greek-hke barbarians of the North cannot tear themselves away from during the Middl
Ages").
90
Thus making the Germanic spirit the male counterpart to his feminized Hellase
he lamented the allure of Italy that threatened to turn the "kriiftigen germanischen Stamm';
("powerful breed") to _This allure probably motivated his attempt
to rob Italy of any claim on the of Christian art. His opponent in Vienna, called upon
for conceded that he did not know what to do with this "Metze," and with the
passion of Strzygowski's presentation.92
But such passion much of his work, especially his response to contempo-
art, which he wrote about m a handbook of 1907. His discussion in this book of M
impressionism, which Rieg! had seen as exemplary of the modem art :
Stimmung, 1s an extreme example of xenophobia.
Um fil_r seine Malerei eigene Gedanken ... den Titel der Kunst zil retten, nennt er das
neuer Vanattonen in den kilnstlerischen Qualitl!ten Phantasie. Natilrlich vol-
lz1ehe sich diese Phantasieti!tigkeit vollig im Kilnstler; sie gehe van rein sinnlichen
aus. dieser Auffassung liegt Rasse. (In order to salvage the title of art
for that lacks ideas of its own, he called the search after new variations in artistic
qualities "fantasy." fantasy place completely in the artist: it emerges from
purely sensory presuppos1t1ons. At thb 'as1s of this concept is race.)93
85 ''Hellas in des Orients Umarrnung," 314.
86 Josef re:iew of Spiitromische_Kunstindustrie, by Alois Rieg!, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 2
(1902). 265. On the ideology of scholarship on the mideastem world see Edward Said, Orientalism
Y?rk: Pantheon, Robert Nelson is currently engaged in researching the relation of
Onentahsm to the reception of Byzantine art in nineteenth-century Europe.
87 ''Hellas in des Orients Umarmung," 326.
88 Ibid., 314.
89 Ibid., 315.
90 Ibid., 326.
91 Ibid., 314.
92 Ri_egl, ."Spatromisch oder orientalisch?" Miinchner Allgemeine Zeitung, Beilage, 23, 24 April 1902.
93 Die b1ldende Kunst der Gegenwart: Ein Biichlein far Jedermann (Leipzig Quelle und Meyer
1907), 270. ' . '
165
. matter of culture than of blood in the early twen-
"Rasse" was generally a h " . tal" culture would come into play in
tieth century. But it is difficult to imagme w y d . Germany whose art, like that
. . d J h ainter born an raise m ,
the case of an ass1IDllate ew1s p h 1 m fluenced by French Impressionism.
- G ainters was eav1 Y . .
of several other erman P '. d . d Germanic pedigree, but his alternative
. , art was occas10nall y eme a hi
Indeed, Liebermann s . . F h 94 That his Jewish blood is meant and not s
nationality was generally identified as . .
interest in French culture, is made clear m a footnote. . . .
. . . Al emeinen sehr vie! Phantas1e haben, cliese s1ch
Man beachte auch, claJl die Onentalen im . gd K t kommt, zum Bediirfnis eines ein-
d I" t rt, worauf es m er uns an
aber nur selten zu em au .e .. die Sinnlichkeit hinweggekommenen des
fachen und klaren Ausdrucks :on ube'. I have considerable fantasy, but this is only
Gemiites (Notice also that d for a simple and clear expression of
seldom purified into what is at issue m art .. e
impulses of the soul, over and above sensuality.)
ti lity Strzygowski was eager to make as much
In the case of an of German na ona ki dur red with Riegl in his assessment of the
as he could of the Strzyl goRws b als Erzieher, by "ein Deutscher'' ("a
al G natlonalist vo ume em ra "ihn
controvers1 erman . . d not hide his irritation with the recent attempt_
German").96 In the classroom, Rieg! d1 . . . Nationalheros zu emem
V< hfiltniJ3 ur Malere1 hinaus zu emem '
[Rembrandt] -Uber sem er z kl.. ,, ("to declare [Rembrandt] apart from his rela-
Erzieher des Volkes zu er of the German people"), adding a marginal
tion to painting, a national hero, an e:uc dt d modem German imperialism.97 Later, he
note about the contrast between Rem ran. an t of Rembrandt's biography explicitly
explained that his discussion of less attractive s Rembrandt into "einem idealen
aims at counteracting the attempt tode etsvahe (Mustergermanen)" ("into an ideal
d inem Muster eu c en .
Mustermenschen. un zwar e G ") and added "daB die Nation, wenn s1e
b d indeed a model erman , d f
model human emg an d h ii.Bte" ("that if the nation cons1ste o
aus lauter Rembrandts zugrun e on the other hand, cited
nothing but Rembrandts it would go to. ru . . roval and, in contrast to Riegl's argu-
Rembrandt als Erzieher without that Rembrandt used any model what-
ments about Italy's influence on Rembran t, eme
din t Strzygowski an important element .
soever. Accor g
0
' . l
. . . [ ] die eigene durchaus in s1ch selbst wurze -
welches ihm voile Unabhiin:g1g_ke1t s1che:t. warh e . sch hingewiesen, und Rembrandt
nde Individualitiit. Darauf ist Ja neuerdings se r en rgi
. , . al example of Stimmungskunst in "Die Stirnmung als
94 Alois Rieg! referred to Lieberman s art as a . . al in the Graphische Kiinste 22
Inhalt der modernen 36. He illustrate t .e f D"e deutsche Kunst des neunzehnten
. dr . by Liebermann But m a review o i . "
(1899): 47, with a awmg . r Gu rtt he also denied Liebermann a "Germamc
Jahrhunderts: Ihre Ziele und Thaten, by t ;, as well be French"). Die Mitteilungen
nature, writing that he sem hischen Kunsten 23 (1900): 3. .
der Gesellschaft far vervielfaltigende Kunst, supp;.,.., hri; der K Akademie der Wissenschaften in
95 The remark follows a bibliographic citation (De c 2;; .
Wien, Bd. LI, 185). Die bildende Kunst der (Leipzig: Hirschfeld, 1890, numer-
96 [Julius Langbehn], Rembrandt Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the
ous editions thereafter). See Press, 1961), 97-183.
Germanic Ideology (Berkeley. Umvers1ty o h h d (1900-1901) Rieg! NachlajJ, carton 6,
97 Kolleg on Holliindische Malerei des 17. Ja r un erts
folder 2, 72. . h ,. and "Mustergermanen" signals an issue cen-
98 Ibid., 04. Rieg! 's hesitation between to conflate these two concepts. I am grateful
tral to German nationalism, whose purpose was, m pa
to Professor Anna Wesseley for alerting me to the problem.
166
gerade deshalb als der passendste Erzieher unserer Zeit hingestellt worden (which secures
him full independence, [was] his own individuality, completely rooted in itself. Lately this
has been energetically pointed out, and for this very reason, has been acknowl-
edged as the most suitable educator for our time).99
Not merely rejection of tradition, however (expressed in Protestantism), but a common
(Germanic) soul united Rembrandt to Albrecht Diirer.
Noch enger als diese Religionsgemeinshaft verbindet beide die Blutverwandschaft. In
Stromgebiet des Rheins geboren, haben sie deutsche Gemiltstiefe als des Erbteil ihrer
Abstammung auf den Weg bekommen (Blood relations bound the two still closer than this
religious communality. Born in the vicinity of the Rhein, they acquired German depth of
feeling at the start as their parental inheritance).100
Strzygowski waited impatiently for the great savior of German art His writings of the turn
of the century are full of allusions to this hoped for hero. "Ob es ein einzelner Meister sein
wird, wie Leonardo, Bramante, Michelangelo? Doch wohl eine einigende soziale Idee, die
dann in der Masse wirkt" ("Will it will be a single master, like Leonardo, Bramante,
Michelangelo? If not, certainly a unifying social idea, that will then affect the masses?").101
"Nicht mit der menschlichen Gestalt und der Masse dlirfen wir Germanen den Gipfel der
Kunst zu erringen hoffen, sondem mit der Landschaft und dem Raume. Hans von Marees
hat das Problem gealmt; wann wird der Held kommen, der es !Ost? Wann die Zeit, die ihn
hervorbringt?" ("Not with the human figure and measure can we Germans hope to reach
the peak of art, but with landscape and space. Hans von Marees sensed the problem. When
will the hero come that will solve it? When the time that wil! bring him forth?").102
When the great savior appeared, not only of German art, but of all German culture,
Strzygowski was ready. As a result, although he opened to serious art historical study the
art of the entire near east and India, and contributed to many art historical disciplines and
controversies, discussions of his genuine scholarly significance are always burdened by
excuses or embarrassment, or his work is discredited altogether.103
Some scholars try to disassociate the racism of his last decades with the supposedly objec-
tive achievement of his first. Whatever good came out of them, however, his early study
trips to the Middle East were conditioned by pan-Germanic ideological concerns just as
were his later speculative works. For the thrust of his historiography led him to different
places and concepts than Rieg!. He did not merely make use of the notion of national spir-
its in order to trace their contribution to one another. He directed his research to the iden-
tification of such spirits ai.-id sought out adversarial relationships in which he saw them rec-
iprocally asserting their identities. Many of these struggles pitted blood relationships, iden-
tified with the people, against institutions of power, generally imperial power. Within blood
99 Strzygowski, Wenien des Barock bei Raphael und Correggio. (Strassburg: J.H. Ed. Heitz, 1898), IJ8.
Further references to Rembrandt als Erzieher are on 120 and 125.
JOO Ibid., 21.
101 Die bildende Kunst der Gegenwart, 272.
102 Ibid., 275.
103 Frodl-Kraft, 9. Hilde Zaloscer, "Kunstgescbicbte und Nationalsozialismus," in Friedrich Stadler, ed.,
Kontinuitiit und Bruch 1938-1945-1955: Beitriige. zur Kultur- und
Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Vienna and Munich: Jugend und Volk, 1988), 283-98 [esp. 294 and 297-98,
n. 33]. Joan Hart has informed me of an exchange of letters between Richard Krautheimer and Erwin
Panofsky in 1948 and 1958, found in the Archives of American Art, Smithosonian Museum, bearing
on the distaste of scholars for anything based on Strzygowski's theories.
167
relationships, more or less insidious strains battled pure strains. Strzygowski' s agonistic art
history did not tell of a "richly diversified evolution?' It showed "wie zwei Stromungen mit
einander kii.mpfen und die eine endlich den Sieg erringt" ("how two currents fight with one
another and one finally achieves victory"). His cultural history constituted a warning
against cultural influence.104
Cultural History and Commitment
To oppose the positions of Riegl and Strzygowski in black and white, although it may clar-
ify them, makes it difficult to perceive all their nuances and veils the contributions the two
scholars made to their respective discourses. For their arguments, bitter though their
polemics may be, were written not primarily for their enemies, but for their friends. In fact,
although the contrast between them is striking, they had much in common regarded as con-
tributors to their respective discourses. Neither merely celebrated the present. We have
already noted that in 1907 Strzygowski still awaited the German savior. He saw German
art of his time as marred by academicism and mediocre talent.ios We have seen, too, that
Riegl talked about the coming of a great spiritual renewal just as Strzygowski did. Like
Strzygowski, he was dissatisfied with his own day. Although he differed with Strzygowski
about what to do with ethnic differences, he shared with him the acceptance of ethnic dif-
ferences themselves as a given. He had to differentiate groups in order to attribute an
impact to their interaction, and sometimes did so in unappealing ways: Thus despite his dis-
approval of Rembrandt als Erzieher and German imperialism, he related Rembrandt's
"Gedankentiefe" to his Germanic nature, and referred to the historical necessity that led
France eventually to relinquish its artistic leadership to "germanische Stlimrne von
reinerem RassenbewuBtsein" ("Germanic tribes with purer racial consciousness").106 In his
history of the Vienna school of art history, Schlosser, commenting on the relation ofRiegl's
ideas to their time, related Riegl's principle of the Kunstwollen to similar notions of the
period that led to mythological notions of a ''Volksgeistes" or even of "der hochst beden-
klichen 'Rassen' -psyche."107
Both Riegl and Strzygowski wished to impose their' own vision upon the political enti-
ties to which they adhered and owed their loyalty. We have seen that Riegl's Rome and sev-
enteenth century Europe were not simply reflections of the Habsburg Empire in opposition
to pan-German nationalists who would destroy it. Rather, they were models for it, repre-
senting alternatives to efforts underway to enforce German dominance in the empire.1os
After the defeat of his early enemies, Strzygowski found new partners in debate. In later
years, Strzygowski directed his polemic not at classicists, but at those who would confine
104 Review of Spiitrlimische Kunstindustrie, 266.
105 According to Strzygowski, the emperor encouraged this mediocrity. Strzygowski, Die bildende KJ,,nst
der Gegenwarl, 260-75.
106 Die historische Grammatik der bildenden Kiinste, ed. Karl M. Swoboda and Otto Pltcht (Graz:
Hermann Bohlaus Nachf., 1966), 60.
107 Julius Schlosser, "Die Wiener Schule der Kunstgeschichte." Mitteilungen des Institutes ftlr oster-
reichischen Geschichtsforschung. Suppl. vol. 13 (1934): 186.
108 In practical terms, his internationalism may have been exemplified in his support (jointly with
Wickhoff) of the Czech student Max Dvorak. DYonlk succeeded Rieg! as Strzygowski's arch enemy,
followed by the Italian-German Schlosser, who, as we have noted, in 1934 made public his disapproval
of the idea of a 'Rassen-psyche.' See previous note.
168
Germanic nationalism to Germans. He took the conce .
Persians and North Indians into the glo . Ind G pt of senously, welcoming
nous o- ermaruc uruo 109 In th
to a book written by an English foll h . n. e mtroduction
German identity held by most of his coomwera,tri about the limited notion of
. th p o , opmg that ''the right ttitud .
m e end, make it possible in our studies to treat th a e ... wtll,
as a unity. The clarification of view here . d t e Northern people of the whole globe
itself, where at 'the moment an extr aime a may even have good results in the Reich
insisted on."110 Strzygowski's numeme exaggeration of all Germanic cultural values is
erous attempts to prov d th
world-wide union of Northerners did n t
1
e e scholarly basis for a
some Nazis he seems to have been an uonpglo Although he supported Hitler, to
easan remm er that not all "Ary "
eyed Wagnerian heroes. The favorably dis osed re i . . ans are blue-
Nordische Heilbringer und bildende Kunst for v ewer m Die of his .book
at Strzygowski's exaltation of the p . , example, expressed himself puzzled
carried less weight within Germaners: past the Scandinavian.111 Indeed, his words
Bernard Berenson.112 s owski .Y .an they a fact noted by a chagrined
failure to construct a p:?'!_ fire t is died disillusioned because of the Nazis'
emp e m renna. 113
1:f1e efforts of these two scholars to put their historio . .
social and political issues should not sim 1 b di . graphy m the servrce of current
arly contributions under the assumptio l { e bsIDissed or bracketed out of their schol-
itics. The relativistic position of culturnal ersl of the_ academy should be above po!-
. . s onans p aces difficulties th .
it value Judgements. But the objectivity f th . m e way of explic-
against tyranny. Furthermore whe o err stance should not render them ineffective
tural entities, the scholar, from belief in the viability of cul-
cases that have garnered the most atte ti thodology, is often held responsible.The
Those who hold historian: of Paul Man and Martin
l!IlJUStly accuse an individual reveal . values, while they may often
an lffiportant truth hist
because, as Rieg! correctly pointed out it is a value itseif 114 cannot be value free
ed out of historical study because the' uestion th . can not be
urgent. As Rieg! once argued before a grq :1 at drive us to history are not idle but
oup o overs of art of the past, we only turn to
109 In Spuren indogermanischen Glaubens in der Bildend .
Universitiitsbuchhandlung 1936) he arg , th . . en Kunst (Heidelberg: Carl .Winter's
. ' ues ior e mclus1on of A th .
mamc peoples, declaring that "Das Indog . h . . sia m e cons1deral!on of indoger-
(302). ermamsc e ist also mcht von Europa aus allein zu fassen"
110 Forward, by Strzygowski, to Harold Picton, Early German Art and . . .
to. about 1050 (London: BF. BAtsford,
1939
), v. Us Origins: From the Beginnings
111 Richard v. Hoff, review of Nordische Heilbrin er und b.
1939), Rasse 7 (1939): 32. g zldende Kllnst, by Josef Strzygowski (Vienna,
112 Aesthetics and History in the Visual Am (written, 1938). (New York: Pantheon
113 I have been assured of this in numerous iva e . . '
not confirmed it through his writings -l(,es t with colleagues of Strzygowski, but have
expansion and monumentalization of fue Ri: wn mgs o, contain the ambitious plan for an
of the Danube River. The plan would have glstrasdse, openmg it out to and encompassing both banks
h
. c eare out most of the ar kn th
w ich was the Jewish area. Strzygowski "W" S dtk . ea own as e leopoldstadt,
llingert" (1939) galleys of an artt"cl . ' iens ta . em, die Innere Stadt, bis an die Donau ver-
. e m an unnamed
1
oumal b bl
Nachlaj3, Institut filr Kunstgeschichte U 1v "t f Vi ' pro a y a newspaper. Strzygowski
114 In "D ' n ersz y o ienna.
er modeme Denkmalkultus, sein Wesen seine Entsteh " 6
Representation in Alois Rieg! 's Theo >JA 'h ung, 1 6-72. See also Olin, Forms of
ry o rl, c apter 9.
169
history when we need to.11s Indeed, he thought his time needed history, for it was beset by
a dangerous overdose of subjectivity, which threatened individual difference. The histori-
cal gap Rieg! sought to fill was not just that of ancient Rome. It was the gjtp of his own day.
It was his own day that was not obviously a product of evolution. He had to prove that it
was, and thus keep it from slipping into skepticism and anarchy.
We only tum to history when we need to. This is as true for the historian writing this
essay as for any other historian. As Europe splits painfully into ever more refined nation
states, we face problems similar to those of Riegl and Strzygowski. Their debate over the
miscegenational union of Hellas and Orient resonates with choices that continue to face us
today, and it is this that has led me to reexamine it. In our search for new political entities,
we need not resurrect, even in fantasy, long dead multinational empires of the past. But it
s ~ useful to reassess an overlooked aspect of the cultural history that emerged from them.
Riegl's loyalty to the notion of amultinational empire was inseparable from the aspects of
his historical work that we value today.' His work can exemplify for us the way a histori-
an's construction of a past, even while serving ideology, can also serve as an ideological
corrective, a corrective we need now.
115 'Alte und neue Kunstfreunde,' in Gesammelte Aufslitze, 194-206. The essay argues that collectors tum
to past art when present art needs the influx of an opposed means of representation.
170
Politics, Nationalism, and Culture