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А43
DOI: 10.18688/aa200-4-55 F. Leonelli
Josef Strzygowski (1861-1942), Dmitry Ainalov (1862-1939) and the Question of Geographical Borders in the Theory of Art: The Possibility of a "Geographic Eye"
In an essay on the concept of progress in art, science and philosophy, the Austrian philosopher Paul Feyerabend, the author of the famous book "Against Method" (1975), quotes a famous paragraph from the Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects by Giorgio Vasari. The passage quoted by Feyerabend refers to the concept of "maniera greca" ("Greek manner"), a term coined by Vasari as a derogatory reference to the Byzantine art. Vasari used this view as a touchstone to indicate the new flourishing Italian style, in an attempt to illustrate the progress in art from the backward Byzantine manner of the 13th century to the new Italian style of the Renaissance [6]. Feyerabend, analyzing the theory of progress through the application of qualitative and quantitative approaches, stresses the importance of every form of idea or theory, whether or not its "scientific validity" can be immediately tested [9, p. 229]. According to Feyerabend, whose considerations are always bathed in a provocative aura, even bizarre or ambivalent theories, which cannot at once find their place in the whole of the contemporary scientific theories, have their utility in the formation process of the scientific research methods. This idea is adaptable to the case study of Josef Strzygowski and Dmitry Ainalov, who both contributed significantly to the revaluation of Eastern Art in the Western History of Art.
Josef Strzygowski is a very well-known scholar who is considered today, especially in the German-speaking area, as ambivalent and chauvinistic [15]. He is especially known for his book with the biting and provocative title Orient oder Rom (East or Rome). Appearing in 1901, this essay took into consideration the contribution of Eastern art in the formation process of the identity of Western art. The importance of this publication lies in the fact that it was one of the first attempts in Western Europe to analyze the Hellenistic-Oriental component of some art works originating from the oriental areas of the Roman Empire. Strzygowski claimed the independency of the style of such works, attacking the Rome-centric theories of Alois Riegl and Franz Wickhoff. According to Strzygowski, Wickhoff's theories, in particular, brought Roman Imperial art to assume, in the history of art, the form of a "monster"1 [17]
1 „Das Wickhoffsche Monstrum der römischen Reichkunst" [17, p. 7]. Here Strzygowski refers to the attempt of Franz Wickhoff to ascribe the origin of the encaustic painting from the Fayum-area to the Roman imperial art tout court, thus regarding the Egyptian art as peripheral, compared to Rome.
who devoured all the possible expressions of art from other geographical areas. As a concrete example, Strzygoswki mentions the Fayum funeral wax paintings, which he considers as an expression of the Hellenistic Illusionistic style. The artistic centers of Alexandria, Antioch and Ephesus are, according to Strzygowski, the real "Ausgangspunkte" ("points of origin") of this portrait style, and not Rome, as Wickhoff claimed in his works:
"In general, it is impossible to speak of a Roman Imperial art as being developed in Rome, and which, once in the Orient expelled Hellenistic art practice and thus became a broad basis for Christian art. If we speak of a "Roman Imperial art", we mean the last phase of Hellenistic art, in which Rome is nothing more than one of the several centers [...] For what concerns Christian art, its points of origin during the first three centuries were in the old Oriental cities of the Hellenic area, such as Alexandria, Antioch and Ephesus, but not in Rome" [17, p. 8]2.
The considerations of Strzygowski, which were to be reiterated in all of his many works with a certain growing bitterness against his opponents, are aimed at confirming his central theory: the art of Northern Europe demonstrates more similarities with the Oriental art than with Roman or Greek art. This interest of Strzygowski in the Orient is substantially due to his ethnic origins. He was born in 1862 in Eastern Prussia to Austrian parents with Polish roots, as revealed by his surname. He grew up in the ethnic and cultural melting pot of Austria-Hungary, in a territory suspended between Western and Eastern Europe [14, pp. 262-265]. This rendered him a kind of living representation of the mixture of Slavic and German patriotism, which was not so uncommon to see in those days in the border areas of Eastern Austria or Germany. He studied in Munich and Rome, undertaking long research periods in Poland, Croatia, Turkey, Russia and Armenia. He could read Latin and Greek easily, and more importantly, Russian also [12, p. 173]. His interests in eastern culture were so deep, that during his stay in Rome he neglected to study the Roman monuments and, through contacts with Russian communities, was able to focus on the art collections of Russian patriots living in Rome [14, p. 265]. In 1890, during a kind of "Grand Tour" in Russia, he attended the Russian Archaeological Congress. There he made the acquaintance of Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov and his student Dmitry Ainalov, two of the most notable Byzantine specialists at that time. One of Kondakov's essays appeared in French in 1892 and was printed in Frankfurt under the title Histoire et monuments des émaux byzantins (1892) [13]. This work, published in a limited edition of 200 copies, was a research piece on a collection of enamels from Russia and the Caucasus, which belonged to Aaron Zvenigorodsky, a Russian diplomat and art expert. The book would most likely have been accessible to Strzygowski, thanks to his good Russian connections [12; 14]. In this study, Kondakov emphasizes particularly the strong relationships and similarities between archeological materials found in Ukraine and the Caucasus with
2 "Ins Allgemeine übertragen: es ist unzulässig von einer römischen Reichskunst zu sprechen und darunter eine Kunst zu verstehen, die, in Rom ausgebildet, dann im Orient die alte hellenistische Kunstübung verdrängt und so die allgemeine breite Grundlage der christlichen Kunst geworden sein soll. Wenn wir schon von einer römischen Reichkunst sprechen, dann ist darunter die letzte Phase der hellenistischen Kunst zu verstehen, wobei Rom nichts anderes als eines von mehreren Centren ist [...] Für die christliche Kunst sind schon in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten gerade die alten orientalischen Großstädte des hellenistischen Kreises, vor allem Alexandria, Antiochia und Ephesos die Ausgangspunkte, nicht Rom oder eine von Rom ausgehende Reichkunst" (the translation from German into English is mine).
ones from Northern and Central Europe areas. He claims moreover that the abstract ornamentations in both geographical areas trace back to those in Syria and the Near East, two regions that are very important for the understanding of the development of European art:
"The role of Syria and of the Near East in the new Christian art is not evident to us from the monuments, but it becomes vivid while studying their history. It is essential to take this into account if we want to study European art at its source and to understand its oriental origin. Otherwise, this great question appears to be broken down into a thousand pieces: each has no meaning on its own, if considered separately" [13, p. 39]3.
This theory, so clearly expressed by Kondakov in an essay of very limited diffusion, presents surprising analogies with the ideas of Strzygowski, which were to recur in all of his studies. Strzygowski appropriated such theories, which were widespread in the circles of Russian art historians, in order to reuse them in his researches on the art of Northern European populations. We will see later how the attempts of Strzygowski to stress the difference between Northern and Southern art in Europe can be easily inserted into the frame of an already consolidated tradition of anti-Roman and anti-Italian polemics in the theory of German art.
We have already mentioned Dmitry Ainalov, a student of Kondakov and the author of the essay The Hellenistic Origins of Byzantine Art [1]. This was published just one year (1900) before Strzygowski's Orient oderRom and was to play an important role in the development of this study. As stressed by Ludmila Khrushkova in her contribution on the contacts between Strzygowski and the Russian school of Byzantine studies [12, p. 175], Strzygowski read Ainalov's book and reused, although with some modifications, a large part of his thoughts4. In the second edition of his essay 20 years after (translated in 1961 into English by Cyril Mango), Ainalov points out that the considerations of Strzygowski about Constantinople as a mere "meeting place of Antique and Byzantine art" represent "insights rather than full examinations of the facts" [1, p. 4]. Ainalov, in the conclusion of the book, asserts that Constantinople is a kind of crucible of Hellenistic art and stylistic features from the Orient [1, p. 281]. Generally, his assertions seem to be more articulated and less sharp-edged than those of Strzygowski. If in the theories of Ainalov some kind of Russian patriotism is palpable, those of Strzygowski after Orient oder Rom were to become more and more exacerbated by chauvinistic and racial claims. In a lesser-known publication of Strzygowski on the Cathedral of Aachen in Germany (Der Dom zu Aachen und seine Entstellung, 1904), published three years after Orient oder Rom, the author presented the study as "ein kunstwissenschaftlicher Protest", that is, as an "art-historical protest" against the arbitrary restoration and remake of the Byzantine mosaics in the cathedral's octagon. According to Strzygowski, these new mosaics would not have respected the Hellenistic-Oriental models, from which the cathedral of Aachen originated [18, pp. 30-31]. The Neo-Byzantine style of
3 "Le rôle de la Syrie et de l'Asie Antérieure dans le nouvel art chrétien ne nous est pas connu par le monuments, mail il éclate dans leur histoire. Il faut absolument tenir compte de ce rôle si l'on veut étudier l'art européen à sa source et comprendre son origine orientale: sans cela cette grande question nous apparaît comme brisée en mille tronçons dont chacun, considéré à part, n'a aucun sens par lui-même" (the translation from French into English is mine).
4 Cyril Mango, in the Editor's Preface to the English translation of Ainalov's essay [1, p. X], points out: "In 1901, a year after the publication of Ainalov's work, there appeared Strzygowski's famous Orient oder Rom, in which roughly the same views were set forth with greater belligerence and missionary fervor".
the refurbishments, inspired by models from Ravenna and Rome, would have reconstructed the Carolingian mosaics without any attention to their similarities with Hellenistic archetypes. Needless to say that for Strzygowski the mosaics should have been restored with reference to Oriental models, which would have provided patterns for the decorations as well as for the architectural structure of the octagon building. It is interesting that Strzygowski, to confirm his points of view, quotes in the text the expertise ("Gutachten") of the above mentioned Russian collector and expert on Oriental art Aaron Zvenigorodsky [18, pp. 82-86], who thus appears to be a sort of mediator between Strzygowski, Kondakov and Ainalov.
After Rom oder Orient, Strzygowski published a large amount of essays, which would reiterate his beliefs on Northern art as a result of the migrations of tribes coming from an undefined area in the Far East and arriving to Europe in the time of the Indo-European migrations. In Die Krisis der Geisteswissenschaft (1929) he bitterly reproaches the tradition of European art historical studies. Arising from the biased Italian humanistic traditions of the so-called "italienische Vitenschreiber" ("Italian biographers") like Ghiberti and Vasari, they deliberately ignored and denied the contribution of the cultural impulse coming from the East ("Anstoß des Ostens"), which on the contrary turned on the artistic creativity of the Northern European countries [19, p. 39]. In 1929, he wrote the essay Die altslavische Kunst, in which he described Eastern Europe and its artistic intercommunications as a sort of ideal "horseshoe" ("Hufeisen"), the extremities of which would be rooted in Europe and in Asia. An imaginary Nordic ethnical stream ("Nordweg") was to pass through this, moving from the Pamir Mountains through Siberia, eventually reaching Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and Germany. Most of the Southern European countries seem to be excluded [20, p. 2].
Such attempts to restrict the influence of Southern European art on northern countries were not altogether new. As already mentioned, in German art history and theory, there is a kind of recurring attempt to find boundaries between Northern and Southern art. Even the young Johann Wolfgang Goethe, in his essay of 1772 Von deutscher Baukunst [11] praises the Strasbourg Cathedral and its creator, thus mocking the aesthetical narrow-mindedness and snobbery of Italian and French artists:
"It has a petty taste", says the Italian and walks away. "Puerilites!" babbles the French rushing back triumphantly to his can "a la Grecque". But what did you do so well to allow yourself to express such contempt? The resurrected Genius of the Ancients does not keep you here, Welscher!5 Crawl on the mighty ancient remains trying to get some proportion, or patch together a summerhouse from some sacred ruin, or, even better, continue to believe that you are the depositary of the secrets of arts, just because you can account for inches and lines of giant buildings!" [11]6.
5 "Welsch" is an ancient German word denoting people speaking romance languages, above all the French and the Italians.
6 „Es ist im kleinen Geschmack, sagt der Italiener und geht vorbei. Kindereien, lallt der Franzose nach und schnellt triumphierend auf seine Dose a la Grecque. Was habt ihr getan, daß ihr verachten dürft? Hat nicht der seinem Grab entsteigende Genius der Alten den deinen gefesselt, Welscher! Krochst an den mächtigen Resten, Verhältnisse zu betteln, flicktest aus den heiligen Trümmern dir Lusthäuser zusammen, und hältst dich für Verwahrer der Kunstgeheimnisse, weil du auf Zoll und Linien von Riesengebäuden Rechenschaft geben kannst!" (the translation from German into English is mine).
Georg Dehio, Wilhelm Pinder, Heinrich Wölfflin, Wilhelm Worringer and Erwin Panofsky often spoke in their essays about the boundaries between Northern and Southern Art conceptions. In 1928 Worringer published the essay Griechentum und Gotik, which appears as another important stage for the establishing of the revaluation of Eastern art in Europe. In his essay, Worringer underlined the debt which Art History owed to Strzygowski for the discovery of new horizons in the consideration of Eastern Art [22, p. 6]. According to Worringer, the Greek tradition was perpetuated in history through the "Ostlinie" ("Eastern-line") of Hellenistic-Byzantine art, culminating in the dynamic character of the Gothic style. Maybe for the first time, a European scholar has explicitly attributed considerable importance to the role of Russia. This is mentioned as the place where Slavic populations found their "weltgeschichtliche Vormacht" ("world-historical supremacy") [22, p. 92] and developed the artistic heritage of the Byzantines. Worringer's essay can therefore be considered an important part of the revaluation process of the Eastern art and its role in the development of a non-Eurocentric Western History of Art.
We have seen in these examples how, thanks to the theories of Strzygowski, who spread in turn the ideas of Kondakov and Ainalov, the European art historians began to reassess Eastern Art and its role in the formation of a wider global perspective. This brief excursus is the catalyst for some reflections on the role of the Geography of Art with reference to "local" and "global". Today, the so-called "Global Art History" tends to eliminate the differences, boundaries and borders between worldwide arts. In a recent interview for an Italian art magazine, Monica Juneja, one of the most distinguished representatives of Global Art History, tried to gloss over the question on the differences between European and Asian art, saying that an answer to such a question would represent a kind of "cultural essentialism", contrary to the "transcultural approaches" for which she strives:
You have been living in Europe for many years now, in your opinion what is the main difference between European and Asian culture and art?
Not an easy question to answer — Europe and Asia themselves are huge entities and have long histories — any statement I would make would only express cultural essentialism — which is exactly the opposite of what transcultural approaches strive for [10].
Contrary to Juneja's claim, trying to investigate an artistic era and its connections with geographical and cultural borders of the land where it was developed, leads to the formation of a research method which can be more productive, in the long term, than generic no-border-theories. Even though a research method which takes into account local, geographical, psychological and ethnical characteristics can run in some generalizations and idiosyncrasies, as in the case of the obtuse racial-obstinacies of Strzygowski, which were basically linked to his misunderstandings of the German Völkerpsychologie, the results appear to us nonetheless more productive than the ones, which a confused transcultural approach could provide. Indeed, if we want to avoid a kind of "global absolute" similar to "the night in which all the cows are black" — t o quote Hegel — we should think intensely about which criteria are inherent to definitions such as "Western", "Eastern", "Italian", "German", "Russian", or even derogatory terms as "Greek manner and "German manner" ("maniera tedesca", as the Gothic style was defined by Vasari and other Italian fellows [3]). As stressed by Erwin Panofsky in an essay from 1927:
"If a Tuscan painter is brought to a desert island and he continues to paint there, he will do so following his style, which will remain "Tuscan", even though it could be affected by a material and spiritual relationship with his new environment. If he goes to Bruges he will thus change not only the geographical place, but will also end up in the sphere of influence of a new cultural and artistic context [...] The world of art historians can be represented as an infinite variety of individual reference systems, in which space and time determine and even realize each other" [16, pp. 55-82]7.
This "reference system" ("Bezugssystem") is naturally not to be considered finite. As Panofsky points out in the case of the hypothetical Tuscan painter in Bruges, every "reference system" infers a "sphere of influence", where artists and the artistic environment affect each other. Therefore it appears to us unsuitable to assert, as some advocates of global transculturalism do [7; 8], that geographical, cultural and ethnic constants have no relevance in the process of the formation of the art of a country and that these components can be taken apart, mixed and indiscriminately reassembled like Lego bricks. At this point, to paraphrase the famous "period eye" of Michael Baxandall, we should ask ourselves whether it is not more relevant to sometimes refer to a "geographic eye"8. Indeed the "period eye" infers mostly a "geographic eye", as in the example made by Baxandall himself in his most famous book Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (1972) [2, pp. 29-32]. Baxandall assumes that an Italian person and a Chinese person, each used to different aesthetical traditions, would observe a construction such as the floor plan of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem with completely different eyes. The Italian would see a circular building surrounded by rectangular halls, while the person from China would see a circular central court like the new Temple of Heaven at Peking. Here again the duality between the West and the East expresses itself in two different art conceptions, which are imbued with national traditions and geographical constants. This does not exclude that Western and Eastern art conceptions can interact and hybridize with one another, as in the case of the Kew Gardens in London, where an oriental tower rises prominently on the green wilderness of a typical English garden. But, as stressed by Nikolaus Pevsner in his famous book The Englishness of English Art (1956) [4, pp. 11-22], we should not neglect how the "national character" ("Nationalcharakter") and the "spirit of the time" ("Zeitgeist") influence art works and make them an expression of the intelligence and the identity of a nation, beyond all the attempts to deny it.
To conclude, it would be useful to analyze the question of the "geographic eye" in a way similar to the concept that the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his essay Philosophical
7 „Wenn ein toskanischer Maler nach einer wüsten Insel verschlagen wird und weiter malt, so malt er eben, wenn auch vielleicht in stofflicher und stimmungsmäßiger Beziehung durch seine neue Umgebung beeindruckt, dem Stil nach immer noch „toskanisch"; geht er aber nach Brügge, so verändert er damit nicht nur den geographischen Ort, sondern gerät auch in die Einflußsphäre eines anderen Kultur- und insbesondere eines andern Kunstzusammenhanges. [...] Die Welt des Kunsthistorikers stellt sich zunächst als eine unendliche Mannigfaltigkeit von einzelnen Bezugssystemen dar, innerhalb deren Raum und Zeit einander wechselseitig bestimmen, ja wechselseitig realisieren" (the translation from German into English is mine).
8 I borrowed this expression from the interesting contribution of Michele di Monte [5, p. 10], which inspired my observations here on the role of the Geography of Art in Art History. Although Di Monte uses this term with some skeptical irony, it is a good way to summarize the importance of the geographic component in the approach to works of art and their cultural context.
Investigations called "Familienähnlichkeiten" ("family resemblances") [21, § 67]. The same as for the various physical similarities between members of a family, the national characters in the art tradition of a country appear continuously and establish its identity. As in the case of Strzygowski and Ainalov, a new scientific "global" border in art history can also be determined through the consciousness that the identity of an art tradition remains something unique, despite being transplanted in another cultural system. Even if a "métissage" (to use a word which has become a fashion trend among the transculturalists) is always possible, this does not prevent a conscious awareness of the national features that make a "local" approach a preferable way through which to gradually find the path to a "global" consideration of the History of Art.
References
1. Ainalov D. V. The Hellenistic Origins of Byzantine Art. New Brunswick, Ruther Publ., 1961. 322 p.
2. Baxandall M. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy. A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style. Oxford, Clarendon Press Publ., 1972. 165 p.
3. Brandis M. La maniera tedesca. Eine Studie zum historischen Verständnis der Gotik im Italien der Renaissance in Geschichtsschreibung, Kunsttheorie und Baupraxis. Weimar, VDG Publ., 2002. 398 p. (in German).
4. Conrad H. (transl.). Das Englische in der englischen Kunst. Passau, Prestel Publ., 1974. 248 p. (in German).
5. Di Monte M. I luoghi comuni dell'arte. Si puö fare una teoria della geografia artistica? Genius Loci, vol. 9. Milano-Udine, Mimesis Sensibilia Publ., 2016, pp. 1-11 (in Italian).
6. Drandaki A. A Maniera Greca: Content, Context, and Transformation of a Term. Studies in Iconography, vol. 35. Kalamazoo, Western Michigan University Publ., 2014, pp. 39-72.
7. Elkins J. (ed.). Is Art History Global? New York; London, Routledge Publ., 2007. 464 p.
8. Falser M.; Juneja M. (eds.). "Archaeologizing" Heritage? Transcultural Entanglements between Local Social Practices and Global Virtual Realities. Berlin; Heidelberg, Springer-Verlag Publ., 2013. 287 p.
9. Feyerabend P.; Thomas C. (eds.). Kunst und Wissenschaft. Zürich, Verlag der Fachvereine Publ., 1984. 250 p. (in German).
10. Gasparini M. Interview with Monica Juneja about Global Art History. Trafo. Blog for Transregional Research. 2018. Available at: https://trafo.hypotheses.org/567 (accessed 17 January 2019).
11. Goethe J. W. von. Von deutscher Baukunst, 1773. Available at: http://www.zeno.org/Literatm7M/ Goethe,+Johann+Wolfgang/Theoretische+Schriften/Von+deutscher+Baukunst+%5B1772%5D_(accessed 15 January 2019) (in German).
12. Khrushkova L. Joseph Strzygowski, Joseph Wilpert and the Russian School of Byzantine Studies. Cahiers Archéologiques, 2015, vol. 56, pp. 173-189.
13. Kondakov N. Histoire et Monuments des Emaux Byzantins. Frankfurt am Main, 1892. 495 p. (in French).
14. Marchand S. Appreciating the Art of Others: Josef Strzygowski and the Austrian Origins of Non-Western Art History. Von Biela nach Wien: Josef Strzygowski und die Kunstwissenschaften. Vienna, European University Press Verlagsgesellschaft: Publ., 2015, pp. 257-285.
15. Niederl-Garber C. Wie Europa Armenien entdeckte. Das Bekanntwerden der Kunstgeschichte Armeniens im Spiegel westlicher Reisender. Wien; Münster, Lit Verlag Publ., 2013. 336 p. (in German).
16. Panofsky E. Über die Reihenfolge der vier Meister von Reims. Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft. München; Berlin, Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH Publ., 1927, pp. 55-82 (in German).
17. Strzygowski J. Orient oder Rom. Leipzig, Hinrichs Publ., 1901. 159 p. (in German).
18. Strzygowski J. Der Dom zu Aachen und seine Entstellung. Ein kunstwissenschaftlicher Protest. Leipzig, J. C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung Publ., 1904. 98 p. (in German).
19. Strzygowski J. Die Krisis der Geisteswissenschaften: vorgeführt am Beispiele der Forschung über bildende Kunst. Wien, Schroll Publ., 1923. 350 p. (in German).
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Title. Josef Strzygowski (1861-1942), Dmitry Ainalov (1862-1939) and the Question of Geographical Borders in the Theory of Art. The Possibility of a "Geographic Eye"
Author. Francesco Leonelli — full doctor, postgraduate trainee. Hamburger Kunsthalle, Glockengießerwall, 20095 Hamburg, Germany. [email protected]
Abstract. Cyril Mango in his book "Byzantium. The Empire of New Rome" (1980), wrote that Byzantine art, along with Byzantine studies, flourished as a prolific ally more in Russia than anywhere else in the world. In contrast, the theory of art in Western European countries branded as derogatory for many centuries the typical iconographical and stylistic features of Byzantine art with the geographically-based stigma "maniera greca" (Greek Manner). This definition often compromised, with some rare exceptions, a correct appreciation of Byzantine and Eastern art in Europe, minimizing the contribution of the East to the development of art in western civilizations. An exception, and a break with this misconception of the Byzantine component of western art, is the controversial essay by the Austrian art historian Josef Strzygowski "Orient oder Rom" (1901). In his study, Strzygowski radically opposes the Rome-based aesthetical theories, such as the widely accepted ideas of Franz Wickhoff and Alois Riegl, surprisingly finding the roots of German and Slavic art in Iran, Armenia and Egypt. The theories of Strzygowski, although connoted from anti-Roman resentment and strong German nationalism, gave a fundamental impulse to the revaluation of Eastern art in Europe.
Indeed the ideas of Strzygowski are not very new. In 1890, during a sort of Eastern Grand Tour, he attended the Russian Archeological Congress where he met the Russian scholar Dmitry Ainalov. In 1900 (one year before "Orient oder Rom"), Ainalov published the essay "The Hellenistic Origins of Byzantine Art", in which he emphasizes the originality of Byzantine art as a Hellenistic product and claims its independency from Roman art. These ideas, which were shared by the Russian scholarship and tended to see patriotically Byzantine art in its uniqueness, helped paradoxically through the mediation of the radical ideas of Strzy-gowski European scholars to be able to "break down the borders" and develop a better comprehension of the importance of the East. The case of Strzygowski-Ainalov is an example of a typical attempt by the History of Art to evaluate an art object as a pure expression of the spirit of a population and of a particular geographical area. From this initial situation, the paper intends to examine the fundamental contribution of the geography of art to the formation of art theories. To paraphrase Michael Baxandall and his famous "Period Eye", can we speak of a "Geographic Eye" when we try to comprehend an art period? To what extent is a Geography of Art possible today? What are the roles of geographical features and borders in the analysis of an art work? What is meant with the geographical definitions (such as "German", "Italian", Russian", or "Western" and "Eastern") once they are applied to art? In the light of the recent debates on the possibility of a global art history, as well as the developing of new geopolitical horizons, do we have the same conception of the Geography of Art today as the scholars of the past? What are the advantages and the risks of a methodology based on a geographic parameter in considering an art object or an art period?
Keywords: Ainalov, Strzygowski, Kondakov, Greek manner, geography of art, global art history, global, local; transculturalism, period eye
Название статьи. Йозеф Стржиговский (1861-1942), Дмитрий Айналов (1862-1939) и «вопрос о географических границах в теории искусства». Возможность «географического взгляда»
Сведения об авторе. Леонелли Франческо — доктор, профессор. Гамбургский кунстхалле, Глокен-гиссерваль l, 20095 Гамбург, Германия. [email protected]
Аннотация. В книге «Византия. Империя Нового Рима» (1980) Кирилл Манго писал, что византийское искусство наряду с византийскими исследованиями процветало в России, более чем где-либо ещё в мире. Напротив, теория искусства в западноевропейских странах многие столетия клеймила типичные иконографические и стилистические черты византийского искусства географически закреплённым уничижительным термином maniera greca (греческая манера). Это определение ставило под угрозу, за редкими исключениями, правильную оценку вклада Востока и Византии в развитие искусства западных цивилизаций, сводя его к минимуму. Исключением и разрывом с этим неправильным представлением о византийском компоненте западного искусства является противоречивая статья австрийского историка искусства Йозефа Стржиговского «Восток или Рим» (Orient oder Rom, 1901). В своём исследовании Стржиговский радикально выступает против римоцентричных эстетических теорий, таких как широко распространённые идеи Франца Викхоффа и Алоиза Ригля,
удивительным образом находя корни немецкого и славянского искусства в Иране, Армении и Египте. Теории Стржиговского, хотя и основанные на антиримских настроениях и сильном немецком национализме, дали фундаментальный импульс переоценке восточного искусства в Европе.
Идеи Стржиговского не были полностью оригинальными. В 1890 г. во время своего рода восточного Гран-тура он посетил Археологический съезд, где встретился с русским учёным Д. В. Айналовым. В 1900 г. (за год до выхода в свет Orient oder Rom) Айналов опубликовал свой труд «Эллинистические истоки византийского искусства», в котором предложил теорию происхождения византийского искусства от эллинистического и заявил о его независимости от Рима. Эти идеи, разделявшиеся русской наукой и имевшие патриотическую тенденцию усматривать уникальность византийского искусства, оказали огромное влияние на Стржиговского, труды которого приобрели популярность среди европейских учёных и способствовали «разрушению границ» и пониманию значения Востока и его искусства. Случай Стржиговского-Айналова является примером типичной попытки «истории искусства» оценить художественный объект как чистое выражение духа населения и определённой географической области. Исходя из вышесказанного, в статье рассматривается фундаментальный вклад художественной географии в формирование теорий искусства. Перефразируя знаменитый «взгляд эпохи» Майкла Баксандалла, можем ли мы говорить о «географическом взгляде», когда пытаемся понять определённый период в развитии искусства? Насколько география искусства возможна сегодня? Какова роль географических особенностей и границ в анализе художественного произведения? Что подразумевается под географическими определениями (такими как «немецкий», «итальянский», «русский» или «западный» и «восточный») в контексте их применения к искусству? В свете недавних дебатов о возможности мировой истории искусства, а также о развитии новых геополитических горизонтов имеем ли мы сегодня ту же концепцию географии искусства, что и учёные прошлого? Каковы преимущества и риски методологии, основанной на географическом параметре при рассмотрении объекта искусства или периода развития искусства?
Ключевые слова: Айналов, Стржиговский, Кондаков, греческая манера, география искусства, всемирная история искусства, глобальное, локальное, транскультурализм, «взгляд эпохи»
