Sedlmayr, Hans

Born in the family of an agronomist. During the First World War he served as an artilleryman, as part of the Austro-Hungarian expeditionary force participated in hostilities in Syria . Returning from the front, he studied architecture at the Higher Technical School , then - the history of art at the University of Vienna under the leadership of Max Dvorak and Julius von Schlosser . At this time, the cross-cutting theme of Zedlmayr's studies was determined - the history of baroque architecture in Austria and Italy, primarily the work of Fischer von Erlach and Borromini . After defending his habilitation thesis in 1933, he received the position of privat-docent at the Higher Technical School , and three years later he headed the department of art history at the University of Vienna . Soon after the end of World War II, Zedlmayr as a member of the Nazi party was suspended from teaching, and soon he was forced to move to Bavaria . There in 1951 he headed the department of art history at the University of Munich . In the post-war period, Zedlmayr continues the study of Gothic architecture, begun back in the 1930s, the result of which was the monograph “The Emergence of the Cathedral” (1950). Another direction of his work was the writing of a “critical trilogy” (“The Loss of the Middle” (1948), “The Revolution of Modern Art” (1955), “Death of the World” (1964)), a series of essays on the history of European art of the 18th — 20th centuries. From 1965 until the last years of his life, Zedlmayr lived in Salzburg , teaching art history at the university. He died in Salzburg on July 9, 1984 .

In 1929, Zedlmayr prepared for publication the collected works of Alois Riegl. Zedlmayr added to the publication the preface “Quintessence of the Wiegl’s teachings” (written in 1927), in which he criticized the formal-stylistic method of Wölflin and Wiegl as “a priori substituting” for the direct perception and experience of a work of art with speculative schemes and classifications. According to Zedlmayr, the formation of the "history of art as a science" demonstrates four phases, or stages. The first stage is the stage of stylistic criticism, the accumulation of knowledge about the subject, the publication and cataloging of monuments. The second stage is characterized by the creation of an "abstract theory of style" and the development of basic concepts of the history of art. This period covers approximately the years 1900-1920. The third stage is the stage of applying to art history the methods of structural analysis of works of art. The fourth stage (starting from the 1950s) is distinguished by “hacking” of the traditional synchronistic (one-dimensionally linear) history of art ^[4] .

• Die Architektur Borrominis. Berlin, 1930.
• Verlust der Mitte. Salzburg, 1948.
• Die Entstehung der Kathedrale. Zürich, 1950.
• Die Revolution der modernen Kunst. Hamburg, 1955.
• Johan Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. Wien, 1956.
• Kunst und Wahrheit. Zur Theorie und Methode der Kunstgeschichte. Hamburg, 1958.
• Der Tod des Lichtes. Übergängene Perspektiven zur modernen Kunst. Salzburg, 1964.
• Epochen und Werke. Gesammelte Schriften zur Kunstgeschichte. Wien - München, 1959-1983. Bd. 13.
• Zedlmayr H. Interpretation Problems // Art History. Vol. 1/1998.
• Zedlmayr G. Art and truth. Theory and Method of Art History / Transl. Yu.N. Popova. SPb., 2000.
• Zedlmayr H. Loss of the middle / Per S. S. Vaneyan. M., 2008.

in Russian

• Bibikhin V.V. Hans Zedlmayr: the art of seeing // Bibikhin V.V. New Renaissance. - M. , 1998 .-- S. 78-99 .
• Vaneyan S. S. Between gestalt and theophany. Structural analysis and the history of the spirit in the work of Hans Zedlmayr // Art studies. - 1999. - No. 1 . - S. 506–552 .
• Vaneyan S. S. The Empty Throne. Critical art studies by Hans Sedlmayr. - M .: Progress-Tradition , 2004 .-- 416 p. - ISBN 5-89826-152-4 .
• Grablyova A.N. Phenomenological aesthetics of Hans Zedlmayr // Modern bourgeois aesthetics. Critical Essays / Ed. ed. M.F. Ovsyannikova et al. - M .: Thought , 1978. - S. 165—192. - 301 p.
• Elshevskaya G.V. History of art as a logical system (Review of translations of classics of foreign art studies ) // New Literary Review . - 2002. - No. 53 .
• Tasalov V.I. Hans Zedlmayr. The dilemma of chaos and order in postmodernism of the 50s-70s. // Western Art Studies of XXth Century Art .. - M .: Nauka , 1988. - P. 43-71. - 172 p.

in other languages

• Derev'yanko K.V. Theurgic aesthetics of Hans Zedlmayr // "Gilea (science newsletter)": Zbіrnik science prats. - K. , 2009. - No. 27 .
• Derev'yanko K.V. The Concept of "Crisis of the Righteous Mystery" in Hans Zedlmayre's Natural History / abstract of thesis. ... cand. Philos. sciences. - Lugansk: view of VNU them. Dalia , 2009.