Tomáš Murár

‘Ein neuer, universal weltlicher Idealismus’: Max Dvořák’s Visible Reality of the Renaissance

The late period of Max Dvořák’s art history is believed to be a departure from the developmental principles of art forms to spiritual changes visible in individual art works. This method of art history is particularly associated with Dvořák’s October 1920 lecture on El Greco, first published in 1922 and then again in 1924, as a key argument for labelling Dvořák’s late art history as Kunstgeschichte als Geistesgeschichte. However, the study of El Greco, and its parallel in Dvořák’s interest in the art of Oskar Kokoschka from the same year, is only part of his broader view of the transformation of art history in the second half of the 16th century. By investigating Dvořák’s argument from his unpublished or lesser-known works on 16th-century art, such as posthumously published study on Joachim Bueckelaer or a manuscript Über das Verhältnis der Kunst im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert zu den gelichzeitigen geistigen Strömungen, the study will show that Dvořák elaborated a broader concept of the Renaissance transformation of one’s relationship to visible reality that irreversibly changed the view of human reality in general and created a new, global concept of idealism in the visual arts valid not only for Mannerism but also for Modernism. Such a complex view of Dvořák’s understanding of the late Renaissance can both disrupt the historiographical paradigm of the divergence between his early and late interpretations and show its relevance for contemporary art historical research in the possibility of conceiving artistic transformations in terms of world art history.

Author's email:

murar@udu.cas.cz

DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.54759/ART-2024-0403

Full-text in the Digital Library of the Czech Academy of Sciences:
https://kramerius.lib.cas.cz/uuid/uuid:2f11a554-8aeb-44c6-991d-e2434e74a016

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