Page - 197 - in Der Arkadenhof der Universität Wien und die Tradition der Gelehrtenmemoria in Europa

A VERY PUISSANT SPURRE: AUTHORS, SCHOLARS AND THE EXEMPLARY ROLE OF THE PORTRAIT BUST IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Malcolm Baker The splendid array of portrait busts which adorns the Arkadenhof in the University of Vienna celebrates the intellectual achievements of that institution through its long history. In doing so, however, this series of images draws on a number of earlier traditions. Such a concentra- tion of busts might be seen as one manifestation of the cult of monuments that formed so charac- teristic a feature of German-speaking lands and their culture during the nineteenth century.1 The proliferation of sculpted images of great men – and they are usually men – throughout Europe during this period provides a wider contempor- ary context in which to view this particular as- semblage of busts. But while this is undeniably a striking feature of nineteenth century public art throughout Europe, this collective celebration of scholarly achievement has its roots in traditions of sculptural commemoration established long before then. The genre of the bust had, of course, long been associated with writers and thinkers, and these were just as frequently represented in this way as were emperors and rulers. From ancient Greece onwards, one of the principal roles of sculpture was to commemorate illustrious men and celebrate their achievements. While it was the Romans rather than the Greeks who did this through the form of the bust, as opposed to the full length statue, the subjects who were represented were often Greek writers or think- ers, including Homer of course, whose bust be- came one of the most frequently reproduced classical images and helped to reinforce the as- sociation of busts with authorship. One way in which the Arkadenhof display works as an in- stitutional celebration of scholarship is that all the images are sculptural, so continuing and amplifying the tradition that began with busts of Homer. But another equally significant fea- ture of this assemblage is that these sculptural images form part of a series, at least in a very loose sense. The writers and thinkers celebrated here are represented through their proximity by being gathered together within a single space. In this respect, the Arkadenhof draws on another well-established tradition – that of the series of author portraits, often in the form of a sequence of painted portraits. Long before, these portraits of dead and liv- ing writers and scholars had formed two of the categories of famous men represented in the 1 H.A. Pohlsander, National Monuments and Nationalism in 19th Century Germany, Bern 2008; K.A. Lang, Monumental unease: monuments and the making of national identity in Germany, in: Imagining modern Ger- man culture, 1889–1910. Studies in the history of art (ed. F. Forster-Hahn), Washington D.C. 1996, pp. 274– 299. For the earlier German tradition of busts representing writers, see R. Kanz, Dichter und Denker im Porträt: Spurengänge zur deutschen Porträtkultur des 18. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1993.