Page - 208 - in Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, Volume LIX

Erica Tietze-conrat208 wrote to my friend Otto Kurz4, the head-librar- ian at the Warburg Institute who too came from the “Wiener Schule”, but one generation after me. He had an amazingly short answer: “The Wiener Schule is Wickhoff and Riegl.” Both had been dead for years at the time when Otto Kurz studied art history in Vienna but Wickhoff and Riegl continued to represent the “Wiener Schule” for the following generation. Wickhoff and Riegl were my teachers when I studied 1901 to 1905. Riegl died in the summer of 1905 and it was Julius von Schlosser, the associ- ate professor, who examined me at my “Rigoro- sum” in December 1905. It was the first time that Schlosser had to undergo this experience and I am sure he was no less scared than I. I will call up my memories of Wickhoff and Riegl alone. The set-up of my years as a student was so different from the one here in the States today and furthermore the Central European at- mosphere so different from the American that I think it the right thing to add to the characteriza- tion of the teachers the one of the pupils too. Wickhoff’s students came from two very dif- ferent camps. As “Ordinarius” (full professor) Wickhoff was connected with the “Institut für österreichische Geschichtsforschung.” This Insti- tute, like the Ecole de Chartres in France, edu- cated historians in all the various branches of their discipline.5 The courses ran for three years; the first one, a kind of introduction, ended with an examination; those who passed it became salaried members of the Institute (“Stipendiaten” had to take all the courses and graduate again after the examination at the end of the third year.) The can- didates, about twenty, were all sworn historians. A single one, who planned to become an art histo- rian, was allowed to join their group. The twenty members of the Institute had a privileged position in Wickhoff’s lectures. The chairs in the first two rows were reserved for them; they walked in to the class in the very last moment with all the noise and haughtiness typical of a privileged group. They showed their infinite contempt of so effemi- nate a discipline as art history by chewing their pencils, or staring out the window, (one of them who had a glass eye, tapped it relentlessly with his forefinger). At the end of the term they used to engage an art historian who would coach them for the examination. The other part of the audience could again be divided into three strata. The seri- ous ones who had decided to become art histori- ans as a profession and a much larger stratum of visitors of the lectures who thought it smart to get an inkling of Italian art before travelling South to a summer resort and finally those who aspired a doctor’s title before their names, a kind of deco- ration only which would impress the colleagues in the career awaiting them. A Central European doctor’s degree is by far not the time consum- ing affair as an American one. Some reached this goal after three and a half years of University, and art history was believed an easier way to attain it than, let’s say, chemistry. There are still living po- ets, theatre directors, art dealers etc. signing their names with the Dr. before who never have read or written an art historical paper or for that matter looked at a painting after having ended their uni- versity years with a doctor’s diploma. My friend Erny Ebenstein for instance was expected to en- ter his father’s business and dreaded this prospect. He finally was allowed to postpone this step until after his “Doctorat”. He studied every morning until noon and returned to University after the famous tailor’s atelier closed, wrote a long thesis on Franz Luycx which was published in the “Jahr- buch des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses”, passed his oral examination and thus finished his art histo- rian’s career (Abb. 1).6 Wickhoff used a shortcut to separate wheat from chaff. Before his seminar 4 Otto Kurz, geb. 26.05.1908 in Wien, gest. 03.09.1975 in Jerusalem. 5 Frauen war der Zugang zum Institut für österreichische Geschichtsforschung erst ab 1929 gestattet. 6 Ernst Ebenstein, geb. 1880 in Wien, gest. ? Das 1897 von Adolf Loos gestaltete Geschäft des Schneiders Ernst