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Evonne
Levy238
Swoboda).12 All of the letters bear a day and
month but in few did Sedlmayr indicate the year.
I have dated them based on the flow of their dis-
cussion and, with one exception, I am confident
of the chronology.
The letters show Sedlmayr’s keenness in the
early 1930s to be in contact with foreign schol-
ars,13 to exchange ideas and opinions of the
work of people in his circle, and to promote it.
Sedlmayr shows an openness to Schapiro’s sug-
gestions of readings, mostly by scholars outside
art history, and across the political spectrum.
There is virtually nothing personal in Sedlmayr’s
letters and the events of the outside world are
also kept for the most part, or until late in the
correspondence, at bay. Starting in 1934, like-
ly following further personal contact in 1933,
Sedlmayr and Schapiro begin to clash on their
diametrically opposed political positions, includ-
ing Sedlmayr’s anti-Semitism. For one year they
continued the correspondence, trying to keep
their art historical discussion apart from their
political beliefs until they were no longer able
to sustain it. In this, although Sedlmayr feigned
agreement, Schapiro seems to have had the upper
hand. For Sedlmayr is always trying to continue the dialogue. In what follows I will summarize
the correspondence with a minimum of com-
mentary which I will reserve for the end. The
most heated letters are quoted in full.14
The first letter of the correspondence is dated
to 13 January 1930. Schapiro has sent Sedlmayr
an unidentified essay which Sedlmayr says he
is prepared to translate but it is up to Swoboda
if it is published and in which language.15 From
early on Sedlmayr expresses his interest in con-
tact with foreign colleagues. Almost a year later,
11 March 1931, the two men are now engaged in
a more substantive discussion of art history, likely
because they had met when Schapiro was in Vi-
enna in winter 1931 (February) and they seem to
refer to an ongoing discussion between them.16
In this letter Sedlmayr responds with interest to
Schapiro’s comments on the North Italian Ba-
roque and the importance of the Spanish archi-
tecture of Mexico for the Baroque.
Sedlmayr is preoccupied with his journal,
the ‘KWF’, and wishes to enlist Schapiro in
contributing to it and circulating it abroad. He
asks him to collaborate in what he hopes will
be the das Organ der jungen Garde. For the 2nd
volume he expects contributions from Alpatoff,
12 Swoboda lässt Sie vielmals grussen […] Sedlmayr to Schapiro 13 November 1931. He does not appear to have met
Pächt. I suspect that he met Ernst Kris, who would become a colleague at the New School of Social Research in
New York from 1940 but there is no correspondence with Kris in the Schapiro papers before the 1940s and the 1st let-
ter from Schapiro to Kris preserved in the Kris papers dates to 31 December 1940 (Library of Congress, Washington
D.C.).
13 Aufrichtigen Dank für Ihren Brief, an dem mich alles interessierte. Ich nehme ihn als gute Vorzeichen dafür, dass Sie mir
manchmal auch aus Amerika berichten werden. Besonders angenehm ist es mir, dass ich durch ihre Angaben Gelegenheit
bekomme, mit ausländischen Fachgenossen in Verbindung zu kommen. Sedlmayr to Schapiro, 11 March 1931. Ich habe
mit grösstem Interesse den Bericht über Ihre Arbeit gelesen. Ihre Ergebnisse werden für uns sehr wichtig sein. Darüber
hinaus, aber bleibt es für uns von grosser Bedeutung, daß wir durch Sie einen Kontakt mit der amerikanischen Kunstwis-
senschaft besitzen und hoffentlich behalten werden. Sedlmayr to Schapiro, 12 July 1931.
14 All transcriptions here follow the original spelling, punctuation and underlining. To ensure a readable text “sic” has
often been omitted. Sedlmayr often spelled words with an umlaut out with two vowels and the ß as ss.
15 It is unclear if it is this essay that is still being discussed in letters dating to 1934 and which eventually Sedlmayr sends
back to Schapiro so that he can publish it elsewhere.
16 Linda Seidel quotes from a letter sent by Schapiro to Porter from Vienna, dated 1 February 1931. L. Seidel, “Int-
roduction,” in: L. Seidel (ed.), Meyer Schapiro, Romanesque Architectural Sculpture. The Charles Eliot Norton
Lectures, Chicago 2006, p. xiii. In the letter dated 12 July 1931 Sedlmayr says: Ich weiss nicht, ob ich Ihnen in Wien die
Verhältnisse unter den die beiden [his colleagues in Russia, Alpatoff and Brunoff] arbeiten deutlich genug geschildert habe
[…].
Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte
Volume LIX
Entnommen aus der FWF-E-Book-Library
- Title
- Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte
- Volume
- LIX
- Editor
- Bundesdenkmalamt Wien
- Institut für Kunstgeschichte der Universität Wien
- Publisher
- Böhlau Verlag
- Location
- Wien
- Date
- 2011
- Language
- German, English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-205-78674-0
- Size
- 19.0 x 26.2 cm
- Pages
- 280
- Keywords
- research, baroque art, methodology, modern art, medieval art, historiography, Baraock, Methodolgiem, Kunst, Wien
- Category
- Kunst und Kultur