The Crisis in the Discipline || Reinterpreting Wölfflin: Neo-Kantianism and Hermeneutics

Reinterpreting Wölfflin: Neo-Kantianism and HermeneuticsAuthor(s): Joan HartSource: Art Journal, Vol. 42, No. 4, The Crisis in the Discipline (Winter, 1982), pp. 292-300Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/776689 .

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Reinterpreting Wilfflin: Neo-Kantianism and Hermeneutics

By Joan Hart

H einrich Wolfflin, widely recognized as the most important theorist of art

history, was popularized early in this century by art historians of all nationalities. Many found his descriptive method of analyzing the formal characteristics of works of art useful. However, the theory behind the method often was misconstrued. Many misinterpretations occurred because his theory was not viewed in the light of his own milieu-late-nineteenth-century Switzer- land and Germany-but from a later, post- World War I perspective. He was invoked, both as a prophet of positivism, by Herbert Read, and as a proponent of Hegelianism, by E.H. Gombrich, among others.1 To understand the real significance of W6lf- flin's theory and of his contribution to the methodology of art history, it is important first to portray the individuals and ideas that led him to a neo-Kantian philosophical position. Then, by examining his theory in relation to modem hermeneutics, we can elucidate the paradoxes and strengths of his thought.

Before 1888, when Wolfflin published his first major work Renaissance and Ba- roque, at the age of twenty-four, most art history, especially of the Renaissance and later periods, was written in narrative or anecdotal fashion, listing artists and de- scribing their works, sometimes guided by general, undefined notions of style and period. Wolfflin presented a new model, for which he has come to be viewed as the founder of modem art history. This new model consisted of two easily replicated methods: the formal analysis of individual works of art and the comparison of two styles to determine their general characteristics. Wolfflin continued to use these methods in all his books. In Renaissance and Baroque he also proposed an explanation for the change in style from Renais- sance to Baroque architecture: a change in

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Fig. 1 Heinrich Wi1fflin, at age 22, in Rome with a fellowship at the German Archaeological Institute, 1886.

292 Art Journal



the psychology, or "mood," of a people. After reading the sculptor Adolf von Hilde- brand's Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst (1893), W6lfflin, in Clas- sic Art (1899) and the Principles ofArt His- tory (1915), ascribed this change to a fundamental shift in perception and cognition.

Wolfflin was born in Switzerland in 1864 and died there in 1945. His father, Eduard Wolfflin, was a well-known professor of classical philology at the University of Munich. Wolfflin was precocious: first in his class in the Gymnasium, with mastery of six languages, he was deeply interested in history, literature, philosophy, and art.2 He began his university education at Basel in 1882. He chose Basel for several rea- sons, but probably the primary one was to study cultural history with the famous Jacob Burckhardt. Wolfflin's ultimate goal throughout his studies at several universities was to become a historian of culture. From the outset, he believed that philosophy would provide a sound basis for cultural history. In 1884, he wrote to his parents: "Philosphy is the highest constant for me. It unites an entire age. I would choose it as the foundation for every higher cultural history; philosophy and cultural history complement each other reciprocal- ly. The object of both is man, the whole thinking, feeling mankind; the former ana- lyzes it, the other gives it history."3

The Influence of Positivism Burckhardt endorsed Wolfflin's program to specialize in philosophy. But Woilfflin found his early association with Burckhardt not wholly productive, because from the beginning he sought a method for the study of history, which Burckhardt did not seem to offer.4 Surprisingly, Burckhardt admired Henry Thomas Buckle's History of Civili- zation in England of 1857-61, which did provide a method-positivism. Wolfflin himself briefly expressed enthusiasm for Buckle, as well as for another proponent of the inductive method in the humanities, August Bockh, who had taught philology at the University of Berlin until 1865.s Biockh, in his book on the methodology of the philological sciences, advocated both a scientific and hermeneutic approach to the study ofphilology.6 During his long teach- ing career, Bockh taught many outstanding figures, including Burckhardt, Karl Otfried Muller, and Wilhelm Dilthey, all of whom had an important influence on Wiolfflin.

Philology was the most important discipline in the German academic system in the late nineteenth century; it embraced world history and developed methods of textual analysis,' complementing philosophy in method and subject matter. The subject had special importance for Wolfflin because of his father's great influence. Eduard Wolfflin's conception of Heinrich's education was quite different from his son's: Heinrich wanted to broaden his

studies to philosophy and eventually cultural history, while his father. counseled practical achievement in academia, which meant narrow specialization. The son won with regard to subject matter, but it was Eduard Wolfflin who first proposed the comparative method that his son was to make so familiar to art historians.8 Specu- lation that the comparative method originated in Hegel's dialectic has no basis in fact: neither Wolfflin nor his teachers had a particular interest in Hegel.9

During his first two years in college, from 1882 to 1884, Wolfflin was primarily influenced by positivists-Buckle, B6ckh, and his father-in his search for a method for the study of history. He asked himself then: "Can history, which was until now only an experientia, be raised to a science in which, following the model of the natural sciences, one extracts from the profusion of facts the great laws of spiritual development in the human race?" 10 But enthusiasm for positivism had never been strong in Germany, and Wolfflin, in the course of his studies at Basel, Munich, and Berlin, came into contact with teachers and authors who remained unconvinced that the methods of the natural sciences were appropri- ate for any of the "cultural sciences," or Geisteswissenschaften. By the 1880s, the reaction against positivism was in full swing, particularly among philosophers. 1

The Influence of Neo-Kantians Aesthetics was one of W6lfflin's strong interests. Johannes Volkelt, who taught Wolfflin aesthetics at the University of Basel in 1884, was particularly influential because he directed Wolfflin to consider the nature of form in art. 12 Volkelt's most important work in aesthetics was Der Sym- bolbegriffin der neuesten Aesthetik (1876), where he traced the concept of "symbolization" chronologically, discussing Rob- ert Zimmerman, Hegel, Hermann Lotze, Friedrich Theodor Vischer, his son Robert Vischer, Gustav Fechner, and others. Sym- bolization meant, to Lotze, the Vischers, and Volkelt, that the relationship of the viewer to works of art is pantheistic, an- thropomorphic, empathetic; in short, that the subject imbues the object with life. They explained the various stages of this relationship by means of psychological and physiological processes. These descriptions of symbolization were crude and hypothet- ical. In his dissertation, Prolegomena zu einer Psychologie der Architektur (1886), Wolfflin adopted the general concept of the anthropomorphism of the object, that is, the idea that the parts of a building, for instance, are like the limbs of the human body.13 Unlike the philosophers of symbolization, WoSlfflin cited experimental results---of Gustav Fechner and Wilhelm Wundt-in support of the theory. He had become interested in their research when studying with the philosopher Wilhelm

Dilthey at the University of Berlin.14 The application of psychological con-

cepts to philosophy began among neo- Kantian philosophers. The trend among German academic philosophers to return to Kant for the basis of a critical philosophy began in the 1850s, reached its full force in the 1890s, and disappeared after 1914. Hegel was viewed as ultra-conservative, the voice of reaction and the status quo. Kant, on the other hand, had offered his philosophy as a starting point, which led later philosophers to believe that "to understand Kant is to go beyond him." Some believed that the introduction of psychological concepts represented an extension of Kant's categories. Hermann Lotze, Eduard Zeller, and Friedrich Theodor Vischer were the early proponents of this idea; they identified Kant's a priori forms with the operations of brain physiologyis and called this new formulation "psychologism."

Wiolfflin's most important mentor in philosophy was decidedly Wilhelm Dilthey, who was influenced by neo-Kantianism. Wolfflin, who was seeking a method for studying cultural history, finally met his master in 1885 at the University of Berlin and stayed there for two semesters. It is ap- parent from reading Wilfflin' s journals and letters to his family that Dilthey had the greatest impact on his thinking.16 Dilthey had just published his first major philosophical treatise, Einleitung in die Geiste- swissenschaften of 1883, in which he contrasted positivism, the method of the natural sciences, with his alternative method for the cultural sciences, or Geisteswissen- schaften. Dilthey formulated a coherent response to the positivists-Comte, Buck- le, and Mill-who proposed to apply the methods of the natural sciences to the disciplines focusing on man.

The main part of Dilthey's book consisted of an examination of the ascendancy and decline of metaphysics in history. He proposed substituting a new epistemology for the dead metaphysics: an epistemology of the cultural disciplines based on descriptive psychology. Dilthey contended that the one central element that distinguishes the cultural from the natural sciences is "consciousness." His conception of consciousness is historical; through it one could reconstruct and re-experience another person's inner world. Dilthey thought that consciousness was the basis of all human knowledge and that only by investigating consciousness would an explanation of knowledge be possible. The method he proposed was antithetical to the naturalistic, causal models of positivism, which he felt could not be used to understand the inner life and experience of man.

Logic, for Dilthey, is an interpretative device that provides a structure for lived experience; logic is the best means to understand consciousness, since it connects thought with its underlying psychic and

Winter 1982 293



psychophysical phenomena. Dilthey was opposed to applying the a priori logic of mathematics to the cultural sciences. Ac- cording to Dilthey, the logic of the cultural sciences is not an unchanging, a priori foundation, but is dependent on language and its content, which changes throughout history. Dilthey proposed a heuristic method: the foundational science of all the cultural sciences would be a descriptive psychology, and logic would provide the structure for the experience of consciousness.

The parallels between Wolfflin's writings and Dilthey's are clear: the belief that psychology would provide the regulative laws for all the humanities, the logical structure of their theories, the avoidance of causal statements, the antipathy to both Hegel and materialism, the attempts to bring philosophical idealism into harmony with nineteenth-century science, and the centrality of consciousness. In the Princi- ples of Art History, Wolfflin used the con-

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cept of consciousness to distinguish between early and late Renaissance art. The consciousness of the means of representa- tion of the artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries meant that their art was better than that produced in the period of unconsciousness, the Quattrocento. W61lf- flin, also like Dilthey, struggled with the limitations of his method, cautioning that it produced only a schema. Unlike Hegel, Dilthey and Wolfflin did not attempt to think the thoughts of God. Dilthey gradually came to believe that when the limits of the scientific or logical method had been reached, "the results [have cognitive value] only from the standpoint of inner experience." One can see the general inconsist- encies of neo-Kantianism in Wolfflin's theory: the opposition of relativism and universal values, of cognitive limitations

and intellectual certitude, and of historicism and universal laws.

Evidence of Neo-Kantianism in Wolfflin's Early Writings Wolfflin constructed his dissertation, Pro- legomena zu einer Psychologie der Archi- tektur, on a framework of neo-Kantianism. It included an idiosyncratic interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason."7 Wolf- flin believed that Kant defined a "system" in terms of organic, harmonious development. The "system" is a unity of parts, coordinated by an idea expressing the goal and form of the whole. The system grows from within, like an animal. The regulating principle in Wolfflin's dissertation is the organic analogy: "Our physical organization is the form by which we comprehend everything corporeal."18 He ap- pealed to this analogy because the discontinuity between experience and the object of experience could not be empirically resolved; the analogy provided a connection without requiring a causal relationship. Wolfflin explicitly invoked Kant as the source of this idea.

The two main ideas in W6lfflin's dissertation are: (1) to give a more modem and scientific basis to the traditional theory that architecture is organized by the proportions of the human body, and (2) to provide experimental psychological evidence to demonstrate that the forms of which buildings are composed directly communicate organic, human "laws." The main thesis is that architecture is expres- sive to man precisely because it expresses in the same way that man does. Architec- ture is analogous to man in both structure and function. By means of the physiog- nomic analogy, Wo61fflin discovered the impulse to engender life in the forms on the fagades of buildings: windows are like eyes, a cornice is like brows, and so on. Architectural terminology supported the analogy. The evidence that seemed to prove the thesis came from the experiments of Wundt and Fechner. For example, Wundt demonstrated that subjects associated lines and colors as if they expressed the same thing: the hasty back and forth movement of a zigzag line was associated with red, while blue was associated with curves. These feelings and expressions could easily be communicated by architectural forms. Fechner performed experiments that indi- cated that slim subjects preferred slim proportions. Even the tempo of a subject's breathing was adduced as a reason for his preference for particular proportions or shapes. It was a short step from this evidence to the conclusion that whole peoples expressed their character and the mood of the time through their architectural forms -and not only in architectural forms, for the will, or "impulse of form" (Form- kraft), was first expressed in shoes, cos- tume, and decoration and only later in the

fine arts. The great hopes for psychology were

reinforced by experiments which seemed to prove the prevalent aesthetic notions of the day. But still more was hoped for. Wolfflin believed psychology would eventually prove that "the organization of the human body is the constant denominator of all change," the ultimate resolution of the relationship between subject and object.19 The extent of W61fflin's faith in psychology is clear in this quotation from his dissertation:

One could reason a posteriori from the idea of such a psychology of art, from the impression that we receive, to the feeling of a people that produced these forms, these proportions. One could raise the following objections: the conclusions are unjustified; relationships and lines do not always signify the same thing; the human feeling for form changes.

These objections cannot be dis- proved so long as one has no psychological basis. However, as soon as one can prove that the organization of the human body is the constant denominator of all change, one is secure against this assault, because the uniformity of this organization also guarantees the uniformity of the feeling for form.20

Although Wolfflin retained his belief in psychology, the form of this belief did change. For how could art change if the human organization did not change? Like Dilthey, he increasingly inclined towards an empirical examination of the evidence. A statement by Dilthey defined their com- mon goal:

The task of our generation is clearly before us: following Kant's critical path, but in cooperation with researchers in other areas, we must found an empirical science of the human mind. It is necessary to know the laws which rule social, intellectual, and moral phenomena. This knowledge of laws is the source of all the power of man, even where mental phenomena are concerned.21

One of the problems facing late-nineteenth-century philosophers was the resolution of the conflict between positivism and idealism. It was thought that the empirical study of the mind might provide a solution, as well as providing a foundational science for all the Geisteswissen- schaften. Reading Eduard Zeller and Fried- rich Albert Lange and studying with Fried- rich Paulsen could only have confirmed for Woilfflin the early neo-Kantian position that psychology was the proper basis of Kant's Critique.22 Zeller proposed, in Erkenntnis- theorie, the use of logic as a scientific method and the theory of psychologism

294 Art Journal



based on the physiology of the brain. Lange's Geschichte des Materialismus was a critique of materialism in which he discussed the epistemological limits of science and, like Zeller, proposed that the discov- eries of physiologists were an advance on Kant's theory. Friedrich Paulsen, who also taught Wolfflin philosophy and psychology at the University of Berlin, was a biogra- pher of Kant and the author of a history of German universities. He was convinced that positivism was unable to account for the meaning and value of human experience. But the specific features of W6lfflin's psychologism derived from Dilthey, who often referred to Fechner, Wundt, and Helmholtz in his lectures, as well as from the aestheticians of symbolization. Like Dilthey, Wolfflin often stated in his notebooks that psychology was the foundation of historical science but that psychology could not be compared to mechanics, which was the foundation of the natural sciences.23 Mechanics is ahistorical, while psychology is historical, and this was a crucial division.

Evidence that Wolfflin conceived his history of art in Renaissance and Baroque directly in relation to Dilthey's theory in Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften is in a note book for the preparation of the book:

Dilthey: my viewpoint is that of a philosophy of experience which also preserves impartially the facts of inner experience and strives to protect the opposite, the products of study of the exterior world. In opposition to Hegel, therefore, I explain the development of philosophy not out of the relationships of concepts in abstract thought, but out of changes in all humanity due to man's whole animation and reality.

Also valid for art. Universal interpretation.

1) History of vision (scientifically important)

2) History of the feeling for form (style) = feeling for life

3) History of feeling and taste. Evaluation of the world.24

In this entry, Wiolfflin clarified his understanding of Dilthey's concepts and how they might be applied to art. The three considerations in the history of art-vision, feeling for form (Formgefiihl), and taste-- are types of statements that can be found in Wilfflin's books, particularly Part II of Classic Art and throughout the Principles of Art History. They correspond to Dilthey's three classes of statements in the Einlei- tung--descriptive, explanatory, and nor- mative.25 And Dilthey stated that united they defined his concept of Verstehen or "understanding."

An outline of 1888 for Renaissance and Baroque further demonstrates that Wiolfflin thought of constructing the book in accord-

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Fig. 3 Heinrich Wolfflin (seated, with hat) among his students and friends in the Kunstmuseum, Basel, winter semester 1895/96. In the background are three paintings by Arnold Bicklin, including a Self-Portrait.

ance with ideas proposed in Dilthey's Ein- leitung in die Geisteswissenschaften.26 The outline was entitled "Einleitung in die Kunstwissenschaft." Like Dilthey's book, which contained a long history of metaphysics and its decline and a proposal for a new method, the outline comprised a history of "Kunstwissenschaft" and aesthetics, followed by an idea for a new method, psychology. Wolfflin listed three types of explanation (Erkliirung) of images, really a step-by-step procedure for analyzing a work of art: factual interpretation or description, stylistic interpretation, and cultural historical combined with psychological interpretation (Begreifung), which united the first two. Wi1fflin used this method in Renaissance and Baroque, beginning with descriptions of the Renais- sance and Baroque styles, generalizing about the characteristics of the two styles, and explaining their discontinuity in terms of a cultural psychology. The procedure was like that suggested by Dilthey for the Geisteswissenschaften and excluded concepts of the scientific method and causality.

Hermeneutics and Woifflin Much has been missed by associating Wilf- flin either with the Hegelian tradition or with a radical positivism. It is especially puzzling that such variant interpretations could be made, sometimes in the same essay (Hauser's, for one). They gloss over the real tensions in W61fflin's theory of art, which appear when the relation to hermeneutic concepts is discovered.27

The word "hermeneutics" derives from Hermes, the Greek messenger god who mediated between the divine and mortal,28 communicating to man what he otherwise

could not comprehend. Since Hermes also discovered language and writing, it is ap- propriate that he became the eponym of the art of interpretation.29

Wolfflin read August Bockh and Dilthey on hermeneutics. He confronted the same basic problem as Dilthey in the 1880s: to reconcile the positivist Western European tradition with German idealism and metaphysics. Philosophers of hermeneutics in the twentieth century developed a set of interrelated interpretive concepts which are useful in bridging the chasm between them. Hermeneutics, "the art of understanding" (Verstehen is a key concept),31 is a mental process of re-experiencing and reconstructing the past. Understanding is dialectical, or comparative, since it can be attained only through the interaction between past and present viewpoints. Under- standing is circular, because the leap from part to whole and whole to part is discon- tinuous, independent of logical analysis, sequential, and never-ending. And, finally, it is contextual and historical; it presup- poses a tradition to which we are all bound. "We can be in no nonpositional understanding of anything," as Dilthey said.31

Circular reasoning is intrinsic to hermeneutic thought. The historian is forever aware of the limiting conditions of all understanding and interpretation. In order to understand the whole, it is necessary to understand the parts, while to understand the parts it is necessary to have some initial intuition of the whole. Understanding is an ever-widening, never-ending spiral. W6lf- flin wrote: "Only when the whole was taken together as a system could the feeling for the differentiation of parts awaken, and only within a severe, tactile unity could the

Winter 1982 295



partial forms develop an independent effect.''32 The circle is vicious only if you have a certain ideal of knowledge: that of total objectivity. Hermeneutic philosophers do not view objectivity as the ultimate goal, but contend, rather, that an understanding that leads to interpretation and criticism is the aim of historical work.

Some components of W6lfflin's evolving theory of art can be related to recent hermeneutic philosophy. In Wilfflin's life- time, hermeneutics developed from an inductive method of criticism and interpretation in August B6ckh's teachings, to an epistemological basis for the Geisteswis- senschaften in Dilthey, to a phenomenology of Being in Sein und Zeit where Heidegger gave up epistemology for ontology. None- theless, Wolfflin probably did not use hermeneutic concepts consciously.

Dilthey's philosophy changed after his book of 1883, Einleitung in die Geiste- swissenschaften. Gradually he perceived that the psychology that was evolving as a discipline could not be the foundation of the cultural sciences, and he turned instead to hermeneutics to understand the nature of culture and history, experience and meaning. Introspection as a psychological method created problems that could be overcome only by interpreting what is given as expression. Not only were psychologists' methods inappropriate, but their most relevant subjects for exploration- consciousness and self-reflection-were being ignored.

Such self-reflection is accomplished by every individual and constantly renews itself in different grades. It is always present and expresses itself in ever-new forms. It is present in the verses of Solon as well as in the reflections of the Stoics, in the medi- tations of the saints as well as in the life-philosophy of modern times. It alone makes historical insight possible. The power and breadth of one's own life and the energy with which we reflect on it are the foundation of historical vision.33

Hermeneutic understanding replaced psychology as the basis of the cultural sciences.

In Renaissance and Baroque of 1888, a hermeneutic argument prevailed. Style was viewed as equivalent to a feeling for form (Formgefiihl), will, and mood. The pre- sumed identity of art and psychological feeling probably contributed to the anthro- pomorphizing of Wilfflin's descriptive vocabulary: the Baroque style is restless, solemn, overwhelming, pathological, and in a state of becoming, whereas the Renais- sance style is calm, complacent, graceful, still, and in a state of being. For Wolfflin, the proof of a change from Renaissance to Baroque "feeling" or psychology was the discontinuity of the styles. He deduced the nature of man from the nature of art; the

description of art became the explanation for changes in it.

Certain concepts (reminiscent of later hermeneutic ones) in Wolfflin's theory of art appeared very early in his work. A recurring theme is "man versteht nur was man selbst kann" or "one understands only what one knows oneself."34 The im- plication is that one cannot extricate oneself from the impact of one's environment and nature; there are limitations to understanding. He often repeated this statement of 1886 later in his books. An earlier version was "I can experience nothing that is not already in me,"a3 very similar to Dilthey's definition of understanding as a re-enact- ment of mental processes: "We understand only that which we allow to happen over again in ourselves."36 In Classic Art, this statement became the rationale for Woilf- flin's understanding of the "classicism" of classic art:

One sees always only what one seeks, and it requires a long education (which may not be possible in an artistically productive age) to overcome naive perception, for it has nothing to do with the object's reflection on the retina.37

Wolfflin's idea of perception was the same as Kant's, Helmholtz's, and Hilde- brand's: "percepts without concepts are blind.""3 Wolfflin concluded that the classicism of sixteenth-century art is a conse- quence of the classicism of the artists. Art- ists were not trying to imitate antiquity, they were antique. With the development of a new taste, a new sense of beauty and human dignity, artists perceived the close- ness of their own image to that of antique models and thus began to see antiquity as it really was. According to W6lfflin, the proper sensibility had to develop before the "imitation" was successful.

The circularity of this argument is obvious. The only evidence Wolfflin provided for the equivalence of the classicism of sixteenth-century art and artists was the art itself. If finally, the art was grand and sublime, after attempts by Quattrocento artists to achieve the same result, the explanation was that the artists became grand and sublime.

Each generation sees in the world what is similar to it. The fifteenth century must infer, understandably, a totally different value of beauty of visibility from the sixteenth century, for it faces it with different organs.39

Wolfflin inferred a development in percep- tual functioning to account for change in art: a simplification and clarification of sight, as well as an increasing desire for richness, were responsible for these same characteristics in sixteenth-century art.

The circular argument has an awareness of historical limitations built into it. "It is

a widespread error of dilettantes that everything is possible at all times."40 W6lfflin's conception of his own historical milieu reinforced his choice of subject matter. He contrasted idealism with materialism and naturalism and stated his goal in a letter of 1884: "to cherish the rights of religion and idealism in our materialistic age is surely a beautiful problem."41 The change he found in sixteenth-century art was similar to what he hoped would occur in nineteenth-century thought.

An overarching paradox in Wolfflin's method is revealed in the Principles of Art History:

But the power of human imagination will always make its organization and its possibilities of development meaningful in art history. It is true that one sees only what one seeks, but also one only seeks what one can see. Doubtless certain forms of perception typify the possibilities; whether and how they come to develop de- pends on external circumstances.42

Wolfflin stated the circularity of his thought without apology: on the one hand, precon- ceptions from past interpretations always condition what we see and understand, and, on the other, present perception limits how we interpret the past. Seeing is always "seeing as, " context-bound. He stated the conflict between interpreting historical material from a present viewpoint and understanding what that historical age was trying to communicate in its own time. He could never decide whether the art, as "forms of perception," determined perception and the world view or whether the latter conditioned the art. He derived the nature of human imagination in a given period from the nature of its art. In the article "Uber den Begriff des Malerischen" of 1913, Wolfflin clarified the interrela- tionship of the two concepts linear and painterly with the variables that affected them, in a reciprocal relationship of part to whole and whole to part:

Each form of perception, the linear and the painterly, has a cognitive and a "decorative" side: every new optic is united with a new ideal of beauty. . . . We encounter here the connections between beauty and the world view, and in regard to that the philosophy of history asks the question: to what extent the fixed decorative feeling of a period determines the cognition and to what extent will it be determined by the content of cognition. Not everything is possible at all times in the visual arts. Not all thoughts can be thought in all periods.43

Thus, one could determine cognitive and decorative feelings from the "form of perception" (art). And each new art is self-

296 Art Journal



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limiting, because only a given number of ideas are available at any one time. This is why the description of art became the explanation for changes in it. Concomitant with a new Renaissance or Baroque concept of form were new ideals of life and beauty, a new decorative feeling, a new relation of the individual to the world, a new domain of feeling, a different temperament, a new set of qualities and expression, and fore- most a new vision. The exact interaction of these variables remained rather mysterious.

Wolfflin often acknowledged the limits as well as the necessity of historical interpretation. The essential condition of man (or, as Heidegger put it, the distinctive ontological mark of man) is the fact that he is temporally and historically situated. Consciousness of the historical nature of understanding creates awareness of different viewpoints and the possibility of an

objective understanding of them. Wolfflin affirmed this:

Each period apprehends things with its eyes and no one will dispute this right. But the historian must ask each time how an object demands to be seen from its own point of view.44

He expressed the historicity of the critical circle. The historian attempts to attain an understanding (Verstehen) of the past by various means. Dilthey, as we have seen, considered understanding to be a process of psychological reconstruction, of re- experiencing, a method of bridging past and present, author and reader, art and spectator. Wolfflin knew that the possibility of understanding was directly in the forms of perception or styles that the artists created. If we characterized their art clearly, we could see as they saw and therefore

understand:

Each artist finds fixed optical possibilities to which he is bound. Not everything is possible at all times. Perception itself has its history, and the discovery of these "optical strata" must be viewed as the most elemen- tary problem of art history.45

Recent authors on hermeneutics have de- psychologized the issue; today understanding is characterized by its linguistic nature and by the fact that it is conjunctural. The historical process is emphasized in this conception of understanding.46 Wolfflin, too, saw art as a language of form (in addition to "forms of perception") which "changed according to grammar and syn- tax" and in which "the effect of image on image is much more important as a factor in style than what comes immediately from natural observation.""47

Dilthey gradually discovered the con- tradiction in positing psychology as the foundational discipline of the cultural sciences, but Wilfflin did not. If "perception itself has its history," how can it provide a foundation for the history of art? Once it is transformed into history, perception is unable to ground history. In Wolfflin's theory, perception and psychology have entered the hermeneutic circle.

Since the entire history of perception (history of ideas) must transcend mere art, it is evident also that such national differences of the "eye" are more than a matter of taste: determining and determined, they contain the bases of the whole world-image of a people.48

In Wolfflin's and Dilthey's thought, the idea of a foundational science became an unquestioned assumption, never fully val- idated, but necessary as a point of depar- ture.49

Historians of the nineteenth century distinguish between positivists and others with a "scientistic" inclination.so Wolfflin had a foot in each camp. His empiricism derived largely from the psychologists-Fechner, Helmholtz, Ebbinghaus, and Wundt-who founded the modern scientific discipline of psychology. They sought the laws of mental functioning that Wolfflin eagerly awaited. Side by side in Wolfflin's writings were the pantheistic, mystical remnants of earlier psychologist-philosophers, like Lotze and the Vischers, and the empiricist discipline of Wundt and Helmholtz.

Wolfflin's method in all his books is empirical. He nearly always began by mar- shaling the facts, gathering them together in a systematic way, and ended with induc- tively derived hypotheses. For example, in Classic Art, he discussed early sixteenth- century works of art by artist and region. In the last three chapters he generalized about his findings. In The Art of Albrecht

Winter 1982 297



Diirer and Renaissance and Baroque, he pursued the same strategy. He attempted to synthesize the results of all his previous research in the Principles of Art History. By today's standards his empirical method is crude.

The older Woilfflin became, the less "positive" he was. He was optimistic in his dissertation that psychology would provide laws of human development. He was less confident in each new book. And increasingly, the hermeneutic statements that Wolfflin made in order to explain the phenomena he derived by empirical means were not consistent with his method.

Wolfflin's use of an empirical method of historical analysis was opposed to the hermeneutic search for understanding. To- day this has been made quite clear. Gada- mer ironically entitled his book Truth and Methods' because truth is not attained through method; they are mutually exclu- sive objectives. Gadamer distinguishes between the scientific and linear nature of methods and the historical and circular nature of understanding. Understanding is contingent, contextual, and provisional. Opposed to it are forms of "objectivism," like the scientific method, that hold that "in principle there is an unchanging meaning that must be presupposed as the goal of every interpretation if it is to be believed that some interpretations are more true or correct than others.52

Wolfflin's writings have often been considered scientific and systematic, even dog- matic and deterministic. Surely he could not be pursuing scientific objectivism and a circular interpretation at the same time. But this was not so obvious to him and it is in fact precisely the conflict that exists in his work:

No one will want to assert that "the eye" accomplishes developments in itself. Determining and determined, it always overlaps into different spiritual spheres. There is no optical schema that, only resulting from its own premises, could be imposed on the world like a dead pattern. But if one also at all times sees as one wants to see, that does not exclude the possibility that a law exists throughout all change. To know this law would be the main problem, the basic problem of a scientific art history.5s3

At the beginning of this passage, Wolfflin expresses the circular theory of understanding and its tentative nature, juxtaposing it with the hope of finding the law that exists despite the continual, inexorable flux. He suggests towards the end of the Principles of Art History that this law is the spiral movement of the two concepts, the alter- nating sets of the dichotomy of styles throughout the history of art:

These concepts have, in themselves, in their changing, an inner necessity. They represent a rational psychological process. The progress from the tactile, plastic interpretation to a pure- ly optical-painterly one has a natural logic and could not be reversed.54

Wiolfflin went beyond historical hermeneutics when he posited a law in the history of art.ss*

Thus, two methodologies coexist in W6lfflin's theory of artistic development: the first is the awareness of the inescapa- bility of historical interpretation (historicity), its tentative nature, and the resultant circular understanding; the second is the search for regulating principles by objective, scientific means. Wolfflin leaves us with this fundamental question: are the two ultimately compatible or in conflict? Is it possible for a theory to remain within the hermeneutic circle of understanding and the limitations of its own historical conditions and still articulate laws or regulative principles that transcend the results of interpretation and understanding?s5 We ought to continue the discussion.

Notes This essay is based on a talk delivered at the College Art Association Annual Meet- ing in New York, 1982. I wish to express special thanks and appreciation to Martin Jay, Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley, for sharing his extensive knowledge of German intellectual history and hermeneutics. His comments and suggestions for this paper and my dissertation ("Heinrich Wolfflin: An Intellectual Biography," University of Cal- ifornia at Berkeley, 1981) were extremely helpful. My thanks also extend to the following individuals for their comments and encouragement: Joseph Gantner, E. H. Gombrich, L. D. Ettlinger, Georg Ger- mann, Janet Kennedy, Marilyn McCully, Loren Partridge, Claudia Neugebauer, and Henri Zerner.

This new interpretation of Wolfflin is based on my reasearch in the Wolfflin archive in Basel, in German intellectual history, and in hermeneuticis. All

references. to contents in the archive are cited as "Nachlass." All translations from the Ger- man are mine unless otherwise noted. I would like to thank Dr. Steinmann and Herr Stoickli at the University Library Basel for their exceptional courtesy to me over the years.

1 Herbert Read, "Introduction" to Hein- rich Wolfflin, Classic Art, London, Phaidon, 1968; E. H. Gombrich, In Search of Cultural History, Oxford, Clarendon, 1969. Gombrich believes that the Hegelian "formula" dominated Wolfflin's oeuvre.

The literature on Wolfflin is large, and extremely varied interpretations of his theories have been offered. Christine McCorkel ("Sense and Sensibility: An Epistemological Approach to the Phi- losophy of Art History," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Fall 1975, XXXIV, pp. 35-50) describes the nor- mal American interpretation and sub- scribes to it. Arnold Hauser ("The Phil- osophical Implications of Art History: 'Art History without Names,"' in The Philosophy of Art History, Cleveland, Meridian, 1965) states that "this pow- erful effect of Hegel's thought is still present in Wolfflin's 'anonymous art history.'' James Ackerman ("Toward a New Social Theory of Art," New Literary History, Winter 1973, IV, pp. 315-30) states that Hegelian art history is "best exemplified in Heinrich Wolf- flin and Alois Riegl."

2 Joseph Gantner, ed., Jacob Burckhardt undHeinrich Wlfflin: Briefwechselund andere Dokumente ihrer Begegnung, 1882-1897, Basel, Benno Schwabe, 1948, p. 21. Letter from Eduard Wolf- flin to Jacob Burckhardt, from Munich, 7 Dec. 1882.

3 Nachlass (III A 69), Letter from Woilf- flin to his parents, from Basel, 11 May

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1884: "Am hochsten aber steht mir die Philosophie. Sie fasst je eine ganze Zeit zusammen. Ich wiirde sie entscheiden als Grundlage fiir jede hohere Kultur- gesch. w@ihlen; Philosophie und Kultur- gesch. erganzen sich gegenseitig, beide haben zum Object den Menschen, den ganzen denkenden, wollenden, fiihlen- den Menschen. Die eine analysirt ihn, die andre giebt seine Geschichte." Burckhardt's familiar words appear in this quotation.

4 The theme of finding a method is per- vasive in Wlifflin's notebooks and letters during his years at the universities, 1882 through 1886. In 1885, Woilfflin wrote his father from Berlin: "There are two methods, the philosophical and the philological, that both have justice" (Nachlass III A 117). Wblfflin's notes from Burckhardt's course, "Geschichte d. neuern Zeit, 1450-1598," from winter semester 1882/83, still exist (Nach- lass II A 6).

5 Buckle is mentioned in an important letter from Wiolfflin to his father, from Basel, 1 Dec. 1882 (Nachlass III A 46). Bockh is frequently mentioned in Wolfflin's notebooks, e.g., Nachlass Notebook 6, 1883, p. 49.

6 August B6ckh, Encyklopdidie undMeth- odologie der philologischen Wissen- schaften, Leipzig, B. G. Teubner, 1886, 2nd ed. (first published in 1887). Burck- hardt assigned Bockh's book for his course in modem history.

7 Fritz K. Ringer, "Higher Education in Germany in the Nineteenth Century," Schule und Gesellschaft im 19. Jahr- hundert: Sozialgeschichte der Schule im Ubergang zur Industriegesellschaft, ed. Ulrich Hermann, Weinheim und Basel, Beltz, 1977, pp. 332-47.

8 Nachlass (IV 1366), Letter from Eduard Wolfflin to Heinrich, from Munich, 10 Dec. 1882; Eduard Wolfflin, Ausge- wiihlte Schriften, ed. Gustav Meyer, Leipzig, Dieterich, 1833, includes an essay by Johannes Stroux, "Eduard Wolfflin und die lateinische Philolo- gie," p. 330: "he [E. Wolfflin] took a great interest in methodological exacti- tude."

9 Comparative philology was an important field in the late nineteenth century. Wolfflin wrote an outline in 1885 (Nach- lass Notebook 9, p. 46) called "Princi- ples of a Comparative History of Art," based on A. H. Sayce The Principles of Comparative Philology, London, Triib- ner & Co., 1874. I will discuss this in my book.

10 Nachlass (III A 46), Letter from Wilf- flin to his parents, from Basel, 1 Dec. 1882: "Kann die Geschichte, die bisher nur eine experientia war, zur Wissen- schaft erhoben werden, indem man, nach dem Vorgange der Naturwissen- schaften, aus der Fiille der Tatsachen

die grossen Gesetze der geistigen Ent- wicklung des Menschengeschlechtes herauszieht?"

11 Fritz K. Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Aca- demic Community, 1890-1933, Cam- bridge, Harvard, 1969, Chapter V, "The Origins of the Cultural Crisis, 1890-1920."

12 Nachlass (III A 71), Letter from Wolf- flin to his parents, from Basel, 23 or 30 May 1884; Nachlass (III A 72), Letter from WSlfflin to his parents, from Ba- sel, June 1884.

13 The dissertation is reprinted in Heinrich Wiolfflin, Kleine Schriften (1886-1933), ed. J. Gantner. Basel, B. Schwabe, 1946, pp. 13-47. In it are references to publications by Lotze, both Vischers, Volkelt, Fechner, and Wundt.

14 Nachlass (II A 9), Wolfflin's notes from Dilthey's course "Logik und Erkennt- nistheorie," winter semester 1885/86, University of Berlin; Nachlass Note- book 8, p. 179, probably 1885, W61fflin listed Dilthey's books with those of Wundt and Fechner that were cited by Dilthey in his course. Wo1fflin studied psychology with Volkelt in Basel and with Paulsen and Ebbinghaus in Ber- lin. As a result, he was familiar with the many evolving theories in modem psychology.

15 Thomas E. Willey, Back to Kant: The Revival ofKantianism in German Social and Historical Thought, 1860-1914. Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1978, p. 74 and passim; Michael Ermarth, Wilhelm Dilthey: The Critique of Historical Reason, Chicago and Lon- don, University of Chicago, 1978, pp. 73-75. See also Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins, Chapter 6. Willey's book is the main source for this discussion of neo-Kantianism.

16 Nachlass (III A 75-107), Letters from Wi1fflin to his parents in 1885; Nach- lass Notebook 9 (1885), p. 9, where Woilfflin stated that Dilthey's book is "a foundation for the study of society and history." Wilhelm Dilthey, Ein- leitung in die Geisteswissenschaften, Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot, 1883. Of the number of books that have been written about Dilthey, Michael Ermarth's Wilhelm Dilthey, (cited in n. 15) is by far the best. Also useful is Rudolf Makkreel, Dilthey. Philosopher of the Human Studies, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1975. Georg Iggers, The German Conception of History, Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan, 1968, summarizes the Einleitung very accu- rately and also provides an interesting account of the history of neo-Kantianism.

17 Wolfflin, Kleine Schriften, p. 29. Mar- tin Jay suggested that this sounds like an orthodox interpretation of the third Critique, the Critique of Judgment,

rather than an idiosyncratic one of the first. This is true, but Wolfflin does refer to the first.

18 Ibid., p. 21. 19 Later Dilthey suggested a non-psycho-

logical Verstehen as mediator between subject and object; later psychologizing philosophers preferred Einfiihlung or "empathy."

20 Wolfflin, Kleine Schriften, p. 46. Gombrich's suggestion (in a letter to the author) that Wolfflin "shares with the Hegelians the explicandum though not the explanation" is not unlikely. The "uniformity of the feeling for form" is the explicandum.

21 Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, V, p. 27, quoted in English by Ermarth (Wil- helm Dilthey, p. 142). From "Die Dich- terische und Philosophische Bewegung in Deutschland 1770-1800" (Antritts- vorlesung in Basel, 1867): "Die unsrige ist uns klar vorgezeichnet: Kants kriti- schen Weg zu verfolgen, eine Erfahrungs- wissenschaft des menschlichen Geistes im Zusammenwirken mit den Forschern anderer Gebiete zu begriinden; es gilt, die Gesetze, welche die gesellschaft- lichen, intellektuellen, moralischen Erscheinungen beherrschen, zu erken- nen. Diese Erkenntnis der Gesetze ist die Quelle aller Macht des Menschen auch gegeniiber den geistigen Erschein- ungen."

22 Wolfflin discussed Zeller and Lange in Nachlass Notebook 8, pp. 41, 50, 104 and Notebook 9, 1885, pp. 32, 118, and passim. Willey, Back to Kant, discussed Zeller, Lange, and Paulsen. Wolfflin also read Otto Liebmann (Kant und die Epigonen) and Wilhelm Win- delband, both of whom were opposed to psychologism. Nachlass Notebooks 12 and 13, 1885-86, are devoted almost exclusively to Kant and neo-Kantian interpretations of Kant.

23 Nachlass Notebook 14, 1886/87, p. 158, in a discussion of Droysen. In his dissertation, p. 45, Wolfflin compared mechanics to psychology as founda- tions, but he recognized the profound differences between them, also, in his notes.

24 Nachlass Notebook 14, 1887, p. 160: "Dilthey: Mein Standpunkt ist der

einer Erfahrungsphilosophie, welche auch die Tatsachen der innern Erfahrung unbefangen zu gewahren und den Ergeb- nissen des Studiums der Aussenwelt gegeniiber zu schiitzen strebt. Ich erkaire daher im Gegensatz gegen Hegel die Entwicklung der Philosophie nicht aus den Beziehungen der Begriffe aufeinan- der im abstrakten Denken, sondern aus den Verainderungen im ganzen Men- schen nach s. vollen Lebendigkeit und Wirklichkeit.

Gilt auf f. Kunst. Universale Auffas- sung.

Winter 1982 299



1. Gesch. des Sehns. (wissenschaftl. wichtig)

2. Gesch. des Formgefiihls (Stil)= Lebensgefiihls

3. Gesch. des Fiihlens und Genies- sens. Schitzg. der Welt."'

25 Dilthey, Einleitung, p. 26. 26 Nachlass Notebook 20, 1888, p. 60r. 27 The literature on hermeneutics is large

and growing larger. The following have been especially useful: David Couzens Hoy, The Critical Circle: Literature, History and Philosophical Hermeneu- tics, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1978; Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, London, Sheed & Ward, 1975; Richard E. Palmer, Her- meneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer, Evanston, Northwestern University, 1969; Jiirgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, Bos- ton, Beacon, 1971; idem, Communica- tion and the Evolution of Society, Bos- ton, Beacon, 1979; Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1979.

28 August Bockh, On Interpretation and Criticism, trans. and ed. J. P. Pritchard, Norman, University of Oklahoma, 1968, p. 47.

29 In the seventeenth century, hermeneutics was a monopoly of Protestant Ger- mans, and it has developed predomi- nantly within the German philological and philosophical tradition. At different times, the enterprise of understanding texts developed distinct methods and strategies. Richard Palmer (Hermeneu- tics, p. 33) distinguishes six modern definitions of the term, which are, in chronological order: (1) a theory of biblical exegesis, developed by Protes- tant Germans in the seventeenth century, (2) a general philological methodology connected with the classical philologists Friedrich August Wolf and Friedrich Ast, (3) a science of linguistic understanding developed by Schleier- macher, (4) the methodological foundation of the Geisteswissenschaften, which Wilhelm Dilthey introduced in the late nineteenth century, (5) the phenomenology of existence and of exis- tential understanding, originated by Heidegger in the 1920s and extended by Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jiirgen Habermas recently, and (6) a system of interpretation to derive the meaning of myths and symbols, represented by Ricoeur. Thus, hermeneutics has had a varied history, undergoing a surprising transformation from an epistemological, philological method to an ontology of Being, in which method is construed as an interpretation like any other. The problems posed by hermeneutics have not been resolved with total agreement,

and it is in the nature of hermeneutics that they never will be. But this does not detract from the interest of the approach.

30 Palmer, Hermeneutics, p. 75. Quotation of Schleiermacher.

31 Ibid., p. 121. 32 Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe, p.

194. 33 Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, VII, p.

200, quoted in English by Ermarth (Wil- helm Dilthey, p. 233). This passage is excerpted from "Die Selbstbiogra- phie, " part of an unpublished "Plan der Fortsetzung zum Aufbau der Geschicht- lichen Welt in den Geisteswissen- schaften" (1907-1910?), which was intended for the prospective second volume (never completed) of the 1883 Einleitung: "Solche Selbstbesinnung aber erneuert sich in irgendeinem Grade in jedem Individuum. Sie ist immer da, sie jiussert sich in immer neuen Formen. Sie ist in den Versen des Solon so gut als in den Selbstbetrachtungen des stoischen Philosophen, in den Meditationen der Heiligen, in der Lebensphilosophie der modernen Zeit. Nur sie macht geschicht- liches Sehen moglich. Die Macht und Breite des eigenen Lebens, die Energie der Besinnung uber dasselbe ist die Grundlage des geschichtlichen Sehens."

It should be remembered that Wolf- flin was not only Dilthey's pupil, but also his colleague at the University of Berlin from 1901 until Dilthey's death in 1911.

34 W1olfflin, Prolegomena (diss.), Kleine Schriften, p. 15. Probably from Aris- totle's Ethics.

35 Nachlass Notebook 8, 1884, p. 132. 36 Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, IX,

Pddagogik: Geschichte und Grund- linien des Systems, 2nd ed., p. 258, quoted in English by Ermarth (Wilhelm Dilthey, p. 250).

37 Wolfflin, Die klassische Kunst, Mu- nich, F. Bruckmann, 1901, 2nd ed., p. 226.

38 Ermarth, Wilhelm Dilthey, p. 41. 39 Die klassische Kunst, p. 224. 40 Ibid., p. 248. 41 Nachlass (III A 69), Letter from Wilf-

flin to his parents, from Basel, 11 May 1884.

42 Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe, Munich, F. Bruckmann, 1929, 7th ed., p. 248.

43 Logos. Internationale Zeitschrift fiir Philosophie der Kultur (Tiibingen), IV, 1913, pp. 1-7.

44 Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe, p. 74.

45 Ibid., p. 12. 46 Hoy, The Critical Circle, p. 64. 47 Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe, pp.

244, 249. 48 Ibid., p. 256. Erwin Panofsky heard or

read Wilfflin's Inaugural Address to

the Prussian Academy in 1911, which was a summary of ideas that were the basis of the first edition of the Principles of Art History of 1915. Panofsky ob- jected to the literal way in which Wblf- flin used the term "perception" (Optik). Panofsky argued that Wolfflin must mean "expression," (the seelisch) and a metaphor of sight if the idea was to be understood ("Das Problem des Stils in der bildenden Kunst," Aufsdtze zu Grundfragen der Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin, 1964, first published in 1915). In a sense, Panofsky was correct, for W6lfflin's use of these terms for "sight" was restricted and unnuanced. How- ever, he certainly meant perception to include concepts, and discussed the relation of perception to other variables, like "expression." He did not intend such a limited and literal meaning of "perception." At the end of the Princi- ples ofArt History (p. 256), he changed the term from Sehgeschichte to Vorstel- lungsgeschichte and used different terminology in later works.

49 Ermarth, Wilhelm Dilthey, pp. 233-34. 50 W. M. Simon, European Positivism in

the Nineteenth Century, Ithaca, Cor- nell University Press, 1963, passim; Ermarth, Wilhelm Dilthey, p. 68: "however ardently they desired to stay wholly within the realm of certain knowledge, both positivism and empiricism tended to assume the character of total expla- nations of the world-a peculiar sort of metaphysics modelled on physics." Perhaps this explains the seeming Hege- lian aspect of Wblfflin's theory.

51 Cited in n. 27. 52 Hoy, The Critical Circle, p. 13. 53 Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe, pp.

18-19. 54 Ibid., p. 18. 55 Hoy, The Critical Circle, 124-28. Hoy

discusses a "transcendental hermeneutics" which he ascribes to Habermas and Apel, and which Wblfflin's theory can be said to resemble. Habermas repudiates it in Communication and the Evolution of Society, Boston, Beacon Press, 1976, Chapter 1.

56 Hoy, The Critical Circle, p. 118.

Joan Hart, currently an A.C.L.S. Fellow and Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, is working on a book on Heinrich Wolfflin. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

300 Art Journal



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The Crisis in the Discipline || Reinterpreting Wölfflin: Neo-Kantianism and Hermeneutics