Renaissance und Barock

Abstract

"After graduating in 1886, Wölfflin published the result of two years' travel and study in Italy, as his Renaissance und Barock (1888), the book that celebrated the pathological "Baroque" as a stylistic category and a serious area of study. For Wölfflin, the 16th-century art now described as "Mannerist" was part of the Baroque aesthetic, one that Burckhardt before him as well as most French and English-speaking scholars for a generation after him dismissed as degenerate. On the death of Jacob Burckhardt in 1897 Wöllflin succeeded him in the Art History Chair at Basel. He is credited with having introduced the teaching method of using twin parallel projectors in the delivery of art-history lectures, so that images could be compared. Sir Ernst Gombrich recalled being inspired by him. Wölfflin taught at Berlin University from 1901 to 1912, Munich University from 1912 to 1924." (Wikipedia)