Alos Riegl: Art, Value, and Historicism Author(s): Henri Zerner Reviewed work(s): Source: Daedalus, Vol.

105, No. 1, In Praise of Books (Winter, 1976), pp. 177-188 Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024392 . Accessed: 01/11/2011 14:37
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HENRI

ZERNER

Alois Riegl:

Art, Value,

and Historicism

of art poses an immediate problem for the evaluation of indi art vidual works; the development of Romantic theory, which is still the basis of early modern criticism, shows this clearly. Once the problem is posed, the rapid progression to Novalis appears inevitable: For Herder, of thought from Herder each work of art Any historical could only be judged according to the standards of the culture and civilization ^nwhich it was produced; for Novalis, every work of art had a value for someone at some time in some place?consequently, there were no bad works of art, only limited ones. In the nineteenth century, this problem of evaluation was reinforced and exacerbated by the of the gradually scientific pretensions of art, with its goal of an history developing not be abandoned without objectivity which could destroying the standards of the pro fession. It is in the work of Alois Riegl1 that these related problems became most acute, and where a possibility of their solution was if not interestingly altogether satisfactorily
adumbrated.

view

was Riegl perhaps the most influential art historian of the beginning of this cen His writings, often invoked like an enormous not tury. Sibylline texts, had impact only on the major Viennese art historians, but on others as well, such as Erwin Panofsky and Edgar Wind, and even on Richard Krautheimer, although he later abjured the faith. Riegl's fame also went the confines of art beyond history; Walter Benjamin has recalled the decisive impression he received from Die sp?tr?mische Kunst reading industrie. For a time it even became fashionable to to belong Riegl's cult. Bernard Ber for instance, kept the great book on a lecturn and expressed his reverence for the enson,
Viennese master.

mark

the German-speaking countries, however, Riegl did not make much of a and Raghianti were particu (the exception was Italy, where Bianchi-Bandinelli aware of his His writings have never been translated into importance). larly English, the advent of except for a short piece that recently appeared in an anthology.2 With

Outside

in art and specialization faded altogether. professionalism history, his popularity are to American whose writings had a W?lfflin, regularly assigned undergraduates, much more enduring fame, because his pairs of opposing concepts (linear/painterly; etc.) could be readily exploited for purposes of analysis and stylistic de plane/recession, of their role in the author's ideas did not lend scription independently theory. Riegl's on the themselves to such use. Nevertheless, his name has remained at least vaguely

177

178
list of great article on Schapiro's torical "professionalism," Riegl prophet, and it may in fact be herence theorists, celebrated

HENRI

ZERNER

thanks to occasional

to to the discipline and the social sciences. In spite of certain he clearly merits

such as that provided by Meyer over art his with rising dissatisfaction style.3 Today, has regained in some quarters his reputation as holy that his was the grandest effort ever made to give co more integrate it satisfactorily into the general field of reminders and even some distasteful traits in

his work, Born

shortcomings serious reexamination.

in 1858, Riegl belonged to a generation of great historians of art that includ and Emile M?le, and he was a contemporary in W?lfflin, Aby Warburg, Vienna of Freud and Klimt. He first studied law, then it for and dropped philosophy at the Institut fur a school modeled on the history. Trained Geschichtsforschungen, Ecole des Chartes, where and diplomatics were paleography highly developed, Riegl a of decorative arts specialized in the study of art and took position in the museum a series of studies on textiles, where he prepared on Oriental rugs. In 1893, especially the year the Neoclassical Adolf von Hildebrand Das Problem der sculptor published influence on art history and on Riegl in Form,4 which had an enormous particular, (Problems of Style), a book in which he sketches the history Riegl published Stilfragen of ornament to Islam. This book was a in Europe and the Near East from its origins ed Heinrich a thesis. Itwas directed against the architect and the polemical work with provocative orist Gottfried Semper or, more particularly, against Semper's disciples who had twist ed his ideas into a sort of "materialistic" to them, was evolutionism. According style determined by three factors: material, technique, and purpose; to this Riegl opposed the independence of aesthetic choice from material conditions, claiming that the latter had only a negative and not a formative influence. He also expounded the thesis of the
historical continuity of art?in this case of ornamental art from the ancient Near East

(Egypt)
more patterns.

to

Byzantium
the

and

Islam. Whether
always present

the appearance
stylistic variations

is more
on the

naturalistic
same enduring

or

abstract,

ornaments

for the University of Vienna. Out of his lectures In 1897, Riegl left the museum came a number of the most famous of which was Sp?tr?mische Kunst publications, in which he studied the art of late antiquity. Where his predecessors had seen industrie, in that period only the decadence of classical art, Riegl observed in it the emergence of new values. Furthermore, he attacked the standard explanation for the radical change of style during the Early Christian period in terms of the barbarian invasions, and saw instead in this change an organic transformation inside the Latin world itself.5 Against a term that he the view that this period was "decadent," entirely rejected, Riegl a constant of history that recognized and irreversible only opposed philosophy
progress.

on the formation and development of the Baroque,6 Riegl also gave lectures another period that was generally regarded as decadent, and published his monumen tal work on Dutch group portraits of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (1902). With this work, Riegl abandoned those fields of research where the individual artist be identified, and turned to post-Renaissance painting, the most traditional rarely art. But it was not the contribution of individual artists that domain of the history of can

ALOIS RIEGL

179

interested him in this long series of masterly, penetrating, and sometimes overly fastidi nor was he concerned with the so problem of patronage, important when analyses; an examination with the Dutch portraits. He attempted, of the works through dealing ous of themselves, to define the artistic projection of that society, of which the masterpieces are the Hals and Rembrandt, the Syndics of the Cloth-Drapers' Guild, particularly most a collection of ideas complete realization. Riegl died in 1905, leaving behind to later a number without a completely generations systematic order and bequeathing of radical and often puzzling texts. The writings of Riegl span a great variety of subjects, and, on the whole, they remain remarkably solid both in their research and in their general historical views. a brilliant master of the detailed art. Riegf shows himself analysis of particular works of was the most decisive and in It is, however, in the field of theory that his contribution which he found followers. His contribution can be defined most terms of the readily in various approaches he opposed: factual positivistic which archeologists practice history own an represented his training; iconographie point of view that stresses the matter of a work of art; criticism, which interprets the work in the subject biographical of the artist's life; the primacy of the individual artist's consciousness and will; the light or mechanistic "materialistic" of stylistic evolution; any aesthetic theory explanation severs art from that system that attempts to reach a definitive history; any normative or interpretation judgment; the hierarchical distinction between the applied or decora tive arts, on the one hand, and the higher arts (painting, sculpture, and architecture), on the other, where the latter alone are considered to be art in the strict sense of the and which In brief, Riegl attacked all the fundamental convictions of traditional no means are not, it These convictions have disappeared by today. They held, but neither have they been replaced by what one might comfortably effort to confront all these issues remains paradigm. Riegl's monumental to demand consideration. today and continues An account of Riegl's contribution is harder to give in positive terms,
one makes an attempt at systematization?an attempt that is, however, not

word.

history. is true, very call a new unmatched if

art

especially
necessarily

advisable. One

can

begin by making

Riegl completely accomplishment: artistic value was relative had certainly been entertained during the Romantic period, to the but it always had to be accommodated contending notion that some periods? or the French thirteenth classical antiquity, the High Renaissance, century?had attained artistic supremacy. Riegl's plea for equal treatment for all historical periods, if it is by no means easy to realize, seems nevertheless at least theoretically acceptable to are many people today, and there signs that the situation is progressing further in this direction: little in the Western tradition remains to be discovered, while a serious the art of primitive peoples is apparent. is more difficult to accept: effort to overthrow the point Riegl's of the individual creator as central to the of the work in favor of supremacy significance a inheritance higher communal point of view reflects a decidedly subversive Hegelian our whole aesthetic tradition. It is, nonetheless, and undermines a necessary corol to the first we are not to our view on the lary point if impose post-Renaissance Western The second
art of remote cultures.

points. The first is generally recognized as an the field of art history. The idea that reopened

two

effort to deal with

180

HENRI

ZERNER

Let us go a little more specifically into the tenets of Riegl's convictions. One?his out irreducible historicism?comes escapes history. strongly and persistently. Nothing is not so much concerned with the conditions at the historical moment when the Riegl work appears?these conditions are important, but only as limiting factors of resis as a link in tance. The scholar, however, must confront the whole of art history. It is each individual work. Its place in of the work, which is for Riegl the tendency art historical he studies a particular genre, wheth major object of investigation. When er it is Roman fibulae, or Dutch group portraits, Riegl always places Empire furniture, itwithin a much larger development. He sees art evolving in one great movement that from a tactile (haptisch) vision of the world toward a more and more optical one. goes he turned to the fundamen In his later years, with Das holl?ndische Gruppenportr?t, understand this historical chain elucidates the aesthetic tal analytical tools of Romanticism and talked of an evolution alternative subjective vision. The tactile-optical increasingly from Hildebrand's influential Problem of Form, as from an objective to an is taken over, of course, the chain of artistic events that he must

and rests on a theory of perception out, had already become obsolete during Riegl's lifetime. which, Sedlmayr7 pointed one nor The objective-subjective polarity neither overlaps the previous exactly entirely the general it; some works can be "optical" but not subjective.8 Furthermore, replaces is articulated in several cycles in which one may observe apparent regres evolution loss of deep space at the end of antiquity is a case in point; it is an apparent a necessary advance. Riegl claimed that itwould have been impos regression, but also sible to progress directly from the inconsistent and discontinuous perspective of antiq sions. The to the space. While Riegl has been admired for acceding uity continuity of Renaissance to an elevated of view from which he could envisage such long-range artistic point he has also been accused of reducing art history to a simplistic mecha developments, more com nism and of submitting it to a dangerous teleology. In fact, his thought is
plex.

one concept or, one should say more pru Riegl's ideas crystallized around perhaps around one term: Kunstwollen.9 The problem lies in determining dently, exactly what a on which his followers were never able to agree. meant Riegl point by the word, were most two Around 1925, when his ideas being actively discussed, interpretations of is could be distinguished: One, most brilliantly articulated by Panofsky,10 its meaning Neo-Kantian. as a It sought to avoid any concept of the Kunstwollen metaphysical too unscientific, an attempt to explain art historical change as phlo entity?it as a and others interpreted the Kunstwollen Panofsky, giston explained heat. Wind, content or objective immanent meaning?each work, by its style, involves the whole of it comes; the task of the art historian is to explore and reveal the culture from which seemed this virtuality of the work of art as fully as possible. The other, powerfully expressed by to it, in his introduction to Riegl's collected essays, isHegelian. According Sedlmayr is a central and informing principle, a truly creative force;11 it then the Kunstwollen as what we call a "deep structure." This school of Riegl's followers appears might to it, the historian first has to discover this called itsmethod Strukturanalyse; according the surface make it possible for him to understand will then informing principle, which
phenomena.

ALOIS RIEGL

181

of by quoting Riegl's writings. The meaning it seems to vary with its context. Otto Pacht has explained this by saying that the meaning o?Kunstwollen ten developed during the of Riegl's theoretical reflection. His writings exhibit a years searching mind in constant motion and, moreover, were produced during a particularly active decade of European reason for our Another in pinning down what thought. difficulty Riegl meant by the term is the varied, not to say character of the intellectual and disparate, philosophical with all the ver equipment of the author. Riegl, having invested the term Kunstwollen us with residues of various that do not always satility of his mind, presents borrowings fit comfortably together. His use of the term Kunstwollen as the years not changes only but at the same time within the same text. go by, are not, however, of the meaning of Kunstwollen simply the result of incoherence that we can explain away in order to regularize the system ; they a more of the necessary and fruitful positive role. An understanding play ambiguity of the term will enable us to define Riegl's peculiar place in the formalist study of art?in the general tendency, that is, to study art as a closed system. We must note first that in the term Kunstwollen before Riegl's writing replaces the word 'style.' Like Morelli even in he him, Riegl avoids using the word 'style.' Curiously enough, Stilfragen, uses it except when someone else's ideas. Thus Kunstwollen is hardly paraphrasing loaded with all the ambiguities that usually affect the concept of style. The change of word obviously betrays an effort to rethink the fundamental notions of art history. This is why, although the word Kunstwollen has fallen almost entirely out of use, we will have to retain it in our discussion of Riegl in order to conserve the distance that he wished to keep between traditional ideas and his own. These fluctuations In principle, there is no doubt that to establish art as a science Riegl wanted history and to define its autonomy. His attitude, however, was ambivalent. On the one hand, he aspired to what he called a His "positivism" consisted largely in "positivism." in renouncing causes (or the the avoiding any metaphysical question, study of the first of artistic development. "As for what determines the aes determination) to see natural in works of art by stressing or objects represented repressing the features that isolate them or one can conversely unify them, only indulge in conjectures that an art historian must absolutely refuse to make."12 metaphysical a did not entertain the Riegl possibility of Rankean positivism, the reconstruction of teleological thetic urge the past by the establishment a succession of facts or through historical criticism of events. more had envi Very early, and much clearly than Riegl, the young W?lfflin sioned two opposite conceptions of science and had made his choice: decidedly A history that would only register things that have happened one after another cannot be defended; it would deceive itself if it believed it had thereby become an exact science. One can
only for work example, scientifically provides when one can catch the flux The of these models for physics. phenomena social sciences in strong models. Mechanics, we still lack this foundation;

Both interpretations can be defended is elusive because the word Kunstwollen

can

only look for it in Psychology.13

cannot pose such a clear-cut alternative between two views of science because Riegl he is not prepared to give up empirical positivism. His solution is bold, somewhat sur

182

HENRI

ZERNER

this most prising, and put forth perhaps not without irony. It is the very Kunstwollen, elusive entity, that makes his as scientific: "There remains the Kunstwollen approach
the only secure datum."14

conviction and the German idealist tradition by Riegl reconciles his empirical as data not, as one would the results of sensual perception, but our expect, accepting of the work of art. This bizarre and apparently willful global comprehension act may seem to be a intellectual however, probably felt it simply subterfuge. Riegl, was as the Kunstwollen is strictly a formal principle: it only exists as justified insofar "color and outline, on the plane or in space."15 This comes out at the end of clearly "Naturwerk und Kunstwerk": All these non-artistic domains of culture constantly play a part in the as history of art insofar the work of art (which is never without an outside purpose) with its exterior they supply impul
sion, its content. It is clear, however, that the art historian will not be able correctly to assess the

subject of a particular work of art and the way this subject is conceived until he has understood in what way the will [Wollen] that has given the impulse to such a theme is identical with the will that has formed the corresponding figure in outline and color this way and no other.16 Clearly, giving domain Umriss the latter "will" orWollen form nach Umriss of the visual. und Farbe in Ebene that Riegl who oder Raum?in repeats his favorite formula? untiringly full has here reduced it to contour and und Farbe is precisely the Kunstwollen, it can only appear as so und nicht anders; it as the only exists specific

It should be remarked

color and has left out plane and space. Is this simply an economy of words? Itmay also the difficulty that affects all formalist criticism. This kind of be that Riegl experienced criticism, in an attempt to confine itself to what is specifically artistic, tries to restrict its to "form" as activity opposed to content. But the exact distribution between the two, or, in other words, a definition of form beyond its opposition to content, is by no means
easy.

Within the complete formula itself, we must take note of a shift. Color and contour can be understood as sense ofMaurice Denis's famous strictly pictorial devices in the definition of a picture as "a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain
order." Space, however, introduces an incongruous element, because we are not deal

space but with fictional or imaginary space (since Riegl uses the com in Das hollandische formula for painting For Riegl, plete passim). Gruppenportr?t, and in all formal criticism that followed, space played a central but also forW?lfflin because it occupies an ambiguous place midway between a device of rep part precisely ing with actual the thing represented. The introduction of space keeps the study of from being narrowed down to a sterile analysis of configurations. It a rich visual structure?a broadens this kind of criticism by including the analysis of an structure. In his book on Dutch group complex system of relations?but imaginary extends the domain of specifically artistic analysis to the psychological portraits, Riegl relations among the figures, and between the figures and the spectator, as expressed of the glance. This is treated as a formal element, just as space is, and by the direction in relation to it. For instance, the artist can give the picture its unity through the inter resentation and artistic "forms"

ALOIS RIEGL

183

creates an indirect link between himself and the mediary of the spectator who depicted characters whose glances are turned toward him; this, according to Riegl, is how the essential for sixteenth- and seventeenth-cen quality of attentiveness (Aufmerksamkeit) Dutch art is expressed. tury one can understand Insofar as all this is part of the Kunstwollen, how Panofsky as an immanent artistic could have understood the Kunstwollen Indeed, significance. his interpretation has been very fruitful and has brought out something hinted by Riegl and neglected by his Hegelian followers: the whole complex of cultural connotations art. But to reduce the term to the a suggested by the individual work of equivalent of a science of art to ruin the as is decidedly meaning hope for history such Riegl had If the Kunstwollen is a meaning which is the result of an interpretation, entertained. it His to accept it as a datum. to "formalize" impossible Riegl's strategy is meaning. of the glance, for example, treats the of the depicted characters study psychology us?as vectors. The data of art are what and their relation to the spectator?to history we can see, and to our as Riegl, rather than restrict them perception of color and line to do, adds our others have attempted of volume and space evoked in the perception work of art and, in general, all aspects of representation as well. This is justified insofar as we do, indeed, see a table or a lemon in a an arti picture, while it is only through ficial intellectual effort, after a process of decoding, that we can see it as a yellow patch, the shading of which suggests volume, and the whole thing resembling the appearance as the foundation of an a of a lemon. This unexpected conception of data empiricism, that is only apparently allows Riegl an freedom of naive, conception extraordinary action in his analysis of art. becomes The

of the Kunstwollen the nature of concept determines peculiar ambivalence formalism. At this point, in order more exactly to understand the role of the Riegl's in Riegl's Kunstwollen thought and what Iwould call his relative formalism, we must turn to his Art is a implicit philosophical positions. Basically his thought isHegelian. man is nature a maker of art as he is nature a primary activity, by speaker. This by art an autonomy which, in Riegl's is probably gives thought, strengthened by the influence of Konrad Fiedler, whose post-Kantian critical philosophy makes art an instrument of knowledge independent, global, and non-conceptualized through the of visual perception of perception, and in particular.17 Insofar as art is a development and independent activity, the of art is an autonomous domain of science specific study and its aim is precisely to bring out the of art and the organic principles of its specificity are the bases of true formalism. history. These man in the history is the history of the spirit (Weltgeist)?of art can as one world?the progressive realization of the Idea. The history of only exist of this history?outside which there is nothing. The Kunstwollen, therefore, aspect can one manifestation among others of the spirit and, more specifically, it nec only be coincides with the other domains of culture. essarily On the other hand,
If we take into consideration not only science?we between the arts, shall but any of the other to the conclusion unity and domains of human civ

large that,

ilization?state, we are dealing

religion, a relation with

come

in this domain unity. Should we,

as well, how

individual

collective

184
ever, follow the direction of the will
lowed in the same in these last time.18 various domains completely analysis,

HENRI

ZERNER

[Wollen] that particular people at a given time has fol

turn out in the that this same people tendency at is, the

it will of civilization, necessarily to that of the Kunstwollen identical

seems to present this exact historical of the various parallelism Although Riegl domains of culture as being the result of observation and deduction, one can see in it an It is, in any case, a far-reaching and an article of faith or a postulate.19 proposition one. himself felt obliged to qualify it immediately with the phrase uncomfortable Riegl im letzten Grunde does this mean? We must, I believe, ("in the last analysis"). What read two things in this reservation. The first concerns the relative autonomy of the vari ous cultural domains insofar as are specific activities (we have already noted how they to art). The in the various fields cannot be compared directly, this applies phenomena but only at the end of an analytical and interpretive process. Riegl envisages an analysis as the that would reach one or several very general and fundamental principles such In other words, one must "relation between individual unity and collective unity." structures at a level sufficiently "deep" to eliminate particular cultural investigate
expressions.

The other aspect of Riegl's reservation has to do with the way we should under that on a given day at a giv stand the phrase "at a given time." Are we to understand en hour all cultural manifestations have reached the same point in their evolution? arts like a well-disciplined This army and obeying superior marching image of the as an one must orders may seem strikingly absurd; nevertheless, probably accept it In reality, however, this instant has no existence; the different abstract assumption. Wollen
as

and

the various
of

branches
At

of culture
the same

have

at least from some point of view, length of time that,

unit, a "state civilization." time,

a certain to be compared within can be considered as a synchronie

the size and type of human group

can vary extensively. It is hard to say to what extent Riegl chosen for consideration meant a "nation" the word Volk, but, not surprisingly, the significant social unit for by to a whole race. can vary from a small group or a city study limits must obviously be chosen in relation to the social segment under The time a transitional In Kunstindustrie, consideration. period, the emergence Riegl examines in the entire expanse of the Roman empire. In the study of the of a new Kunstwollen of the sixteenth and sev group portraits, he examines the Dutch Kunstwollen and he carefully describes the progressive realization of this Kunst enteenth centuries, the basic intentional unity of a social of cultural domains, wollen. The parallelism such a time unit, while the limits of that unit will group, has to be investigated within in the parallel disciplines have to be adjusted according to the results obtained (the Dutch social sciences). The ideas of Riegl on cultural unity are effective only when we deal structures changing at long range, at the level of what Fernand with basic mental Braudel has called la longue dur?e, and not at the level of rapid surface movements, although meticulous structures to reach the has necessarily through the deeper and analysis of these epiphenomena. investigation For the latter, the therefore, is very different from W?lfflin's. Riegl's formalism, and completely distinct "double root of art" implies a truly autonomous development the historian

ALOIS RIEGL

185

art from other organic laws ruling the history of style. With Riegl, the separation of tactic. It ensures the proper human activities appears essentially as a methodological art as a special domain of under interrogation of the specific works, the respect for in the end, the contribution of art history to the social sciences as a par standing, and, art ticular branch of a more general Geisteswissenschaft. Riegl's theory of history is in relation to his method. The practice inflects the enriches it, interesting mostly theory, too and disturbs a system that would otherwise run the risk of functioning smoothly of observed data. This explains why a purely theoretical essay like Natur regardless werk und Kunstwerk is not entirely satisfactory. The practice of art criticism in Sp?tr?mische Kunstindustrie holl?ndische Gruppenportr?t has theoretical and methodological and even more inDas that are

implications more abstract statements. not covered most Riegl is by Riegl's interesting today largely because of this interplay between practice and theory. The initial formalist conviction ensures the rigorous internal analysis of the work of art, and makes it possible to avoid

the pitfall of explaining the work by imposing an exterior interpretation?whether bio or other. The breaks open too narrow a socioeconomic, religious, practice graphic, notion of artistic form and shows us a way to escape from the dangers of a reductionist criticism. of the most crucial problems raised by Riegl's work is that surrounding the as many have come to feel of value. It is a particularly pressing problem concept today, that the art historian's function is not to pass judgment on a work of art, and yet such One are inevitable. total rejection of normative judgments Riegl's radical historicism?his to aesthetics and of any fixed standard of artistic accomplishment?seems preclude any at all. As Pacht has put it: "If we accept the deterministic assumptions without qualification, we would really have no right to talk about artistic failures; it would be impossible to explain any features as due to lack of skill; we would have only value judgment
successful works of art?which seems contrary to common sense."20

of his works Riegl dealt with the problem in a pragmatic way through his of subject, the unequal attention he gave to different or choice examples, his implied
sometimes outspoken admiration for particular works of art such as Rembrandt's

In most

Cloth-Drapers1 tion, but even inDas holl?ndische no means out. fully worked
Insofar sponds as one to modern considers taste, that but the to

Guild. There

are

was a more signs that he groping for systematic solu his thoughts on the subject were Gruppenportr?t by

task of art

as it is, it will exactly

genres to reveal

decipher

is not history in it the Kunstwollen

to seek

in the work produced

of art what it and

corre shaped it

that has

are the most immediately be realized that group portraits

character of the Dutch Kunstwollen.21

likely of all

the essential

In other words, the very disparity between the original popularity and importance of a the group portraits and the little appeal they have for us today makes them privileged for historical investigation: a sound and object strongly expressed consequence of histor icism, but not one that clears much ground. At the end of his life, Riegl was put in charge of organizing a government commis sion for the preservation and restoration of monuments. Faced with practical problems,

186
he

HENRI

ZERNER

more in our interest in the thought closely about the different factors involved remains of the past and in the way we handle them. Should one simply make the our own taste? Should one try and restore them as attractive as monuments possible for on the contrary, to respect the mark of time to their original condition? Or ought one, and the alterations that they have suffered at the hands of passing generations ?These
questions are always relevant as we can see, for instance, from the controversy excited

of itsTitians. by the London National Gallery's cleaning on "The Modern a on the subject are Cult Riegl's thoughts presented in long paper a whole range of He distinguishes Its Nature and Development."22 of Monuments, artistic value (Kunstwert), val in value: value as monument (Denkmalswert), ue as commemoration or remembrance historical value (histo (Erinnerungswert), art historical value (kunsthistorisches Wert), risches Wert), present-day value (Gegen value (Alterswert), value of newness (Neuheitswert), functional or wartswert), antique use value (Gebrauchswert). do we need all this? At first glance, Why things would nuances
seem rather clear-cut. Any monument, any man-made object, has two aspects or

values: On hand,

the one hand, it is a record and it has historical significance; on the other as art. The former?historical?value is objective and stable; the on the taste of the (and of the individual observer)?is latter?entirely dependent day subjective and variable. consequently it has value In actuality,

the situation is more complicated, however, and, as in the rest of not is Riegl's thought, the distinction between what is artistic and what is only provi sional and restricted to certain levels of analysis. Looking more closely, Riegl recognizes that there is always an aesthetic side to our historical interest, but there is an art histori link in the cal value as well, which considers the object specifically as an irreplaceable of art. This value is a historical value, the object being considered as a development but as a record of art, its aesthetic value comes to the fore. The two aspects of record, the object, which were originally so sharply set apart, end by being very closely related. in a historical perspective. Values Riegl envisages the problem Characteristically, occurrences. The nuances he are not permanent distinguishes categories but historical a pattern which to stages in a clearly correspond history of values. This history follows relates to Riegl's more general views, although he does not spell this out. Itmoves from to the subjective. More it moves from an insistence on the objective specifically, of the object are valued and autonomy where the completeness values, present-day almost to the exclusion of everything else, to an increasing sense of historical distance. is the taste For Riegl, the primitive aesthetic urge, which, however, never disappears, later. In Riegl's view, for the new and shiny; historical appreciation develops only was still concerned with a reconstruction of the positivist history nineteenth-century as present, with the evocation of historical stages in their original past perfection. One to restore medieval churches to recall here the many nineteenth-century attempts may sarcastic remark in front of the their supposed pristine state, as well as Louis Dimier's C'est flambant its restoration by Viollet-le-Duc: fortress after Carcassonne neuf, et pr?t and ready for use"). ? servir ("It is spick-and-span-new is the Alterswert, the value of the old as such. It has The last historical acquisition had a long development, but for Riegl its full consequences were to be found only in the

ALOIS RIEGL

187

twentieth century. It is the taste for the alterations that nature and time have inflicted on the an of what Walter perfection of the man-made object; appreciation Benjamin has since described as the aura. It introduces a sense of distance, of the accretion of time
that surrounds the work of art, making us conscious of our own somewhat remote rela

tion to it. It corresponds, therefore, in Riegl's system exactly to the most advanced of art where the subject's way of "optical" stages seeing ismade increasingly important at the expense of the of the object. It is true that the twentieth cen "palpable" reality tury has indeed placed great value on the sense of historical distance and that in the practical domain, which was the immediate subject of Riegl's reflection, the notion of conservation works we often has largely replaced that of restoration. prefer to keep the Today, of the past with all the marks of the time have lived through rather than they a we no impoverish them in favor of rejuvenation longer believe in. Riegl's

analytical and historical exploded the notion of value into investigations makes the problem much easier to deal with and fragments. This, curiously, dispels some of the apparent paradox between history and criticism. The history of art becomes not merely the history of artistic production, but also the history of values. still does not directly deal with the question of what makes one work of art Riegl better than another. His answer, however, is implicit. The art historian is not the man who can be called to account for the value judgments he pronounces. He certainly makes such judgments, but when he makes them he is no more free of his aesthetic preferences than the artist who made the art. The historian must, however, deliberate even strive to overcome his taste. He needs neither to suppress ly and self-consciously nor to his judgment, but he has to make himself aware of the value on impose placed the work of art as part of his data. This value is not, however, a simple given fact. It is not his own reaction grounded in his modern artistic sensi complex, comprising only but also the different ways the work has been received bility (today's Kunstwollen), from the moment of its creation. This forms an aggregate which has both historical a relative also constantly grows and alters its significance and stability, but which and the individual. The history of art, therefore, appearance according to the moment * cannot be written once and for all : it is a continuous process.
*A shorter, French version of this paper appeared in the September, 1975, issue ofCritique.

References 'A can be found in the volume of the works of A. Riegl of his collected bibliography essays entitled Gesammelte xxxv-xxxix. are The works 1929), Aufs?tze pp. (Augsburg-Vienna, principal Stilfragen Kunstindustrie (Berlin, 1893, 2nd ed., 1923); Sp?tr?mische in 1901, 2nd ed., 1927, reprinted (Vienna, Das holl?ndische as an article in Jahrbuch 1964) ; der kunsthisto Gruppenportr?t, originally published rischen des allerh?chsten then as a separate volume 1902, pp. 71-278, Kaiserhauses, Sammlungen is an admirable of 1931). There ideas Otto Pacht, (Vienna, "Art Histo general presentation Riegl's by rians and Art Critics, VI: Alois 1963, pp. 188-93. Riegl," Burlington Magazine, May, 2W. 124-38. Kleinbauer, Eugene This is an important Schapiro, "Style," of Form attacked Modern in Western Art (New York, Perspectives History taken out of Das holl?ndische passage Gruppenportr?t. A. L. Kroeber ed. 1953). Anthropology Today, by (Chicago, 1971), pp.

3Meyer

4AdolfHildebrand, Das Problem des Form in der bildenden Kunst (Strasbourg, 1893); English
trans., The Problem 5This thesis was and (New York, 1907). Painting Sculpture G. Baldwin in The Arts and Brown, by Crafts in of Our Teutonic Forefathers

1 88 HENRI ZERNER
(London Riegl and Edinburgh, in England. 1910). Meyer Schapiro has called my attention to this early in Rom Riegl's isolated reaction to

6His notes were 7Hans

in Gesammelte pp. Aufs?tze, this paper because there is no satisfactory translation. keep throughout or 'intention' 'Artistic will' is not exact. Otto out that does not use Pacht has (art. at.) Riegl pointed as one would In a recent article "Alois und die Entstehung der autonomen Kunstwille rather expect. Riegl " am 'Fin de si?cle,' out the vitalist connotations of Willibald Sauerl?nder has brought Kunstgeschichte the term. 9I shall the German word 10Erwin Panofsky, "Der Begriff des Kunstwollens" in Zeitschrift fur Aesthetik und allgemeine Kunst

inDie published posthumously Entstehung "Die Quintessenz der Lehren Sedlmayr, Riegls," 8"Zur kunsthistorischen der Becher von Vafio," Stellung

der Barockkunst introduction to

(Vienna,

1903).

Gesammelte

Aufs?tze. 71-90.

wissenschaft, XIV (1920).

uSee, in particular, Sedlmayr's und Kunstwerk," 12"Naturwerk he does not hide his introduction in Gesammelte Aufs?tze. Kunstindustrie, p. 63. In Sp?trumische to this mechanistic of point opposition conception a one in the the first time, I believe?proposed teleological of art the result of a definite Kunstwollen conscious of its ends, Aufs?tze, of view. "In to the Gesammelte

however, the nature

of the work

of art,

teleological I have?for

I where in the work perceived Stilfragen comes in a and which through (p. 9). fight against purpose, matter, technique" zu einer in Kleine der Architektur," reprinted 13"Prolegomena Psychologie was first in 1886. p. 45. This dissertation published 60. l4Gesammelte p. Aufs?tze,

Schriften

(Basel,

1946),

to express is und Farbe 15"Umrisse in Ebene oder Raum" favorite formula the "visual" Riegl's of art. Sauerl?nder it to Maurice Denis's "Remember that a picture?before has compared it is autonomy a flat surface covered with or other?is a battle horse, a nude woman, or some colors story essentially assembled in a certain order." p. 64. to say about who was not a philosophical phi Riegl's bricolage. Hildebrand, he names and whose ideas he author whom It is is the theoretical openly discusses. losopher, only strictly sources. The relation from various that he has read a great deal and retained fragments obvious, however, out. The to been has relation the Kunstwollen between and Schopenhauer's pointed terminology already Herbartian formalism since he had studied with Fiedler deserves independently special study. Riegl knew l6Gesammelte 17There would Aufs?tze, be much Zimmermann. art in Fiedler's much more that he was not interested it is hard to believe sophisticated historicism in regard to the essence of art, Riegl's that theory is antihistorical may have theory. Although to art, in accord as "It is well known what many roles have been assigned different fed on such formulas But the different and Los ways in which 1949), human perfection p. 24. Furthermore, I shall return later, has been Riegl's conceived." of Art Works of Judging artistic value as a strictly on an effort to reconcile his On

ance with

Angeles, (Berkeley value, a point to which present-day On the origins toricism with Fiedler's theory. tion is Sauer l?nder 's article cited above. He considers Riegl's philosophy of art

conception based surely partly the most recent contribu and connections of Riegl's thought, de si?cle aestheticism, and discusses the connection with^w to be a models of universal and of vitalism philosophical synthesis is

history. l*Gesammelte 19Elsewhere often

p. 63. Aufs?tze, "I am writes: Riegl In my

convinced

that it is even

this assumed

opinion, questioned by pedants. can be established art and this unity, for instance between iswhether The only question religion, thinking. but what is I should not like to answer this question without with scientific evidence. reservation, today sure is that the Gesammelte 49. has not yet been produced by anybody." p. Aufs?tze, proof 193. 20Art.?t.,p. 21 Das holl?ndische (1902), p. 73. Gruppenportr?t 22"Der moderne 144-93, Denkmalkultus, originally sein Wesen in 1903. und seine Entstehung," reprinted in Gesammelte

it is unity exists absolutely, although the unconscious of our whole historical hypothesis

Aufs?tze,

pp.

published