Breaking the shell of the humanist egg: Kenneth Clark’s University of London lectures on German art historians

Abstract

This article explores Kenneth Clark’s 1930 lectures delivered to students at London University on the theoretical writings of Alois Riegl and Heinrich Wölfflin. In the first lecture, Clark assessed the methodologies and ideas Riegl employed in his Stilfragen (1893) and Die spätrömische Kunst-Industrie (1901) in order to explore the philosophical ambitions of art history. Clark’s second lecture provided a close reading of Wölfflin’s Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe (1915: Principles of Art History). Together these lectures allowed Clark to critique the extant universalizing humanist frame for cultural history and its allied concepts of beauty and value, stylistic change, the autonomy of art, creativity.

Keywords

• Kenneth Clark
• Alois Riegl
• Heinrich Wölfflin
• German art historians
• humanism