The origins of Hans Sedlmayr’s methodology and its relation to his politics: a disregarded approach

Abstract

The paper states that a main source of Sedlmayr’s methodological as well as political thinking has largely been overlooked. It argues that Viennese philosopher and sociologist Othmar Spann, along with his own main source, romanticist theologian Franz von Baader as well as Spann’s pupil, the Viennese university teacher Johannes Sauter, were central to Sedlmayr’s art history as well as to his ideological orientation. This is concluded from a comparison of their texts and their biographical data. This approach entails a new reading of Sedlmayr’s early writings and proposes an answer to the question, whether they are related to his political behaviour in the Nazi era.

Keywords

• vienna school
• methodology
• epistemology
• holism
• othmar spann
• black vienna
• nazism