|
Abstract:
|
Between the outbreak of World War I and the mid -1930s , the best -selling and most widely read book on the topic of modern art in Germany was written by the art historian Fritz Burger (1877–1916 ) . Burger is now all but forgotten in the art historiography of the period and absent in the English literature . This thesis provides the first English interpretation of Burger's major works and seeks to locate his art historical method in relation to then -contemporary intellectual streams . Trained in the late 19th century , Burger largely rejected the cultural -historical studies and theories of stylistic development and embraced an artistic -critical model forwarded by neo -Kantians like Adolf Hildebrand and Konrad Fiedler . Beginning with Burger's texts Cézanne und Hodler (1913 ) and Einführung in die Moderne Kunst (1917 ) , I examine the conceptual underpinnings of these works with particular attention to Burger's notions of color , artistic cognition and philosophical speculation . I consider Burger's written output as the compliment to his hands -on pedagogical technique at the University of Munich , his involvement with the Munich avant -garde and friendship with the artist Wassily Kandinsky . Burger's work is a rare and early attempt to write about contemporary art as an historical document but without recourse to artistic biography or cultural milieu as interpretive tools . |