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Herman Grimm | |
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| Born | (1828-01-06)6 January 1828 |
| Died | 16 June 1901(1901-06-16) (aged 73) |
| Spouse | |
| Father | Wilhelm Grimm |
| Relatives | Jakob Grimm (uncle) Ludwig Emil Grimm (uncle) |
Herman Grimm (6 January 1828 inKassel – 16 June 1901 in Berlin) was a German academic and writer.
Grimm's father wasWilhelm Grimm[1] (1786–1859), and his uncleJakob Grimm (1785–1863), thephilologist compilers of indigenous folk tales ("Brothers Grimm"). His other uncle was the painter engraverLudwig Emil Grimm (1790–1863). Herman Grimm is believed to have had only one (known) child at a young age, Martin Grimm. From 1841 Herman attended theFriedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium in Berlin. He belonged to a clique associated withBettina von Arnim (1785–1859), wife of the late poetAchim von Arnim (1781–1831), and started publishing drama and novels. He began legal and philological studies at the universities ofBerlin andBonn.
In 1857 he visitedRome where the artistic circle ofPeter von Cornelius brought his interests to art. In 1859, he marriedGisela von Arnim (1827–1889),[2] the Arnim's daughter, and published his treatise,Die Akademie der Künste und das Verhältniß der Künstler zum Staate. His short-lived periodical,Über Künstler und Kunstwerke (1864–1867), published many important essays.[3] It also contained some of the first photographic illustrations of art in a magazine. The first volume of his biography ofMichelangelo,Das Leben Michelangelos, began appearing in 1868. He wrote his dissertation in 1868 fromLeipzig and hishabilitation (1870) inBerlin. In 1871 he weighed in on theHans Holbein "Meyer Madonna" debate concluding against the sound reasoning of the "Holbein convention" of eminent scholars, that theDresden version was the autograph one.
He accepted the chair in the newly created discipline of History of Art (Lehrstuhl für Kunstgeschichte) in Berlin in 1872[1] and remained there the rest of his life. Grimm published the first (though incomplete) edition of hisDas Leben Raphaels in 1872. Grimm's art history writing is characteristic of the period consolidation of standards following the unification ofGermany, known as theGründerzeit. WhenFriedrich Waagen, for example, criticized in the early issues of theZeitschrift für bildende Kunst,Goethe's aesthetic taste of some fifty years before, Grimm, the spokesman for the Gründerzeit, took it personally, refuting Waagen effectively point by point. Grimm'sBeiträge zur deutschen Culturgeschichte, essays about important cultural personalities, appeared in 1897. Throughout his life his biographies passed through numerous editions. At his death he was succeeded byHeinrich Wölfflin. His students includedAlfred Lichtwark;Julius Meier-Graefe studied under him but did not receive a degree.
Grimm's reputation is that of the arch-Romantic, Gründerzeit art historian. He viewed himself as the intellectual successor of Goethe.[3] His approach to art history was through the "Great Masters", and arranging significance of art through a biographical account of art history. His tastes both typified and led German and continental bourgeois taste.Homer,Dante andShakespeare were the great writers of their age; in art, onlyRaphael andMichelangelo could compare. The nineteenth century's adoration of Raphael is in large part Grimm's doing. Wölfflin wrote that Grimm showed indifference to all but the very great. This approach to art history is shared by other historians of his time, includingCarl Justi, but was personally savaged in the lectures ofAnton Springer. Grimm was one of the first to carefully studyreception theory, though this aspect of his work is seldom considered. In the 3rd edition of his life of Raphael (1896) he added a section onRezeptionsgeschichte. Perhaps because formal analysis and the sanctity of viewing the original work of art mattered so little to him, he was among the first to uselantern slides (reproductive images) in his lectures. Grimm's writings were gradually supplanted by superior scholarship in the twentieth century. His emotional approach to art-historical debate, as evidenced by the Holbein Madonna incident, proved his allegiances were usually closer to nationalism than art history. In Germany, his concept of the [German] hero as a mover of history was embraced by theNazis, who saw to it that new and repackaged versions of his writings, such asVom Geist der Deutschen (1943), appeared up until the war's end.
