101L X / 2 0 1 2 Dvořák’s Pupil Johannes Wilde (1891–1970) Ingrid Ciulisová — i n s t i t u t e o f a r t h i s t o r y , s l o v a k a c a d e m y o f s c i e n c e s I N 19 0 3 T H E YO U N G Bohemian art historian Max Dvořák (1874–1921) wrote to his first teacher, a respect- ed professor of history at the Czech-language universi- ty in Prague, Jaroslav Goll: ‘… My work on the Van Eyck Brothers and the beginning of Netherlandish painting will be published during this summer. I am curious about the final product since I am raising my voice sharply against prevailing views on questions already long the subject of discusssion…’1 The final text, entitled ‘Das Rätsel der Kunst der Brüder van Eyck’ (The Enigma of the Art of the Van Eyck Brothers), is the first complex attempt to resolve art-historical questions related to the Ghent Altarpiece and the prehistory of Netherlandish painting.2 In this extensive article Dvořák applied the methods developed by two early protagonists of the so-called Vienna school of art history: the evolutionist paradigm developed by Alois Riegl, and the connois- seurship method of Giovanni Morelli, as adapted and advanced in Vienna by Franz Wickhoff, to whom Max Dvořák was an assistant. He then essayed a division of hands and attempted to identify the Van Eyck brothers’ individual contributions to the Ghent Altarpiece. More- over, reconsidering the work within the long evolution- ary progress of stylistic form, he investigated in detail the contribution of late fourteenth- and early fifteenth- century French and Franco-Flemish artists to the new ‘naturalistic’ form of pictorial representation.3 In his later writings Dvořák reconsidered what he had learned from his Vienna teachers and abandoned stylistic analysis as well as the evolutionary model in favour of a more speculative approach. His 1918–1921 university lectures on the Italian Renaissance already fully display Dvořák’s turn from a formal interpretation of the work of art to art history as ‘Geistesgeschichte’.4 Despite the fact that in his introductory lecture Dvořák once again revealed scepticism about the normative status of the Italian Renaissance in the history of art (as he had in his text on the Van Eyck brothers), the lecture remains an impressive apotheosis of Italian Renaissance art as well as the role of Italy as a reser- voir of spiritual concentration, artistic inspiration and knowledge.5 Dvořák wrote: ‘These lectures concern the history of Italian art from Giotto until the death of Michelangelo, in other words, those 250 years of Italian art history that have long counted as the high point of the entire development of art since antiquity – a high point that could only be followed by a deviation from this line of development, by decline. Today we are far removed from such a theory of ascent and decline, and one can quickly demonstrate that both the succeeding period – the Baroque era – and the art outside of Italy were no less creative or advanced, and that in terms of their significance for the present they were equal to Italian art between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries. Yet perhaps precisely because this dogmatic attachment to the Italian Renaissance belongs to the past, it is the object of a new kind of interest, not only as a particularly striking historical phenomenon, but also as the source of artistic opinions and innovations that continued to exercise influence on the entire succeed- ing period, even into the present… This concentration of spiritual force, this cultural competition … transformed the country, as it was already said by Dante, into the Garden of Europe, in which many centuries continued to find enjoyment and experience.’6 Dvořák delivered his lectures on the Italian Ren- aissance in the turbulent era at the end of the First World War, which left Europe and the Austro-Hungar- 1/ Max Dvořák 1903 Reproduction: Max Dvořák, Listy o životě a umění (Letters about Life and Art), ed. Jaromír Pečírka, Praha 1943 102 L X / 2 0 1 2 I n g r i d C i u l i s o v á . D V O Ř Á K ’ S P U P I L J O H A N N E S W I L D E ( 1 8 9 1 – 1 9 7 0 ) ian Monarchy devastated and in a state of profound economic and moral crisis. Dvořák believed that in such periods of political instability and human vulner- ability art historians could benefit from knowledge of the past as a source of courage and strength to face the future. His lectures on Renaissance heroes, from Giotto to Michelangelo, carefully written and prepared, might have been formulated as personal comments on the stormy present. Thus, these lectures justified the importance of the Italian Renaissance and, as we will see, powerfully impressed a younger generation of Viennese art historians encumbered by the collapse of the old multinational Habsburg Empire. In 1921 Max Dvořák died unexpectedly, shortly before his forty-seventh birthday. Karl Maria Swoboda and Johannes Wilde, two of his students, both with ties to Bohemia,7 prepared his writings, including the lectures on the Italian Renaissance, for posthumous publication. Two volumes of Geschichte der Italienischen Kunst im Zeitalter der Renaissance appeared in 1927– 1928.8 Johannes Wilde (1891–1970) remains well-known as an illustrious scholar of Italian Renaissance art, and especially of Michelangelo and the Venetian school. Wilde began his studies with the Hungarian art historian Gyula Pasteiner (1846–1924) at the Univer- sity in Budapest in 1909.9 A year later he translated into Hungarian the book Das Probleme der Form in der bildenden Kunst by the German sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand, who was a passionate admirer of Michelangelo. Wilde spent the summer term of 1911 at the University in Freiburg im Breisgau with Wil- helm Vöge (1908–1952), best known for his writings on medieval art. Vöge also devoted time and effort to the study of Italian Renaissance artists, particularly Rap- hael, Donatello and Michelangelo.10 He became an influ- ential teacher and during his short tenure at Freiburg in 1909–1916 his teachings stimulated an illustrious group of scholars, including Erwin Panofsky, Friedrich Winkler, Kurt Badt, Theodor Hetzer, Frederick Antal, and Wolfgang Stechow.11 At the beginning of 1914 Wilde worked briefly as a volunteer at the Museum of Fine Arts in Buda- pest, where he met Simon Meller (1875–1949), who perhaps directed his interests towards Michelangelo.12 From the autumn of 1915, with a scholarship from the Hungarian Ministry of Education, Wilde continued his studies of art history and classical archaeology under Max Dvořák, Julius von Schlosser, Josef Strzygowski, and Emil Reisch at the University in Vienna. In 1918 2/ Jan and Hubert van Eyck and Workshop The Ghent Altarpiece 1432 (open) oil, oak wood, ca. 350 × 460 cm, Ghent, St Bavo’s Cathedral Photo: Courtesy of Saint Bavo Cathedral Ghent © Lukas – Art in Flanders, photo Hugo Maerten 103L X / 2 0 1 2 he completed his studies with Max Dvořák and was awarded a doctorate summa cum laude for his thesis on the origins of etching in Italy. During this period, Wilde and his fellow students, Frigyes (Frederick) Antal, Arnold Hauser and Charles de Tolnay, became part of the Budapest Sunday Circle (Budapester Son- ntagkreis). This brought together a small group of art- ists and intellectuals, of which the philosopher György Lukács was the most prominent figure. After the end of the war, Wilde was involved in the brief but tem- pestuous Hungarian Soviet Republic13 and returned to Vienna in 1920. In 1923, shortly after the death of Dvořák, Wilde joined the staff of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, a move quite in tune with the tradition of the Vienna school since the time of Joseph Daniel Böhm and Rudolf von Eitelberger. As a curator of the Gemäldegalerie, Wilde was concerned primarily with Italian paintings, which he wrote on for the catalogue of Gemäldegalerie.14 Daily contact with the original works of art offered him the opportunity to study fundamental problems related to artistic materials and techniques. Wilde devoted spe- cial attention to problems of connoisseurship and con- servation. In collaboration with Sebastian Issep, from 1925 a restorer of old masters at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, he developed exceptional knowledge in what today we call technical art history, an enhanced and more rigorous connoisseurship. Gifted with a wonderful eye and an intense feeling for the visual, Wilde quickly recognised the potential of X-radiography for connois- seurship. From 1928 both Wilde and Issep made sys- tematic use of X-radiography to study the condition of painting at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, and in 1938 they established in Vienna one of the first museum laboratories created for this purpose in Europe.15 Wilde’s article of 1932 on Giorgione’s Three Philosophers and Titian’s Gypsy Madonna, based on the first X-rays of both paintings, made a significant contribution to the understanding of the working methods and creative processes of the two painters.16 Wilde’s pioneering work at the Kunsthistorisches Museum coincided with simi- lar investigations conducted by A. Martin De Wild in Holland, Walter Gräff in Munich, Kurt Wehlte in Berlin, and namely with the work done by Alan Burroughs at the Fogg Museum, with whom Wilde exchanged techni- cal information and findings.17 Wilde became familiar with the ancestral collec- tions of the Lichtensteins, Czernins, Harrachs, Wilc- zeks, and Lanckorońskis. In 1918 Dvořák contributed the introductory essay on Count Karl Lanckoroński to a publication on this outstanding Polish archaeologist, writer, collector, and patron, whose work Wilde reflected back on in 1933.18 The art historian and collector Count Karl Wilczek recommended Wilde to the young Vien- nese aristocrat Count Antoine Seilern (1901–1978).19 The two became lifelong friends and Wilde’s taste and knowledge informed celebrated Seilern’s art collection, later bequeathed to the Courtauld Institute of Art. In 1928, the second volume of Dvořák’s Italian lectures was published and Wilde and Karl Maria Swoboda expressed their gratitude to Dvořák’s stu- dent Hans Sedlmayr, who was then helping to edit for publication the writings of the eminent Viennese art historian Alois Riegl. In his introductory essay ‘The Quintessence of Riegl’s Thought’, Sedlmayr thanked Wilde for formulating the central ideas of that book.20 Sedlmayr’s influence on the upcoming generation of Viennese art historians during the 1920s and 1930s is well known and was continued by Ernst Gombrich.21 Even Wilde’s article on the reconstruction of Antonello da Messina’s San Cassiano Altarpiece published in 1929 tends to confirm this.22 Wilde’s primary aim in the Antonello article was to verify an established concept of the stylistic evolution of Venetian Renaissance painting. He focused his inves- tigations on a single work, the San Cassiano Altarpiece, a work of decisive importance for the history of Vene- tian painting of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. This remarkable work was well documented, but had been dismantled and had disappeared. Wilde once again benefited from his close cooperation with Sebastian Issep and conducted X-radiography on what he believed to be the surviving fragments of the altar- piece in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Following Ber- nard Berenson’s suggestions he reconstructed the origi- nal conception of the work. The method employed by Wilde incorporated some of Sedlmayr’s innovative ideas, expressed in his controversial ‘Towards a Rigorous Sci- ence of Art’, which was published as the introduction to the first volume of the Kunstwissenschaftliche Forschun- gen in 1931. The method Wilde developed demonstrates I n g r i d C i u l i s o v á . D V O Ř Á K ’ S P U P I L J O H A N N E S W I L D E ( 1 8 9 1 – 1 9 7 0 ) 3/ Johannes Wilde ca. 1954 The personal archive of Eve Borsook Photo: Michael Hirst 104 L X / 2 0 1 2 the intellectual authority of several Viennese scholars whom he knew or had studied with. Max Dvořák’s lectures on Michelangelo and Titian and Julius von Schlosser’s philological and historical study of primary textual sources are both introduced in his writings. In 1939, after the Nazi annexation of Austria, Wilde and his wife, art historian Júlia Gyarfás, left the coun- try, as did many other museum professionals, includ- ing Otto Benesch (1896–1964), Ernst Kris (1900–1957), Ernst H. Buschek (1889–1963), and Sebastian Issep (1884–1954).23 In 1939 Count Seilern, who possessed British citizenship, went to England with his art col- lection. He became a constant supporter of Wilde, who had also moved to England, where he soon resumed his research. In London Wilde was able to study one of the best collections of Michelangelo drawings in the world at the British Museum. His catalogue, begun in 1940 but published only in 1953, is one of his greatest scholarly achievements.24 In comparison with Bernard Beren- son, Wilde benefited also from the critical formalism developed by the founding fathers of the Vienna school. In the ensuing years he produced several essays on Michelangelo’s drawings. The last was devoted to Michelangelo’s elaborate small-scale drawings, which Wilde believed were made for fellow artists.25 Although Wilde adopted the approach of a critical formalist in this essay, six years earlier he had already declared: ‘… My objective is limited: to discuss a few cases in which some kind of connection appears to exist …. In other words, in the old-fashioned art historian’s way, I shall look for influences, though influences in the wider sense of the term, including conscious criticism and opposition.’26 This approach varied widely from those of two fellow- art historians, Frederick Antal and Charles de Tolnay, whom Wilde had become acquainted with back dur- ing his student days in Budapest. Antal, who had also studied under Dvořák and following his emigration to England also occasionally lectured at the Courtauld Institute, emphasised the social context of art. Charles de Tolnay, who wrote his dissertation under the super- vision of Julius von Schlosser and spent much of his life in the United States and Italy, was principally engaged with the metaphysical world of symbols and cultural forms. It seems likely that Wilde’s personal experiences of Béla Kun’s Soviet Hungarian republic and Nazism led him, like many other art historians after the Second World War, to prefer formalism as the basis for his research. This offered clear benefits in his museum work, but also implied an apolitical aestheti- cism linked to the formalist approach to which Eng- lish writers and scholars were inclined.27 Thus, Wilde’s formal analysis of works of art allied with a precise and subtle evaluation of historical sources might be considered to be a humanist celebration of canonical art which consciously sought to eliminate ideology and its consequences from art history. Wilde’s work was concurrent with that of other Central European exiles in England. Earlier Vienna school graduates who arrived in London before the Sec- ond World War and developed close contacts or were directly associated with the Warburg and the Cour- tauld Institutes were Frederick Antal (1887–1954), Fritz Saxl (1890–1948), Otto Pächt (1902–1988), Otto Kurz (1908–1975), and Ernst Gombrich (1909–2001). They contributed hugely to the soaring reputation of continental professional art history and its interaction with the English antiquarian and critical traditions rep- resented by John Ruskin, Roger Fry, and Adrian Stokes. Some of the exiles had also studied under Dvořák and never completely abandoned his intellectual legacy. For instance, although Fritz Saxl dedicated years of his life to Aby Warburg and his institute, he had retained close ties with Dvořák until the latter’s death in 1921, as did I n g r i d C i u l i s o v á . D V O Ř Á K ’ S P U P I L J O H A N N E S W I L D E ( 1 8 9 1 – 1 9 7 0 ) 4/ Antonello da Messina, Madonna with the Saints Nicolas of Bari, Anastasia (?), Ursula and Dominic (San Cassiano Altarpiece) 1475–1476 wood, 56/115 × 133.6 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien Photo: Courtesy of Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien 105L X / 2 0 1 2 Antal. When the question of editing Dvořák’s literary estate was raised for discussion, Saxl even expressed his interest in collaborating on the work.28 Wilde’s contribution to art history in England extended far beyond his museum catalogues and schol- arly papers. He was also an influential teacher and mentor, appointed as Reader in the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute in 1947. He became Profes- sor of History of Art in 1950, lecturing mostly on Michelangelo, early sixteenth-century Venetian paint- ing, painting in Parma and Ferrara, and Florentine art. Wilde’s old friend from Vienna, Count Antoine Seil- ern allowed young adepts of art history to study his growing collection at 56 Princes Gate, a large house near the Victoria and Albert Museum. Thus, Seilern’s exceptional collection which nucleus was build up in Vienna and which followed in many ways the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum served also teaching purposes.29 Wilde taught generations of Courtauld stu- dents, several of whom became outstanding scholars and went on to play an important role in art historical studies in Britain and in the United States. His ver- sion of Viennese art history was a crucial inspiration for many students including John Shearman, Michael Hirst, John White, Andrew Martindale, and Michael Kitson, all of whom became influential scholars and teachers.30 Through Wilde the legacy of Max Dvořák and Julius von Schlosser not only survived, but through the process of cultural confluence with the English art critical and antiquary traditions was transmuted into its own distinctive mode, which came to be widely and internationally recognised. Wilde always spoke heavily accented English, and like Dvořák, whose Bohemian German had been simi- larly criticised in his time, he meticulously wrote out his lectures in their entirety. Thus, after his death in 1971, his reputation was confirmed by the appearance of posthumous publications. Wilde’s pupils edited his manuscripts and the first volume of lectures on Vene- tian painting was published in 1974. Four years later his lectures on Michelangelo appeared precisely fifty years after Dvořák’s own lectures on sixteenth-century Italian art, in which late Michelangelo occupied a sig- nificant role.31 I n g r i d C i u l i s o v á . D V O Ř Á K ’ S P U P I L J O H A N N E S W I L D E ( 1 8 9 1 – 1 9 7 0 ) 5/ Michelangelo Buonarroti The Dream (Il Sogno) ca. 1533 black chalk on paper The Courtauld Gallery, London Photo: Courtesy of the Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art 106 L X / 2 0 1 2 Wilde established his reputation in the field of Italian art as a scholar who applied technical analy- sis, first-rate connoisseurship and imagination to problem solving.32 He continued Dvořák’s research on Michelangelo and Venetian Renaissance painting as well as his precise connoisseurship. In this Wilde faithfully followed the tradition of the Vienna school of art history since Moriz Thausing and his student Franz Wickhoff, who had conceived of connoisseur- ship as a specific scientific method. However, while Wilde’s teacher fused art history with the history of ideas, Wilde sought to integrate questions about ways of seeing with technical analysis. His study of paint- ing techniques brought connoisseurship to a new, more analytical level. By adding to his intellectual agenda a range of well-established methods from the world of the natural sciences Wilde was among the first Viennese art historians to transcend what has long been a difficult area – the boundary between the humanities and sciences. He modestly shared his experience with his students at the Courtauld Institute. I n g r i d C i u l i s o v á . D V O Ř Á K ’ S P U P I L J O H A N N E S W I L D E ( 1 8 9 1 – 1 9 7 0 ) N o t e s 1. In writing this article, I have benefited from the help of many individuals whom I wish to thank. First of all, I am enormously grateful to Eve Borsook, who encouraged me to write this paper, for her essential remarks and suggestions on the first draft of the manuscript and generally for her constructive criticism. I am indebted to Christopher White who, as a former pupil of Wilde, kindly commented on the text. I am thankful to Charles Hope for the valuable time made available to me during my work on this paper and for his willingness to discuss things related to the topic with me. Mark Evans and Bram Kempers patiently com- mented on the first version of the present text and generously shared information. Also, I am deeply indebted to Kathryn Brush, who read the text and responded with many valuable sugges- tions. Marcella Marongiu from Casa Buonarroti and Louisa Wood Ruby from the Frick Collection generously helped me in various ways. My sincere thanks go to Johannes Weiss from the Archive of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and Martin G. Enne from the Archive of the Universität Wien. Finally I wish to thank Ernst Vegelin for allowing me to consult the Seilern archive pre- served at the Courtauld Gallery’ s archive and Helen Braham for her knowledgeable comment on Johannes Wilde memorabilia. It should also be mentioned that in 2009 I was able to consult ma- terials in the London archives and libraries concerning Johannes Wilde and Count Antoine Seilern, in part thanks to a grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. – Dvořák wrote: ‘… Má práce o bratřích z Eycku a počátcích nizozemského malířství vyjde během léta. Jsem zvědav na výsledek, poněvadž se stavím velmi ostře proti dosavadním názorům v otázkách, tak dlouho již diskutovaných…’ Dvořák’s letter to Jaroslav Goll dated 22 June 1903, in: Max Dvořák, Listy o životě a umění (Letters about Life and Art), ed. Jaromír Pečírka, Praha 1943, p. 119. Translation from the Czech is by the author. 2. Max Dvořák, Das Rätsel der Kunst der Brüder van Eyck, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien XXIV, 1903, pp. 161–318. Dvořák undertook his work on the Van Eyck brothers in 1901 and the original title of his large paper was ‘Die Grundlagen des Stiles des Jan van Eyck’. Dvořák’s letters to Jaroslav Goll dated 6 November 1901 and 24 June 1902, in: Dvořák (see note 1), pp. 88, 102. It was also the subject of Max Dvořák’s habilitation lecture entitled ‘Über die Grundlagen des Stiles des Jan van Eyck’ delivered at Vienna University on 15 May 1902. See Max Dvořák, Umění jako projev ducha (Kunstgeschichte als Geistesgeschichte, Eng. transl. Art History as the History of Ideas), ed. Jaromír Pečírka, Prague 1936, p. XXIX. It was a Czech art historian, Vincenc Kramář, who wrote the first serious evaluation of Max Dvořák’s contribution to the Ghent Altarpiece in 1910. Vincenc Kramář, O vídeňské škole dějin umění (On the Vienna School of Art History), Volné Směry XIV, 1910, No. 1, pp. 41–43, No. 2, pp. 75–77. 3. For more on Dvořák’s text about the Ghent Altarpiece and the Van Eyck brothers, see Artur Rosenauer, ‘Das Rätsel der Kunst der Brüder van Eyck – Max Dvořák und seine Stellung zu Wickhoff und Riegl’, in: Akten des 25. Internationalen Kongresses für Kunstges- chichte, Österreichisches Nationalkomitee des Comité Internation- al d’Histoire de l’Art (C.I.H.A.), edited by Hermann Fillitz – Martina Pippal, Wien 1984, Vol. 1, Wien und die Entwicklung der kunsthis- torischen Methode: Sektion 1, pp. 45–52. Lech Kalinowski rightly noted that in his paper Max Dvořák radically broke with methodo- logical dogmatism and demonstrated the organic relationships of the Van Eyck brothers’ art with the art of their Gothic predecessors. Lech Kalinowski, Max Dvořák i jego metoda badań nad sztuka (Max Dvořák and His Method of Research on Art), Warsaw 1974, p. 19. Kalinowski’s publication is still the most detailed analysis of the work of Max Dvořák and his pupils. Michael Ann Holly emphasised the significance of Dvořák´s methodological achievements for Er- win Panofsky and his fundamental book on Early Netherlandish Painting published forty-nine years later; see Michael Ann Holly, Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History, New York 1985, p. 103. For more thoughts on Dvořák and Panofsky, see Otto Pächt, ‘Pan- ofsky’s Early Netherlandish Painting II’, The Burlington Magazine XCVIII, August 1956, No. 641, p. 267. For the most comprehensive discussion of Max Dvořák’s research on medieval art, see Hans H. Aurenhammer, ‘Max Dvořák and the History of Medieval Art’, Journal of Art Historiography, June 2010, No. 2, http://arthistori- ography.wordpress.com/ 5 September 2011. 4.. Max Dvořák, Idealismus und Naturalismus in der gotischen Skulptur und Malerei, München – Berlin 1918. – H. H. Aurenham- mer, Max Dvořák (1874–1921), in: Ulrich Pfisterer (ed.), Klassiker der Kunstgeschichte 1. Von Winckelmann bis Warburg, Munich 2007, pp. 214–226, esp. pp. 218–219. 5. Two of the most comprehensive recent treatments on Max Dvořák are Matthew Rampley’s ‘Max Dvořák: Art History and the Crisis of Modernity’, Art History XXVI, 2003, No. 2, p. 224, and Ján Bakoš’s paper Max Dvořák, ‘A Neglected Re-visionist’, Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte LIII, 2004, pp. 55–71. 6. I quote Rampley’s English translation of Dvořák’s article. Rampley (see note 5), p. 226. 7. Johannes Wilde’s father Richard was born in 1840 in Teplice (Teplitz) in Bohemia, while his mother Rosalie Somjaky came from Tolcsva in Hungary. Personal file of Johannes Wilde, Archive of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna III, 1937. On Karl Maria Swoboda, see Sigrid Canz, Karl Maria Swoboda (1889–1977) Kunst- historiker. Wissenschaftler zwischen Wien und Prag, in: Monika Gettler – Alena Míšková (eds), Prager Professoren 1938–1948, Es- sen 2001, pp. 186–188. 8. Johannes Wilde – Karl M. Swoboda (eds), Geschichte der italienischen Kunst im Zeitalter der Renaissance: akademische Vor- 107L X / 2 0 1 2 lesungen I–II, München 1927–1928. The book was compiled on the basis of Dvořák’s manuscripts and surviving stenographs of his lectures. Ibidem, Vol. I, p. VIII. Dvořák’s Gesammelte Schriften was published in five volumes, the last of which appeared in 1929. 9. The most reliable source for Wilde’s professional life until the end of his university studies in Vienna remains his curricu- lum vitae submitted as a part of his ‘Rigorosenakt’ in 1918 (Phil. Rigorosenakt, No. 4523, 4 June 1918, Archive of the Universität Wien). To obtain more information on his life and career, I con- sulted archive materials housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (Archive of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, I 14, 15, III 13) and papers which Wilde left to the Courtauld Institute in London (Fonds of Johannes Wilde, ref. code GB 1518 CI/JW). Notable literature on Wilde includes Kenneth Clark, Jo- hannes Wilde, The Burlington Magazine CIII, June 1961, No. 699, p. 205. – Michael Hirst, Johannes Wilde: 1891–1970, The Burling- ton Magazine CXIII, March 1971, No. 816, pp. 155–157. – Anthony Blunt, Johannes Wilde, Master Drawings IX, 1971, pp. 173–174. – John K. G. Shearman, Johannes Wilde (1891–1970), in: Akten (see note 3), pp. 91–98. – Denis Farr, Johannes Wilde (1891–1970), in: e-Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 2004. – The text of Károly Kókay, Briefe von Johannes Wilde aus Wien, Juni 1920 bis Februar 1921, Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte LIX, 2010 (2011), pp. 219–233, came out when this paper was already completed and in press. 10. Owing to the groundbreaking research of Kathryn Brush we know that, besides the book on Raphael and Donatello Vöge called Raffael und Donatello: Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der italienischen Kunst (Strasburg 1896), Vöge completed also two essays on Michelangelo. However, his manuscripts ‘Michelangelo’s Madonna mit dem Buche und Ihr Vorbild’ and ‘Michelangelo und die Pisani’, assigned to the period between late 1894 and 1896, have never been published. Kathryn Brush, The Shaping of Art His- tory: Wilhelm Vöge, Adolph Goldschmidt, and the Study of Medieval Art, New York – Cambridge 1996, pp. 101–102. 11. Wilhelm Schlink, Wilhelm Vöge (1868–1952), Freiburger Universitätsblätter, December 2009, No. 186, pp. 9–26, esp. p. 17. See also Erwin Panofsky, Wilhelm Wöge: A Biographical Memoir, Art Journal XXVIII, Autum 1968, No. 1, pp. 27–37, esp. pp. 33–35. 12. Simon Meller’s book on Michelangelo was published in 1903. Simon Meller, Michelangelo, Budapest 1903. See Júlia Szabó, Simon Meller, in: Ernő Marosi (ed.), Die ungarische Kunstgeschich- te und die Wiener Schule: 1846–1930, Vienna – Budapest 1983, p. 71. 13. During the period of the Hungarian Commune in 1919 Georg (György) Lukács was the People’s Commissar for Education and Culture and appointed several of his friends and associates to important political and cultural positions. Young Wilde became a member of the Art and Museum Directorate together with the painter Róbert Berényi, the sculptor Béni Ferenczy, the architect Manó Lessner and his fellow art historian Frederick Antal. One of the best sources for the discourse on art in the Budapest Sunday Circle still remains the paper by Anna Wessely, Der Diskurs über die Kunst im Sonntagskreis, in: H. Gaßner (ed.), Wechselwirkun- gen: Ungarische Avantgarde in der Weimarer Republik (exh. cat.), Kassel – Bochum – Marburg 1986, pp. 541–550. See also Júlia Szabó, Kunstgeschichte während der Revolutionen und in den Nachkriegszeit, in: Die ungarische Kunstgeschichte (see note 12), p. 78. – Anna Wessely, Antal Frigyes 1887–1945, Ars Hungarica VI, 1978, p. 372. – Robert Born, Budapest und die Entwicklung des Sozialgeschichtlichen Ansatzes in der Kunstgeschichte, in: Dietlind Hüchtker – Alfrun Kliems (eds), Überbringen – Überformen – Über- blenden. Theorietransfer im 20. Jahrhundert, Cologne – Vienna – Weimar 2010, pp. 93–123, esp. pp. 104–106. I n g r i d C i u l i s o v á . D V O Ř Á K ’ S P U P I L J O H A N N E S W I L D E ( 1 8 9 1 – 1 9 7 0 ) 14. Gustav Glück – Ludwig Baldass – Ernst H. Buschek – Jo- hannes Wilde (eds), Katalog der Gemäldegalerie. Führer durch die kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, Vienna 1928. 15. The Archive of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna III, 1937. 16. Johannes Wilde, Röntgenaufnahmen der ‘Drei Philosophen’ Giorgiones und der ‘Zigeunermadonna’ Tizians, Jahrbuch der Kun- sthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien VI, 1932, pp. 141–154. For the recent evaluation of Wilde’s text, see Elke Oberthaler – Elizabeth Walmsley, ‘Technical Studies of Painting Methods’, in: Bellini, Gior- gione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting (exh. cat.), National Gallery of Art, Washington, edited by David Alan Brown – Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, New Haven 2006, esp. p. 286. 17. Alan Burroughs, ‘Art Criticism from a Laboratory’, in: David Bomford – Mark Leonard (eds.), Issues in the Conservation of Paint- ings, Los Angeles 2004, p. 173. For the broader context see Maria C. Galassi, ‘Technical Studies in the Field of the Fine Arts’ (1932– 1942). Per la storia della rivista del Fogg Museum di Harvard, Annali di critica d’arte V, 2009, pp. 277–307, esp. pp. 282–283. In the early 1930s also Vincenc Kramář and Bohuslav Slánský experi- mented with X-radiography to study the condition of paintings and the artists’ creative process at the Picture Gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts (Obrazárna vlasteneckých přátel umění) in Prague. See Ivo Hlobil, ‘Vincenc Kramář a vědecká teorie restaurování’ (Vincenc Kramář and a Scientific Theory of Restora- tion), in: Zborník II (OPPS OP), Rožňava 1982, p. 120. 18. Ausgewählte Kunstwerke der Sammlung Lanckoroński, Wien 1918, pp. 1–4. – Johannes Wilde, Der letzte Humanist, Neuer Wiener Tagblatt, 18. July 1933. 19. James Byam Shaw, Count Antoine Seilern (1901–1978), The Burlington Magazine CXX, November 1978, No. 908, p. 760. 20. Sedlmayr wrote: ‘Die Idee und der im wesentlichen einge- haltene Plan zu dieser Veröffentlichung stammen von Dr. Johannes Wilde in Wien. Ihm sind die Herausgeber in mehr als einer Hinsicht zu grossem Dank verpflichtet.’ See Hans Sedlmayr, Die Quintes- senz der Lehren Riegls, in: Alois Riegl, Gesammelte Aufsätze, ed. Karl M. Swoboda, introduction by Hans Sedlmayr, Augsburg 1929, p. XXXIV. The close intellectual connection of the two Viennese scholars in the late 1920s can also be illustrated by the fact that Wilde was expected to be one of the contributors to the second volume of Kunstwissenschaftliche Forschungen published by Hans Sedlmayr and his fellow student Otto Pächt. See Ian Verstegen, ‘John White’s and John Shearman’s Viennese Art Historical Method’, Journal of Art Historiography, December 2009, No. 1, p. 4, http:// arthistoriography.wordpress.com/ 5 September 2011, p. 229. 21. Ernst Gombrich, ‘Art History and Psychology in Vienna Fifty Years Ago’, Art Journal XLIV, 1984, p. 163. Christopher Wood noted that all young Viennese art historians in the 1920s and 1930s dedicated to Sedlmayr programme. Those who were a bit older and in some cases had completed their dissertations under Dvořák, including Ludwig von Baldass, Fritz Saxl, Friederick Antal, Ernst Garger, and Johannes Wilde, maintained a clear methodological distance. Christopher Wood, The Vienna School Reader. Politics and Art Historical Method in the 1930s, New York 2000, pp. 42, 72. 22. Johannes Wilde, Die ‘Pala di San Cassiano’ von Antonello da Messina: ein Rekonstruktionsversuch, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistor- ischen Sammlungen in Wien III, 1929, pp. 57–72. 23. Johannes Wilde, a Roman Catholic, married Júlia Gyarfás- Guttmann (1895–1970), who was of Jewish origin, in 1930. The Archive of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, III, 1937. For the émigré scholars I consulted Michael Podro, ‘Art History and the Émigré Scholars’, in: Adolf M. Birke – Kurt Kluxen (eds), Die Europäische Herausforderung: England und Deutschland in Europa. The European Challenge: Britain and Germany in Europe (Prinz- 108 L X / 2 0 1 2 I n g r i d C i u l i s o v á . D V O Ř Á K ’ S P U P I L J O H A N N E S W I L D E ( 1 8 9 1 – 1 9 7 0 ) Albert-Studien V), Munich – New York 1987, pp. 81–91. – Her- bert Haupt, Jahre der Gefährdung: das Kunsthistorische Museum 1938–1945. Vienna 1995, p. 10. – Johannes Feichtinger, ‘The Sig- nificance of Austrian Émigré Art Historians for English Art Scholar- ship’, in: Edward Timms – Jon Hughes (eds), Intellectual Migration and Cultural Transformation: Refugees from National Socialism in the English-speaking World, Vienna – New York 2003, pp. 51–69, esp. p. 63. – Peter Burke, ‘Translatio studii: The Contribution of Exiles to the Establishment of Sociology and Art History in Britain, 1933–1960, Arbor-ciencia Pensamiento Y Cultura CLXXXV, 2009, No. 739, pp. 903–908. 24. Johannes Wilde, Italian Drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum: Michelangelo and His Studio, London 1953. In the preface of the book Arthur E. Popham wrote: ‘The Trustees have been fortunate in securing the services of Pro- fessor Johannes Wilde, who voluntarily undertook this arduous and difficult task in 1940 at a time when the contents of the Print Room were evacuated to the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. In spite of numerous difficulties and interruptions the catalogue was completed by 1945.’ Four years later J. Wilde and A. E. Popham published their book on the Italian drawings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in the collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor. Arthur E. Popham – J. Wilde, The Italian Drawings of the XV and XVI Centuries in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle, London 1949. Wilde redirected his scholarly atten- tion to Michelangelo in the 1920s. See Johannes Wilde, ‘Zur Kritik der Haarlemer Michelangelo-Zeichnungen’, Belvedere XI, 1927, pp. 142–147. – Idem, ‘Zwei Modelle Michelangelos für das Julius- Grabmal’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien II, 1928, pp. 199–218. – Idem, ‘Eine Studie Michelangelos nach der Antike’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz IV, 1932–1934, No. 1, pp. 41–64. – Idem, ‘Der ursprüngliche Plan Michelangelos zum Jüngsten Gericht’, Die graphischen Kunste I, 1936, No. 1, pp. 7–11. In 1940 Wilde, as a non-Jewish Austrian, was considered a suspect by British officials and as a result of this he was placed in a concentration camp and subsequently deported to Canada. In 1941 he was freed and allowed to live in England. See Kenneth Clark, ‘Johannes Wilde’, The Burlington Magazine CIII, June 1961, No. 699, p. 205. 25. Johannes Wilde, ‘Cartonetti by Michelangelo’, The Burling- ton Magazine CI, November 1959, No. 680, pp. 370–381. 26. Johannes Wilde, ‘Michelangelo and Leonardo’, The Burling- ton Magazine XCV, March 1953, No. 600, p. 65. 27. Podro (see note 23), p. 85. 28. See Dorothea McEvan, Aby Warburg’s and Fritz Saxl’s Assessment of the Wiener Schule, Journal of Art Historiography, December 2009, No 1, http://arthistoriography.wordpress.com/ 22 February 2012. Wilde wrote his paper on Michelangelo’s Leda for the posthumous publication devoted to Fritz Saxl. Johannes Wilde, ‘Notes on the Genesis of Michelangelo’s “Leda”’, in: Donald J. Gordon (ed.), Fritz Saxl: 1890–1948. A Volume of Memorial Essays from His Friends in England, London 1957, pp. 270–280. 29. Count Antoine Seilern who strongly opposed the Nazi re- gime bequeathed a part of his collection, formed also through Wilde’s astute advice, to the Home House Trustees for the Cour- tauld Institute of Art, London University in 1978. The Courtauld acquired this huge bequest, comprising chiefly paintings, drawings, prints, and a large art library, including rare books, under Seilern’s last will. The donation, called the Princes Gate Collection, is gen- erally considered to be one of the single greatest gifts received by a British gallery. The Princes Gate Collection (exh. cat.), intro- duction by Helen Braham, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London c. 1981, p. VII. 30. John Onians wrote: ‘Les compétences qu’il mettait en avant furent bien assimilées par tous les étudiants du Courtauld, mais son influence fut spécialement importante sur les spécialistes de l’art de la Renaissance, particulièrement John White (1924–), John Shearman (1931–2003) et Michael Hirst, qui tous, suivant son exam- ple, devinrent des figures internationals dans leur domaine…’ John Onians, Wilde, Pevsner, Gombrich…: la ‘Kunstgeschichte’ en Grand- Bretagne, Perspective, 2007, No. 2, p. 195. One of Wilde’s notable pupils, Eve Borsook, assisted Max Dvořák’s graduate Richard Off- ner on his life-project ‘A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting’. A special issue of The Burlington Magazine was devoted to Wilde on the occasion of his seventieth birthday (June 1961). Sir Kenneth Clark wrote the laudatio and Wilde’s pupils Eve Borsook, Andrew Martindale, John Shearman, John White, Michael Hirst, and Michael Kitson, among others, contributed papers. Earlier Ernst Gombrich wrote his paper on Hypnerotomachiana for Johannes Wilde’s sixtieth birthday. Ernst Gombrich, Hypnerotomachiana (for Johannes Wilde’s sixtieth birthday), Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes XIV, 1951, pp. 119–125. 31. Johannes Wilde, Venetian Art from Bellini to Titian, Oxford 1974. – Michael Hirst – John Shearman (edd.), Michelangelo. 6 Lec- tures by Johannes Wilde, Oxford 1978. 32. Meyer Shapiro wrote: ‘His papers on Italian painting are extraordinarily fine works, models of exactness and full of surpris- ing insights. He is internationally known for his results with modern physical methods, especially X-rays. He is admired by connoisseurs as well as by scholars in the field of Italian art for his expertness and sensibility. There is no one here who combines, like Dr Wilde, technical laboratory skill, first rate connoisseurship and imagination in solving problems.’ Ulrike Wendland, Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der un- ter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissen- schaftler, Munich 1999, Vol. 2, p. 771. Journal of Art Historiography Number 15 December 2016 Ingrid Ciulisová is Research Professor at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Institute of Art History in Bratislava. Recently she has been awarded fellowships at the Centre for Advanced Studies of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts, Brussels, and at I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence. She has published extensively on art in the Low Countries, history of art collecting, history of art history and preservations of monuments. In addition to numerous articles, she is the author of Historicism and Modernism in the Protection of Medieval Ecclesiastical Architecture in Slovakia (Bratislava 2000), Paintings of the 16th Century Netherlandish Masters: Slovak Art Collections (Bratislava 2006), Men of Taste: Essays on Art Collecting in East-Central Europe (Bratislava 2014). She has edited and co-edited the following publications: The Habsburgs and their Courts in Europe, 1400–1700: Between Cosmopolitism and Regionalism. Ed. by Herbert Karner, Ingrid Ciulisová and Bernardo J. García García. Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2014, Palatium e-Publication, and Artistic Innovations and Cultural Zones. Ed. by Ingrid Ciulisová (VEDA: Bratislava-Peter Lang: Frankfurt am Main 2014). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Ciulisova autobiograpy