Baltic Journal of Art History

Art History as a New Discipline at the Estonian University in Tartu after the Long 19th Century

Eero Kangor — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The article is the first attempt to present the beginnings of Estonian professional art history in the 1920s in a regional and global context. The author strives to situate the University of Tartu (Dorpat) in the pan-European network of universities, where art history had gradually become regarded as a new discipline during and after the long 19th century. Art history is rooted in the Age of Enlightenment, with Johann Joachim Winckelmann retrospectively named the father of art history. But it was about a half century after his death that art history was incorporated into a general subject of aesthetics taught at universities. It took another fifty years for art history to become a separate discipline in the modern universities of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and another half century to receive a separate chair at the Estonian national university in Tartu. The development of art history as a discipline at the University of Tartu is analysed on a very granular level, based on primary sources from Estonian and Swedish archives. During the 19th century art and its history were used to the ends of national politics and in search of national identities. In Estonia, this was hindered by the activities of another ethnic group, the Baltic-Germans, who had been the ruling class in the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire. The first professor of art history at the Estonian University of Tartu, Helge Kjellin, wanted to bridge the gap between Estonian and Baltic art history. He attempted to merge these two concepts and define the territorial concept of Estonian art from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century. He also defined this as a proper field of study for Estonian art historians. However, after his departure from Estonia, art history was neglected and irrelevant for the Estonian University and the Estonian Republic. Science and academic professions were regarded as a masculine field of activity until after the Second World War. Only the lack of men, who had died in the war, enabled women to start seeking a more equal place in the academic world worthy of their intellectual ability. Despite there being many capable female students among those who studied art history with Kjellin, the first female professor of art history in Estonia, Krista Kodres, was elected to the Estonian Academy of Arts only in 2003.

Wooden Manor Houses In Estonia 1700–1850: From Archaic Traditions to Modern Ideas

Elis Pärn — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Estonian manorial architecture has been a topic of interest to
architectural and art historians for the last hundred years, but
hundreds of wooden manor houses, of which many still exist day,
have largely remained unnoticed. The reason for this lack of research
into wooden architecture are manifold but can most easily be
associated with socially complex relationships and previous research
methods, resulting in the only monograph to date, Gustav Ränk’s Die
älteren baltischen Herrenhöfe in Estland (1971), which analysed wooden
architecture in the 17th century, known in Estonia as the Swedish
period. Since it is generally accepted that previous classifications
of wooden architecture do not allow for great conclusions, the aim
of this article is to give an overview of the architectural genesis of
wooden manor houses during the manorial ‘golden era’, asking how
modern ideas made their way into local architecture. In this regard,
this paper also deals with architectural treatises and handbooks from
the 18th and early decades of the 19th centuries and the question of
the adaptation of architectural theorists’ ideas to local architecture.
The genesis of Estonian wooden manorial architecture can be
divided into three distinguished periods that are similar to the overall
development of manorial architecture in the Baltics. Although the
very first wooden noble residences built at the beginning of the 18th
century were small urbaltisch buildings with a central chimney that
resembled those built in the Swedish era, newer architectural forms
more in touch with the architectural trends of the time appeared
on lands that had either escaped the negative consequences of the
Great Northern War and plague or had been donated by the Russian
rulers. In other places, manorial architecture continued with the
traditions, which began to change more strongly in the second half of
the century, reflecting the landlords’ greater need for representative
purposes. This not only brought changes to construction techniques
but also to the buildings’ overall appearance: most wooden dwellings
doubled in size and were decorated according to late Baroque or
early Neoclassical elements. More major changes took place in the
first decades of the 19th century, which gave contemporaries a chance
to describe wooden dwellings as ‘light and summery’, testifying to
changes in building traditions.
Since at this stage of research only a handful of building masters,
masons and construction carpenters are known to have worked in
the building of wooden manor houses, this article suggests that the
landlords may also have drawn the ground plans themselves, with the
help of architectural treatises and handbooks of the time. Although
the architectural ideas of Nikolaus Goldmann, Friedrich Christian
Schmidt and David Gilly are tangible, it is possible that in many
cases the influence was more indirect and depended on the general
stylistic and technical changes of the period. This architectural
conservativism can partly be explained by the fact that Baltic manors
largely depended on local craftsmen and peasants from nearby
villages, but also by the nobility’s general aversion to all things new.
A much more accessible treatise for many noblemen at the time may
have been the economic handbook written by local pastor August
Wilhelm Hupel, which included some thoughts on the building
process; however, since he did not introduce any new architectural
ideas, but rather carried on with the local traditions, it is possible
that his ideas were put to practice elsewhere, where landlords did
not actively live. The same conclusion can be drawn about the
standardised model façade projects, which made certain façades
compulsory for cities in the Russian Empire in the early decades
of the 19th century, but had very little effect on Estonian wooden
manor houses.
Although this article brings clarity to many aspects of wooden
manorial architecture, the most important contribution to the history
of Baltic manorial architecture is bringing attention to the fact that
wood as a building material was not only widespread but held a
dominant role in building practice. This not only emphasises Baltic
manorial architecture’s peripheral role on the map of European art,
but also creates new perspectives to delve deeper into the connections
with Scandinavia and other countries, where the material played a
part in the building practices of the higher and lower strata of society.

Jean-Baptiste Du Bos: Reflections on Genius and Art

Holger Rajavee — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In 1719 Jean-Baptiste Du Bos publishes his treatise Réflexions Critiques
sur la Poésia et sur la Peinture, which Voltaire has called ‘the most
useful book that has ever be written on the subject by any European
nation’. In his book the author deals with the problem of artistic
genius, a phenomenon that was in focus from late 17th century in
many treatises on theory of art, especially in France and England.
This article concentrates on the interpretation of this particular
idea in the work of Du Bos, who tries to explain it through a wide
range of empirical examples, using the latest achievements from
different branches of science. His concept of ‘physiological genius’
and ‘climatic genius’ can be seen as unique. His reflections on
sensation-based aesthetic experience and the new way of defining
the relationship between the artist-genius and the dilettante art
experiencer, influenced later 18th century authors who wrote about
art theory and aesthetics (Lessing, Home, Herder, even Kant). Du
Bos's idea of wider public engagement with art, and art appreciation,
becomes relevant in the 18th and 19th centuries, so one can say that in
many respects Du Bos's treatment is ahead of its time and that these
ideas are also relevant in the contemporary context.

Cultural and Artistic Dialogues in Galicia in the Second Half of the 20th Century

Maryan Besaha, Yuliya Babunych, Orest Holubets — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The research aims to define the dialogical nature of cultural
and artistic processes in the historical environment of late 20th
century Galicia, and to determine a list of significant events, artist
associations, and personalities. The Research methodology is based
on the principles of combining the system approach with historical
principles, comparison, and synthesis. Historical and cultural, and
formal-analytical, approaches with elements of comparative and
descriptive analysis are used.
The mutual impact of policy and authorities on the artistic
environment and education processes is analysed for the first time.
The movement of individual artistic practices and artist unions as
the main factors shaping the artistic environment in Galicia in the
second half of the 20th century is highlighted.
We conclude that pressure from the communist totalitarian
authorities on the artistic community in Galicia, deportations,
bullying, and isolation failed to destroy the structure of artistic
dialogue. With changes in leadership and control vectors, cultural and
artistic life searched for a unique form of expression, and Lviv (being
a centre of culture and education) played an important role in shaping
many new names that would later influence the environment. After
the collapse of the Soviet Union and the appearance of independent
Ukraine, the processes to rehabilitate artistic values, based on
national form and the dialogical form of the first third of the 20th
century, took place. Artist unions and new galleries that appeared
to cater to the needs of cultural and artistic life in Galicia became
instrumental in developing new artistic ideas both in Ukraine and
beyond. Consideration of views and the importance of the creativity
of individual artists and artist associations in cultural and artistic
processes in late 20th century Galicia created the preconditions by
which to determine the importance and patterns of social and political
influences on the development of Ukrainian art in the 20th and 21st
centuries.

The Story of the Altarpiece of St Peter’s Church in Kõpu

Hilkka Hiiop, Reet Pius — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Saint Dymphna by Goossen van der Weyden – An Up-to-date Princess

Kerttu Palginõmm — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In 2020, two major exhibitions brought to Tallinn by the Phoebus
Foundation, the largest private art collection in Belgium, opened at
the Art Museum of Estonia. While the exhibition at the Kadriorg
Art Museum exhibited numerous works from the Golden Age of the
Flemish painting, the exhibition at the Niguliste Museum made the
Dymphna altarpiece from the Goossen van der Weyden workshop
(ca 1505) its focus. The altarpiece was dismantled in the 19th century
after which the panel depicting the decapitation of Dymphna was lost.
The exhibition was accompanied by a monograph reflecting on the
major topics connected to the Dymphna altarpiece and presenting
the results of the conservation work carried out between 2017 and
2020. One of the aspects the book considers is the material culture
represented in the Dymphna altarpiece.
The clothing and textiles of the protagonists receive special attention
in the monograph, for example when questions such as if the garments
worn by the princess and the king are fashionable or out of date
are raised. This article explores this question taking the portraits
of Habsburg and Castilian princesses painted in around 1500 and
not used for comparison in the monograph as its point of departure.
In this paper I propose, that the clothing and accessories of
princess Dymphna are modelled on the image of contemporary
Habsburg-Castilian princesses, and that such modelling has political
implications. The role of Antwerp as a merchant city must also not
be forgotten in this context, as the appearance of luxury objects in an
artwork is in direct correlation with the city’s milieu of merchandise,
luxury production, and the marketing of the city.

A Philosophical Eulogy for Ülo Matjus Who Knew How to Lead the Way

Margit Sutrop — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000