Architecture as Bodily and Spatial Art: The Idea of Einfühlung in Early Theoretical Contributions by Heinrich Wölfflin and August Schmarsow
2013; Routledge; Volume: 18; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/13264826.2014.890007
ISSN1755-0475
Autores Tópico(s)Visual Culture and Art Theory
ResumoAbstractThe concept of Einfühlung (empathy), a term coined in 1872 by the German philosopher, Robert Vischer, was highly influential in architectural theory from the last years of the nineteenth century until at least the first two decades of the twentieth. Heinrich Wölfflin and August Schmarsow, two important figures of art history, developed their respective concepts of architectural reception in a strong correlation to the idea of empathy. In their investigations into architectural creation, the idea of the human capacity to empathise with objects and works of art led both art historians to an understanding of art history as a discipline that was dedicated to retracing the dominant ideas of different epochs on a psychological basis. Notes 1. Physiological studies on the eye were, for instance, carried out by Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894), who also had great influence on art theory; for his most important work in this context, see Hermann von Helmholtz, Handbuch der physiologischen Optik, Leipzig: Leopold Voss, 1867. 2. The works of Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920), who, in 1879, founded an institute for experimental psychology at the University of Leipzig, were fundamental for the early phase of physiological psychology; see, for instance, Wilhelm Wundt, Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie, Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1874. 3. Frank Büttner recognises a "psychological turn" in art history during the years 1870 to 1910; Frank Büttner, "Das Paradigma 'Einfühlung' bei Robert Vischer, Heinrich Wölfflin und Wilhelm Worringer. Die problematische Karriere einer kunsttheoretischen Fragestellung", in Christian Drude and Hubertus Kohle (eds), 200 Jahre Kunstgeschichte in München. Positionen—Perspektiven—Polemik 1780–1980, Munich/Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2003, 82. In the same context, Magdalena Bushart speaks of an "anthropological turn" because of the turn to the human subject; Magdalena Bushart, "'Form' und 'Gestalt'. Zur Psychologisierung der Kunstgeschichte um 1900", in Otto Gerhard Oexle (ed.), Krise des Historismus—Krise der Wirklichkeit. Wissenschaft, Kunst und Literatur 1880–1932, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007, 147. 4. Robert Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form: A Contribution to Aesthetics" ["Über das optische Formgefühl. Ein Beitrag zur Ästhetik"] (1872), in Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomou (eds), Empathy, Form, and Space. Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873–1893, Santa Monica, CA: The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1994, 89–123. 5. For the influence of Friedrich Theodor Vischer's aesthetics on the empathy theory of Robert Vischer, see Christian G. Allesch, Geschichte der psychologischen Ästhetik. Untersuchungen zur historischen Entwicklung eines psychologischen Verständnisses ästhetischer Phänomene, Göttingen/Toronto/Zurich: Verlag für Psychologie/C. J. Hogrefe, 1987, 327–329. See also Mallgrave and Ikonomou, Empathy, Form, and Space, 18–20. 6. Friedrich Theodor Vischer, Ästhetik oder Wissenschaft des Schönen (1851), vol. 3, ed. Robert Vischer, Munich: Meyer & Jessen, 1922, 234, § 561. 7. Vischer, Ästhetik oder Wissenschaft des Schönen, vol. 3, 235, § 561 (translation by the author). 8. For the definition of the term "symbol", see Vischer, Ästhetik oder Wissenschaft des Schönen, vol. 2, 495, § 426. 9. Vischer, Ästhetik oder Wissenschaft des Schönen, vol. 3, 370, § 382 (translation by the author).10. For the importance of the subject for the reception of beauty in Friedrich Theodor Vischer's theory and its influence on empathy theory, see Martin Fontius, "Einfühlung/Empathie/Identifikation", in Karlheinz Barck et al. (eds), Ästhetische Grundbegriffe, vol. 2, Stuttgart/Weimar: J. B. Metzler, 2001, 130–131.11. Friedrich Theodor Vischer, "Critique of My Aesthetics" ["Kritik meiner Aesthetik"] (1866), in Charles Harrison, Paul Wood, and Jason Gaiger (eds), Art in Theory, 1815–1900: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2000, 689.12. Vischer, "Critique of My Aesthetics", 689–690.13. Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 92. For Friedrich Theodor Vischer's original formulation, see Vischer, "Critique of My Aesthetics", 690.14. Robert Vischer referred to Wilhelm Wundt, Karl Albert Scherner (1825–1889), and Gustav Adolf Lindner (1828–1887). The influence of Hermann von Helmholtz is also noticeable in, for example, the adaptation of the term "visual sensation" [Gesichtsempfindung] from Helmholtz's Handbuch der physiologischen Optik; Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 95.15. Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 92.16. In the original German texts, the similarity is much more evident, since Robert Vischer spoke of "unbewußtes Versetzen der eigenen Leibform und hiemit auch der Seele in die Objektsform", and the words used by Friedrich Theodor Vischer were "unbewußte[s] Unterlegen von Seelenstimmungen". See (respectively) Robert Vischer, "Über das optische Formgefühl. Ein Beitrag zur Ästhetik" (1872), in Robert Vischer (ed.), Drei Schriften zum ästhetischen Formproblem, Halle/Saale: Max Niemeyer, 1927, 4; and Friedrich Theodor Vischer, "Kritik meiner Aesthetik", in Friedrich Theodor Vischer, Kritische Gänge, nr. 5, Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung, 1866, 140 (emphasis by the author).17. For Vischer's distinction between "seeing" and "scanning", see Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 93–95.18. Hermann von Helmholtz had already emphasised the relationship between eye movement and spatial perception; cf. Kirsten Wagner, "Die Beseelung der Architektur. Empathie und architektonischer Raum", in Robin Curtis and Gertrud Koch (eds), Einfühlung. Zur Geschichte und Gegenwart eines ästhetischen Konzepts, Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2009, 54–55.19. Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 94.20. Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 94.21. Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 104–105.22. Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 108.23. For the terms "immediate feeling" and "responsive feeling", see Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 107. For a distinction between Einfühlung, Zufühlung, and Nachfühlung, see Fontius, "Einfühlung/Empathie/Identifikation", 131.24. Vischer called this preparatory process "attentive feeling [Anfühlung]"; Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 106, 108.25. According to Friedrich and Gleiter, Robert Vischer did not try to establish a specific theory of art; Thomas Friedrich and Jörg H. Gleiter, "Einleitung", in Thomas Friedrich and Jörg H. Gleiter (eds), Einfühlung und phänomenologische Reduktion. Grundlagentexte zu Architektur, Design und Kunst, Berlin: Lit, 2007, 9. But although Vischer's dissertation does not offer an applied theory of arts, his emphasis on artistic production still shows the importance of this aspect for his argumentation; cf. Gustav Jahoda, "Theodor Lipps and the Shift from 'Sympathy' to 'Empathy'", Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 41, no. 2 (Spring 2005), 153.26. Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 97.27. According to Christian Allesch, the rejection of formal aesthetics through an idealistic approach was an important motivation for Vischer's dissertation; Allesch, Geschichte der psychologischen Ästhetik, 328–329. Mallgrave and Ikonomou underline Vischer's criticism against formal aesthetics as well as his revision of idealistic aesthetics with the help of a subjectivism immanent in empathy theory; cf. Mallgrave and Ikonomou, Empathy, Form, and Space, 21.28. Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 115.29. Robert Vischer, "Der ästhetische Akt und die reine Form" (1874), in Vischer, Drei Schriften, 54 (translation by the author).30. For Lipps' terminology of empathy, see Klaus-Peter Lange, "Zum Begriff der Einfühlung (Theodor Lipps und Johannes Volkelt)", in Helmut Koopmann and J. Adolf Schmoll gen. Eisenwerth (eds), Beiträge zur Theorie der Künste im 19. Jahrhundert, vol. 1, Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1971, 118–123.31. Mallgrave and Ikonomou consider the books, Raumästhetik und geometrisch-optische Täuschungen and the Ästhetik, to be the two "primary works by Theodor Lipps dealing with his theory of empathy"; Mallgrave and Ikonomou, Empathy, Form, and Space, 73.32. Theodor Lipps, "Ästhetische Faktoren der Raumanschauung", in Arthur König (ed.), Beiträge zur Psychologie und Physiologie der Sinnesorgane. Hermann von Helmholtz als Festgruss zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstag, Hamburg/Leipzig: Leopold Voss, 1891, 217–307.33. Lipps, "Ästhetische Faktoren der Raumanschauung", 222 (translation by the author). Kirsten Wagner connects this interpretation with empathy theory: "To perceive an object aesthetically, or in other words to empathise with it, [according to Lipps] means to comprehend the mechanical forces that give the object its specific form". Wagner, "Die Beseelung der Architektur", 64 (translation by the author).34. Lipps, "Ästhetische Faktoren der Raumanschauung", 272 (translation by the author).35. For Lipps' opinion on the role of architecture, see Lipps, "Ästhetische Faktoren der Raumanschauung", 240.36. Lipps, "Ästhetische Faktoren der Raumanschauung", 245 (translation by the author).37. Theodor Lipps, Raumästhetik und geometrisch-optische Täuschungen, Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1897.38. Lipps used the terms "sympathy" and "empathy" almost interchangeably; see Jahoda, "Theodor Lipps", 158–159.39. Lipps, Raumästhetik, 7 (translation by the author and by Gustav Jahoda; see Jahoda, "Theodor Lipps", 158).40. Lipps, Raumästhetik und geometrisch-optische Täuschungen, 14–15 (translation by the author).41. For Lipps' only three-page study on "The three-dimensional space" ["Der dreidimensionale Raum"], see Theodor Lipps, Ästhetik. Psychologie des Schönen und der Kunst (1903), vol. 1, Leipzig: Leopold Voss, 1923, 257–259.42. For empathy with architectural space, see Lipps, Ästhetik, 258.43. Lipps, Ästhetik, 258 (translation by the author, emphasis in the original text).44. Adolf Hildebrand, "The Problem of Form in the Fine Arts" ["Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst"] (1893), in Mallgrave and Ikonomou, Empathy, Form, and Space, 227–279.45. Henning Bock points out parallels between empathy theory and Hildebrand's Problem der Form. See Henning Bock, "Einführung: Die Entstehung des 'Problem der Form'", in Adolf von Hildebrand, Gesammelte Schriften zur Kunst, Cologne/Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1969, 22–23. For the influence of Vischer and Lipps, see also Mallgrave and Ikonomou, Empathy, Form, and Space, 37.46. Wilhelm Worringer, Abstraktion und Einfühlung. Ein Beitrag zur Stilpsychologie, Neuwied: Heuser, 1907.47. For a critical account of Worringer's main theses, see Büttner, "Das Paradigma 'Einfühlung'", 87–89.48. Heinrich Wölfflin, "Theodor Lipps: Raumästhetik und geometrisch-optische Täuschungen" [review], Kunstchronik, 9, no. 18 (March 1898), 292 (translation by the author).49. August Schmarsow, "The Essence of Architectural Creation" ["Das Wesen der architektonischen Schöpfung" (1893), in Mallgrave and Ikonomou, Empathy, Form, and Space, 283.50. Heinrich Wölfflin, "Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture" ["Prolegomena zu einer Psychologie der Architektur"] (1886), in Mallgrave and Ikonomou, Empathy, Form, and Space, 149–190.51. For Wölfflin's presentation titled "Gibt es reine Formen, welche schön sind?" ["Are There Pure Forms that are Beautiful?"], and for its influence on his dissertation, see Meinhold Lurz, Heinrich Wölfflin. Biographie einer Kunsttheorie, Worms: Werner'sche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1981, 59–64.52. Wölfflin, "Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture", 149. For an extensive study on Wölfflin's dissertation, see Lurz, Heinrich Wölfflin, 53–89.53. Mark Jarzombek interprets Wölfflin's avoidance of the term Einfühlung as an attempt to escape a categorisation of his art historical method; Mark Jarzombek, "De-Scribing the Language of Looking: Wölfflin and the History of Aesthetic Experientialism", Assemblage, 9, no. 23 (April 1994), 42.54. Johannes Volkelt, Der Symbol-Begriff in der neuesten Aesthetik, Jena: Hermann Dufft, 1876, 51 (translation by the author).55. For Wölfflin's misinterpretation of Volkelt's work, see Lurz, Heinrich Wölfflin, 69–71.56. Wölfflin, "Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture", 159.57. Wölfflin, "Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture", 151.58. In his review of Lipps' Raumästhetik und geometrisch-optische Täuschungen, Wölfflin would also give the example of the column: "The author [Lipps] starts out from the psychological fact that all forms are interpreted according to their activities [Thätigkeit]. While perceived aesthetically, the column is not a motionless form [ruhendes Gebilde], but a being that gives itself a form, that raises and contracts itself, that senses and overcomes an impression of resistance etc.". Wölfflin, "Theodor Lipps: Raumästhetik", 292 (translation by the author).59. Wölfflin, "Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture", 151.60. For the comparison of Doric and Ionic architecture, see Wölfflin, "Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture", 179–181.61. Wölfflin, "Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture", 181.62. Wölfflin applied the hypothesis of an unconscious ascription of emotions to objects explicitly to architecture in his habilitation and, therein, he again saw human physicality as the key to empathy; Heinrich Wölfflin, Renaissance und Barock. Eine Untersuchung über Wesen und Entstehung des Barockstils in Italien, Munich: Theodor Ackermann, 1888, 63.63. Wölfflin, "Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture", 182.64. "Transposing his model of empathy at once from the universal to the historically specific and from the individual to the collective, he [Wölfflin]defines architectural style as the expression of the feeling of a particular people and age". Helen Bridge, "Empathy Theory and Heinrich Wölfflin: A Reconsideration", Journal of European Studies, 41, no. 1 (March 2011), 9–10.65. Heinrich Wölfflin, Principles of Art History. The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art [Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Das Problem der Stilentwicklung in der neueren Kunst] (1915), New York: Dover Publications, 1950.66. "By attributing everything to expression alone, we make the false assumption that for every state of mind the same expressional methods were always available". Wölfflin, Principles of Art History, 13.67. For the chapter, "The Double Root of Style", see Wölfflin, Principles of Art History, 1–13.68. For the pair, "Linear and Painterly", see Wölfflin, Principles of Art History, 18–72. Meinhold Lurz delivers proof of Wölfflin's reading of Robert Vischer; see Lurz, Heinrich Wölfflin, 74, 188.69. Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 94.70. Wölfflin still emphasised the dominance of optics by explaining changes of style as "decisive readjustment[s] of the eye" and by characterising formal principles as "modes of vision", an interpretation that put him close to Vischer's distinction between "seeing" and "scanning"; Wölfflin, Principles of Art History, 18.71. For the disciplinary orientation of Wölfflin's dissertation and habilitation, as well as for his later extension of the method to painting and sculpture, see Lurz, Heinrich Wölfflin, 9.72. Stephan Nachtsheim sees the basis for Wolfflin's art historical method in empathy theory, a theory that he in his later works "would not relinquish, but complement and modify […]". Stephan Nachtsheim, Kunstphilosophie und empirische Kunstforschung 1870–1920, Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1984, 117 (translation by the author).73. Wölfflin, Principles of Art History, 63.74. This pre-eminence of bodily forms in Wölfflin's method becomes obvious in a commentary on architectural space in his Principles of Art History, where he in reality did not deal with spatial forms, but with three-dimensional space: "Space, being physical, can only be apprehended by physical organs". Wölfflin, Principles of Art History, 63.75. For Schmarsow's biography, see August Schmarsow, "Rückschau beim Eintritt ins siebzigste Lebensjahr", in Johannes Jahn (ed.), Die Kunstwissenschaft der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen, Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1924, 135–156; and Peter H. Feist, "Schmarsow, August Hannibal", in Neue Deutsche Biographie, vol. 23, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007, 121–123.76. For Schmarsow's monographic studies, see, for instance, August Schmarsow, Leibniz und Schottelius. Die unvorgreiflichen Gedanken, Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner, 1877; and Schmarsow, Raphael und Pinturicchio in Siena. Eine kritische Studie, Stuttgart: W. Spemann, 1880.77. Schmarsow, "The Essence of Architectural Creation", 281–297.78. Schmarsow, "The Essence of Architectural Creation", 283. With the term "aesthetic from within", Schmarsow distinguished his concept from formal aesthetic architectural analyses on the one hand, and, on the other, from an empirical approach undertaken by the philosopher Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801–1887), who differentiated between an "aesthetic from above" and an "aesthetic from below". For Fechner's aesthetics, see Gustav Theodor Fechner, Vorschule der Aesthetik, part 1, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1876; for an English excerpt, see Gustav Theodor Fechner, "Aesthetics from Above and from Below", in Harrison, Wood, and Gaiger, Art in Theory, 632–635.79. Schmarsow, "The Essence of Architectural Creation", 283.80. Schmarsow, "The Essence of Architectural Creation", 283.81. Magdalena Bushart sees in empathy theory a precondition for the possibility of treating different phases of art history and different stages of development of art equally: "As soon as the focus no longer lay on the single work of art, but on the 'constitutive categories of the soul', works of practical art could rank as high as those of the fine arts". Bushart, "'Form' und 'Gestalt'", 148 (translation by the author).82. Schmarsow, "The Essence of Architectural Creation", 291.83. Schmarsow, "The Essence of Architectural Creation", 286.84. For Schmarsow's opinion on the tectonic structure of a building, see Schmarsow, "The Essence of Architectural Creation", 294.85. Schmarsow, "The Essence of Architectural Creation", 288.86. For the comparison of the human body and the three dimensions of space, see Schmarsow, "The Essence of Architectural Creation", 288–291.87. Regine Heß points out that Wilhelm Wundt was professor at Leipzig at the time when Schmarsow held his inaugural lecture; Regine Heß, Emotionen am Werk. Peter Zumthor, Daniel Libeskind, Lars Spuybroek und die historische Architekturpsychologie, Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2013, 88.88. For the importance of the movement of the eyes for spatial perception, see Wundt, Grundzüge, 552. Referring to Wundt, Kirsten Wagner shows the importance of movement for spatial perception by summarising that "the tactile and visual scanning [Abtasten] of objects by a moving body that is at the same time experiencing this movement leads to the idea of space". Wagner, "Die Beseelung der Architektur", 56 (translation by the author).89. For Lotze's explanation of spatial perception with the help of man's movement and physicality, see Hermann Lotze, Grundzüge der Psychologie. Dictate aus den Vorlesungen, Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1881, 34–36. Beatrix Zug also relates Schmarsow's theory to Lotze's Mikrokosmus; Beatrix Zug, Die Anthropologie des Raumes in der Architekturtheorie des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts, Tübingen/Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth, 2006, 15–18.90. Schmarsow, "The Essence of Architectural Creation", 291.91. Schmarsow, "Rückschau beim Eintritt ins siebzigste Lebensjahr", 7 (translation by the author).92. Roger Lüdeke sees the influence of empathy theory in Schmarsow's inaugural lecture, as well as on Wölfflin's dissertation, in the determination of space by "the spatial experience of a subject in his given anthropological and historical conditions […]". Roger Lüdeke, "Einleitung", in Jörg Dünne and Stephan Günzel (eds), Raumtheorie. Grundlagentexte aus Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2006, 455 (translation by the author).93. In his lecture, Schmarsow acknowledged neither Vischer nor Wölfflin, but referred to Lipps' Ästhetische Faktoren der Raumanschauung in the context of the unity of the "creative and appreciative subject"; Schmarsow, "The Essence of Architectural Creation", 283.94. Vischer, "On the Optical Sense of Form", 105. The influence of Robert Vischer on Schmarsow's theory is hinted at by Mitchell Schwarzer, who significantly claims that Theodor Lipps had coined the term Einfühlung in his book, Raumästhetik und geometrisch-optische Täuschungen, from 1897; Mitchell W. Schwarzer, "The Emergence of Architectural Space. August Schmarsow's Theory of 'Raumgestaltung'", Assemblage, 6, no. 15 (August 1991), 53.95. August Schmarsow, "Ueber den Werth der Dimensionen im menschlichen Raumgebilde", Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Königlich-Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 48, Philologisch-Historische Klasse (1896), 44–61.96. For Semper's creative principles, see Gottfried Semper, "Ueber die formelle Gesetzmäßigkeit des Schmuckes und dessen Bedeutung als Kunstsymbol" (1856), in Manfred Semper and Hans Semper (eds), Kleine Schriften von Gottfried Semper, Berlin/Stuttgart: W. Spemann, 1884, 328–329.97. For the classification of the arts according to their respective relationship to one of the three dimensions of space, see Schmarsow, "Ueber den Werth der Dimensionen im menschlichen Raumgebilde", 60.98. Schmarsow, "Ueber den Werth der Dimensionen im menschlichen Raumgebilde", 61 (translation by the author).99. For Schmarsow's psychological interpretation of the respective tendencies, see Schmarsow, "Ueber den Werth der Dimensionen im menschlichen Raumgebilde", 61.
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