This volume of the Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte contains fourteen studies, which were written on the
occasion of the 150th anniversary of Rudolf Eitelberger`s appointment to Vienna`s first extraordinary professor for
history of art and art archaeology in 1852. This was to be the foundation of the Viennese institute for history of art
and, in the long run, the beginning of the so-called "Viennese the School of history of art". (Some of the articles
were presented at the symposium "Viennese school and the future of the history of art" in 2002, some are
completely new.)
In 1934, Julius von Schlosser`s "Review on a Saeculum of German scholars` Work in Austria" explicitly used the
term "Viennese School" for the first time. Apart from the fact that Schlosser`s historical review definitely was a
selective one, he succeeded to underline the autonomy and the professionalism of the relatively young discipline of
history of art by presenting an ancestor gallery and a demonstration of the specific methodology (see: B.
Wyss/Stuttgart). Schlosser`s term "Viennese school" of course recurred upon topics, which his predecessor Max
Dvork had already mentioned in his obituaries for Alois Riegl and Franz Wickhoff, both former teachers of Julius
von Schlosser.
In 1936, the New York art historian Meyer Schapiro also used the term "New Viennese School" and therewith
canonized Schlosser`s invention. He took main interest in the methodical notions of Otto Paecht, Fritz Nowotny
and Hans Sedlmayr. Schapiro focused on ideas dealing with the analysis of form, which could be put down to
Alois Riegl - therefore it was in America, that the term "Viennese school" gained theoretical profile (see:
Ch.Wood/New Haven).
This volume is dedicated to this emergence of the Viennese school and deals with the generation of Julius von
Schlosser`s pupils, thus with Sedlmayr, Paecht and Gombrich (see: M. Podro/Essex and Th. Zaunschirm/Essen); on
the other hand, the present studies ask for those, who were the preceding teachers, namely Wickhoff, Riegl and
Dvork (see: U. Rehm/Bonn, W. Hofmann/Hamburg, H. Koerner/Duesseldorf and J. Bakoš/Bratislava).
The history of persons and conceptions in a scienctific-historical and an ideological sense are critically analysed,
not least the years 1934 to 1938 and 1938 to 1945 (see: H. Aurenhammer/Wien and B. Binstock/New York). In
addition, this volume of the Wiener Jahrbuch aims to deal with Schlosser`s pupils and contemporaries regarding the
future of the Viennese School in a methodical discourse (see: V. Schmidt-Linsenhoff/Trier, M.V. Schwarz/Vienna,
K. Kokai/Vienna - Budapest, D. McEwan/London).