Kurt Badt

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Kurt Badt (*March 3, 1890 in Berlin; †November 22, 1973 in Überlingen) was a German art historian.

Life and work

The son of a Berlin banker, Badt studied art history and philosophy first at the universities of Berlin and Munich and then in Freiburg, where he was a student of Wilhelm Vöge. Among his fellow students was the young Erwin Panofsky. Badt completed his doctoral dissertation on Andrea Solario in 1914. He started his career as an assistant at the Kunsthalle Bremen, but most of his life he was an independent scholar teaching privately, as his family was wealthy and he did not need an academic job in order to earn a living. According to Alfons Rosenberg, he lived the life of a Renaissance humanist.[1] In 1939 he left Germany gaining a research position at the newly founded Warburg Institute in London. He returned to Germany in 1950, where he became a German citizen in 1952 and helped to reorganize of the university system. His writings include studies on Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Eugène Delacroix, Nicolas Poussin, Jan Vermeer, John Constable, Paul Cézanne, Raphael, Vincent van Gogh, Paolo Veronese, Ernst Barlach and attacks on the methodology of the "second Vienna school" of art history dominated by Hans Sedlmayr. He considered "masterpieces" to be the only works of art worth studying.

His first marriage with Ella C. Wollheim dissolved, Badt married Helen "Leni" Arnheim (1906-1973), the sister of Rudolf Arnheim. However, he divorced from his second wife in 1937.[2]

Aged 83, Badt committed suicide.

Influence

Badt was one of the most influential art historians of his time. His work influenced the German art historians Gertrude Berthold, Lorenz Dittmann, Martin Gosebruch, Werner Gross, Josef Adolf Schmoll genannt Eisenwerth and Max Imdahl[3] and he is frequently quoted by English and American art historians. For instance, Geoffrey Grigson said, "Painting is a difficult subject to write about, and searching books on particular painters are as rare as unicorns... One of them, and how welcome, is Dr Kurt Badt's The Art of Cézanne.[4] According to Robert Hobbs, "Badt's study is particularly helpful in articulating certain aspects of [Malcolm] Morley's overall program that has definite affinities with Cézanne's."[5] Mary Jacobus calls Badt a "pioneering writer on Constable's clouds".[6] The Times Literary Supplement called Constable's Clouds the best book on Constable since Leslie's Life.[7] Rudolf Arnheim often cites Badt in his widely read Art and Visual Perception. He writes: "It may seem paradoxical for Kurt Badt to say that Rubens is one of the simplest of all artists. He explains, 'It is true that in order to grasp his simplicity, one must be able to understand an order that dominates an enormous world of active forces.' Badt defines artistic simplicity as 'the wisest ordering of means based on insight into the essentials, to which everything else must be subservient.' "[8] When Arnheim asked Badt what he meant by "intelligent" art, he answered with the following list: "Artistic intelligence: Michelangelo, Poussin, Delacroix. Lack of it: Memling, Riemenschneider, Ingres, Kandinsky."[9]

"Obituaries in German newspapers described him as one of the most distinguished art historians of Germany."[10]

References

  1. ↑ Alfons Rosenberg, "In Memory of Dr Kurt Badt". AJR Information, volume XXIX, no. 2, February 1974, p. 5.
  2. ↑ Die wahre Schönheit der Dinge: Kurt Badt. Galerie Bodenseekreis Meersburg, 2013.
  3. ↑ Dictionary of Art Historians: Badt, Kurt (Ludwig)
  4. ↑ Country Life, vol. 137, 1965, p. 1042.
  5. ↑ Robert Hobbs, "Malcolm Morley: The Art of Painting." In Malcolm Morley. New York: Sperone, Westwater, 2005.
  6. ↑ Mary Jacobus, Romantic Things: A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012, p. 25.
  7. ↑ Alfons Rosenberg, "In Memory of Dr Kurt Badt". AJR Information, volume XXIX, no. 2, February 1974, p. 5.
  8. ↑ Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye. 50th Anniversary Printing. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 2004, p. 60.
  9. ↑ Rudolf Arnheim, Parables of Sun Light: Observations on Psychology, the Arts, and the Rest. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1989, p. 106.
  10. ↑ Alfons Rosenberg, "In Memory of Dr Kurt Badt". AJR Information, volume XXIX, no. 2, February 1974, p. 5.

Further reading

  • Martin Gosebruch, ed., Festschrift Kurt Badt zum siebzigsten Geburtstage. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1961.
  • Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1999, pp. 4–6;
  • Ulrike Wendland, Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler. Munich: Saur, 1999, vol. 1, pp. 21–24.

Select writings

  • Andrea Solario: Sein Leben und sein Werke: Ein Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte der Lombardei. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Freiburg, 1914.
  • "Cézanne's Watercolour Technique." The Burlington Magazine, vol. 83, October 1943, pp. 246–248.
  • Eugène Delacroix Drawings. Oxford: B. Cassirer, 1946.
  • John Constable's Clouds. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1950.
  • The Art of Cézanne. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.
  • "Raphael's Incendio del Borgo." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 22, 1959, pp. 35–59.
  • Modell und Maler von Jan Vermeer: Probleme der Interpretation. Eine Streitschrift gegen Hans Sedlmayr. Cologne: M. DuMont Schauberg, 1961.
  • Die Farbenlehre Van Goghs. Cologne: DuMont, 1961.
  • Raumphantasien und Raumillusionen. Das Wesen der Plastik, Cologne: DuMont, 1963.
  • Eugène Delacroix: Werke und Ideale. Cologne: DuMont, 1965.
  • Kunsttheoretische Versuche: Ausgewählte Aufsätze. Cologne: M. Dumont Schauberg, 1968.
  • Die Kunst des Nicolas Poussin. Cologne: DuMont Schauberg, 1969.
  • "Ein angebliches Selbstbildnis von Nicolas Poussin." Pantheon, vol. 27, 1969, pp. 395–398.
  • Das Spätwerk Cézannes. Constance: Druckerei und Verlagsanstalt Universitätsverlag, 1971.
  • Ernst Barlach, der Bildhauer. Neumünster: Wachholtz, 1971.
  • Eine Wissenschaftslehre der Kunstgeschichte. Cologne: M. Dumont Schauberg, 1971.

External links

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