Overview

Matthew Rampley’s The Vienna School of Art History is the first book in over seventy-five years to study in depth and in context the practices of art history from 1847, the year the first teaching position in the discipline was created, to 1918, the collapse of Austria-Hungary. It traces the emergence of art history as a discipline, the establishment of norms of scholarly inquiry, and the involvement of art historians in wider debates about the cultural and political identity of the monarchy. The so-called Vienna School plays the central role in the study, but Rampley also examines the formation of art history elsewhere in Austria-Hungary. Located in the Habsburg imperial capital, Vienna art historians frequently became entangled in debates that were of importance to art historians elsewhere in the Empire, and Rampley pays particular attention to these areas of overlapping interest. He also analyzes the methodological innovations for which the Vienna School was well known. Rampley focuses most fully, however, on the larger political and ideological context of the practice of art history—particularly the way in which art-historical debates served as proxies for wider arguments over the political, social, and cultural life of the Habsburg Empire.

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9780271061580

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Matthew Rampley's status as one of the foremost scholars of the historiography of art is on full display in this meticulously researched and detailed account of the rise of the first Vienna School of art history. . . . Rampley's book is a necessary corrective and addition to the existing scholarship on the Vienna School. --Max Koss, CritCom: A Forum for Research and Commentary on Europe

The first quality one might expect in yet another book on [this] subject would be a fair and consistent referencing of . . . secondary literature. With <em>The Vienna School of Art History: Empire and the Politics of Scholarship, 1847 1918</em>, Matthew Rampley fulfills this expectation meticulously; indeed the latter quality pervades the work as a whole, deftly managing a large body of information and complex thought within what is not an overly long book. </p> Stefan Muthesius, <em>CAA.Reviews</em></p>

This is the most commendable art-historical text to come my way in a long time, a major intellectual achievement on all fronts. Very much to his credit, Rampley writes in gracefully lucid language, something that cannot be said about many scholars attracted to this material. </p>--Michael Yonan, <em>Austrian History Yearbook</em></p>

Matthew Rampley s status as one of the foremost scholars of the historiography of art is on full display in this meticulously researched and detailed account of the rise of the first Vienna School of art history. . . . Rampley s book is a necessary corrective and addition to the existing scholarship on the Vienna School. Max Koss, CritCom: A Forum for Research and Commentary on Europe

Author Information

Matthew Rampley is Chair of Art History at the University of Birmingham.

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