Re-reading Riegl

• Main Author: Matthew Rampley
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Department of Art History, University of Birmingham 2011-12-01
• Series: Journal of Art Historiography
• Subjects: Riegl; Vienna School; monument protection; Kunstwollen; Habsburg Empire; Islamic studies; national economy; ethnology; archaeology
• Online Access: http://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/rampley.pdf

Review of: Peter Noever, Artur Rosenauer and Georg Vasold, eds, Alois Riegl Revisited. Beiträge zu Werk und Rezeption. Contributions to the Opus and its Reception. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010. Michael S. Falser, Wilfried Lipp, Andrzek Tomaszewski, eds, Conservation and Preservation. Interactions between Theory and Practice. In Memoriam Alois Riegl (1858-1905). Proceedings of the International Conference of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee for the Theory and the Philosophy of Conservation and Restoration, 23-27 April 2008, Vienna. Florence: Polistampa, 2010. This review examines two recent publications concerned with the legacy of Alois Riegl. It considers these books as examples of the changing landscape of Riegl scholarship, in which the traditional concern with issues of methodology (notably the meaning and function of Riegl’s concept of the Kunstwollen) has given way to an engagement with his place in the wider cultural and academic politics of the Habsburg Empire. The review examines Riegl’s engagement with disciplines such as national economy, ethnology, Islamic studies and archaeology.