JOSEPH STRZYGOWSKI. — Art historian, b. at Biela, then in Austrian Silesia, on 7 March 1862, d. 7 January 1941. He studied archaeology and art history at the Universities of Vienna, Berlin, and Munich, achieving brilliant success and arousing admiration for his vast learning.
His first scholarly essays concerned the history of art in Italy and an original study on Cimbaude und Rom, published in 1888. Professor at Graz in 1892, he moved to the University of Vienna in 1909. After his deep study of Italian art, Strzygowski devoted himself to investigations into the origins of ancient art, particularly the art of the late Empire and early Christian Rome and the East. Original and ingenious were his treatments of the artistic manifestations of Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Iran in relation to those of Italy, Greece, Spain, and other parts of Europe. Strzygowski devoted particular research to demonstrating and illustrating the close ties between the characteristic art of the Iranian regions and that of some populations of northern Europe. A further manifestation of Strzygowski’s scholarly activity was his conclusive demonstration of the unity of the art developed over the centuries in the north of Europe and Asia, in contrast to the close ties that unite and blend in various branches the art of the southern regions of Europe and Asia.
Among Strzygowski’s principal works are to be noted the following: Ikonographie der Taufe Christi, Munich 1885; Orient oder Rom, Leipzig 1901; Kleinasien: ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte, ibid. 1909; Amida, Heidelberg 1910; Altai-Iran und Völkerwanderung, Vienna 1917; Die Krisis der Geisteswissenschaften, ibid. 1923.