Strzygowski, Joseph

STRZYGOWSKI, JOSEPH. - Art historian, b. at Biela, in what was then Austrian Silesia, on 7 March 1862, d. on 7 Jan. 1941. He studied archaeology and art history at the Universities of Vienna, Berlin and Munich, achieving brilliant successes and arousing admiration for his vast culture.

His first scholarly essays concerned the history of art in Italy and an original essay on Cimabue und Rom., published in 1888. A professor at Graz in 1892, he moved to the University of Vienna in 1909. After his profound study of Italian art, S. devoted himself to investigations into the origins of ancient art and especially to studies relating to the art of the late Empire and Early Christian art in Rome and in 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 the other parts of Europe. S. devoted particular research to demonstrating and illustrating the close ties between the characteristic art of the Iranian regions and that of certain peoples of northern Europe. A further manifestation of S.'s scholarly activity was the conclusive demonstration of the unity of the art that developed over the course of the centuries in the north of Europe and Asia, as opposed to the close ties that link and fuse into their various branches the art of the southern regions of Europe and Asia. Among S.'s principal works the following should be noted: 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.

Gioacchino Mancini