Aloys Hirt was a German art historian and archaeologist of Greek and Roman architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

. He was responsible for the King of Prussia's antiquities collection

Antikensammlung Berlin

The Antikensammlung Berlin is one of the most important collections of classical art in the world, now held in the Altes Museum and Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany. It contains thousands of ancient archaeological artefacts from the ancient Greek, Roman, Etruscan and Cypriot civilizations...

 from 1798, and became was the University of Berlin's first professor of art theory and art history in 1810.

Italy

Hirt came from a wealthy rural family, and so was able to attend secondary school at the Donauschingen Gymnasium after being educated by Benedictine monks. After the death of his childhood sweetheart, he entered a monastery for a while, before studying philosophy at Nancy university. Intending to get a degree in jurisprudence

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...

 and government, he briefly studied it at Freiburg soon afterwards. However, in 1779, he switched university to Vienna and subject to classics, staying 3 years. From 1782-96 he lived in Italy, visiting Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Sicily. Hirt became increasingly interested in art, after reading Johann Winckelmann's works and being exposed to wide variety of art available for study in Italy. Working as an archaeologist and (from 1785) as an established and knowledgeable tour guide

Cicerone

Cicerone is an old term for a guide, one who conducts visitors and sightseers to museums, galleries, etc., and explains matters of archaeological, antiquarian, historic or artistic interest. The word is presumably taken from Marcus Tullius Cicero, as a type of learning and eloquence...

 (his clients included Goethe, Frederick William von Erdmannsdorff

Frederick William von Erdmannsdorff

Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Erdmannsdorff was a German architect and architectural theoretician, and one of the most significant representatives of early German Neoclassicism. His work included Wörlitz House in Wörlitzer Park near Dessau, one of the earliest classical houses on the European...

, Luise von Brandenburg-Schwedt, Herder

Johann Gottfried Herder

Johann Gottfried von Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism.-Biography:...

, Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and the countess Wilhelmine von Lichtenau

Wilhelmine von Lichtenau

Wilhelmine, Gräfin von Lichtenau, born as Wilhelmine Enke, also spelled Encke, , was the official mistress of King Frederick William II of Prussia from 1769 until 1797 and was elevated by him into the nobility...

), Hirt also assimilated with the German expatriate community in Rome. Also in Rome, in 1791, he published a treatise on the Pantheon

Pantheon, Rome

The Pantheon ,Rarely Pantheum. This appears in Pliny's Natural History in describing this edifice: Agrippae Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis; in columnis templi eius Caryatides probantur inter pauca operum, sicut in fastigio posita signa, sed propter altitudinem loci minus celebrata.from ,...

, Osservazioni istorico-architettoniche sopra il Panteon.

It led among other things Friedrich Wilhelm of Erdmannsdorff and the duke Luise of support the sow, Goethe, Herder, duke Anna Amalia of Saxon-Weimar-Eisenach and the countess Lichtenau. It recovered 1794 the title of a princely Weimarischen advice.

Return to Berlin

His time in Italy ended with the onset of the Napoleonic Wars in 1796, when he was called to the Akademie der Wissenschaft und Künste in Berlin to teach the "theory of art", and to be arts advisor to the King of Prussia, with the patronage of the countess von Lichtenau. In 1797, he made a public lecture outlining plans for a public museum in Berlin to contain the finest Prussian art treasures arranged by artistic 'school' for the edification of the art lover and public. The proposal were green-lighted by King Friederich Wilhelm II

Frederick William II of Prussia

Frederick William II was the King of Prussia, reigning from 1786 until his death. He was in personal union the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg and the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel.-Early life:...

 and given royal patronage, which continued with Friedrich's successor. Hirt settled on a site 'Unter den Linden

Unter den Linden

Unter den Linden is a boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, the capital of Germany. It is named for its linden trees that line the grassed pedestrian mall between two carriageways....

' (where today stands Schinkel's Arsenal) and produced an initial design, revolutionary in its use of shutters to control light. This, however, was never built, with the start of construction being delayed by Napoleon's conquest of Europe and shelved indefinitely by his decisive victory over the Prussians in 1806 and the punitive Treaty of Tilsit.

1809-1810

With the museum postponed, Hirt published his seminal "Die Baukunst nach den Grundsätzen der Alten" in 1809, arguing for neo-classicism in modern architecture and becoming one of the movements dominant texts. In 1810, Christian von Mechel (who had reorganized what artworks were left in the Sanssouci

Sanssouci

Sanssouci is the name of the former summer palace of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in Potsdam, near Berlin. It is often counted among the German rivals of Versailles. While Sanssouci is in the more intimate Rococo style and is far smaller than its French Baroque counterpart, it too is...

 palace after the French had plundered it) reminded Friederich Wilhelm III of the project to create an art museum in Berlin. 1810 also marked the foundation of the University of Berlin, with Hirt asked to be its first professor of art history and of archaeology. His students there and at the Bauakademie

Bauakademie

The Bauakademie in Berlin, Germany, built between 1832 and 1836, is considered one of the forerunners of modern architecture due to its theretofore uncommon use of red brick and the relatively streamlined facade of the building.Designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the Bauakademie was built near...

 he had founded included a whole generation of German classicizing architects - Christian Daniel, Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Karl Friedrich Schinkel was a Prussian architect, city planner, and painter who also designed furniture and stage sets. Schinkel was one of the most prominent architects of Germany and designed both neoclassical and neogothic buildings.-Biography:Schinkel was born in Neuruppin, Margraviate of...

 (who he knew from his time at the Akademie der Wissenschaft und Künste), Heinrich Gentz (1764–1832) and Friedrich Weinbrenner

Friedrich Weinbrenner

Friedrich Weinbrenner was a German architect and city planner admired for his mastery of classical style.- Birth and education :...

 (1766–1826). Weinbrenner went on to evangelize Hirt's architectural classicism at his own new architecture school at Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe

The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

.

Under attack

In 1815 the Prussian works appropriated by Napoleon to create a museum in Paris telling a comprehensive history of art were returned and put on public display at the Akademie der Wissenschaft, seen by Friederich Wilhelm himself. Impressed by Napoleon's short-lived universalist notion, Friederich set about forming one in Berlin. Hirt was a member on the committee ordered by Friedrich for this purpose, but suffered criticism from young art history students like Karl Ruhmohr and Gustav Waagen.

From the 1820s Hirt'ss views and methods had increasingly become seen as too subjective and unscientific, though he retained influence at court. Waagen had studied the stolen works of Prussia in Paris and come to the conclusion that an art museum's prime focus was not national prestige or education, as Hirt argued, but the pleasure of viewing art. Waagen's 1828 pamphlet gave a detailed account of this competition, and asserted that quality (i.e. only the better or more representative artworks of each era) not quantity (i.e. all the state's works) should be displayed. Disagreeing, Hirt in the end left the committee.

Hirt's architectural stance on neo-classicism was also under attack, principally by Heinrich Hübsch

Heinrich Hübsch

Heinrich Hübsch was a German architect. After studies in Heidelberg and at Friedrich Weinbrenner's school of architecture in Karlsruhe he traveled extensively in Greece and Italy . In 1831 he was appointed Oberbaurat at Karlsruhe...

 (1795–1863), a student of in Weinbrenner's from Karlsruhe, who laid the foundations in his 1828 book "In welchem Style sollen Wir bauen?" (In What Style Should We Build?) for new revivals of post-classical styles.

Later life

In 1830, he examined the Berlin (later Darmstadt) version of Hans Holbein the younger

Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...

's "Bürgermeister Meyer Madonna", now known to be the original. His opinion came to be part of the body of critical opinion considered in the so-called "Holbein convention" held in 1871. With his health failing, in the 1830s he withdrew increasingly out of the public life.

Reception

Hirt was one of the first to hang paintings in historical order, an idea he may have drawn from the installation at the Imperial Gallery in Vienna. His "Geschichte der Baukunst bei der Alten" was instrumental for the classical revival in Germany and Europe. Goethe featured Hirt in his 1799 novella "Der Sammler und die Seinigen".

Despite ignominiously departing from the Museum committee, the 1823–30 building designed by his student Schinkel, known as the Altes Museum

Altes Museum

The Altes Museum , is one of several internationally renowned museums on Museum Island in Berlin, Germany. Since restoration work in 1966, it houses the Antikensammlung of the Berlin State Museums...

, was as much the product of Hirt's efforts as of Waagen's.

Works

• Die Geschichte der Baukunst bei der Alten. 3 vols. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1821–1827
• Die Geschichte der bildenden Künste bei den Alten. Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 18331833
• Bilderbuch für Mythologie, Archäologie und Kunst. 2 vols. Berlin: In Commission bey I. D. Sander, 1805–1816
• Der Tempel der Diana zu Ephesus. Berlin: J. F. Weiss, 1809
• Die Baukunst nach den Grundsätzen der Alten. Berlin: In der Realschulbuchhandlung, 1809
• Osservazioni istorico-architettoniche sopra il Panteon. Rome: Pagliarini, 1791
• Kunstbemerkungne auf einer reise über Wittenberg und Meissen nach Dresden und Prag. Berlin: Verlag von Duncker & Humblot, 1830
• Die Lehre der Gebäude bei den Griechen und Römern. Berlin: Reimer, 1827
• Von den ägyptischen Pyramiden überhaupt, und von ihrem Baue insbesondere. Berlin: G. C. Nauck, 1815
• Heinrich Hübsch über griechische Baukunst, dargestellt. Berlin: s.n., 1823
• "Ueber die Baue Herodes des Grossen überhaupt, und über seinen Tempelbau zu Jerusalem ins besondere." Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin. Historisch-philologische Klasse. (1816–17): 1-24
• "Ueber die Bildung des Nackten bei den Alten." Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin 7 (1820–21): 289-304
• "Ueber die Gegenstände der Kunst bei den Aegyptern." Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin 7 (1820–21):115-174.

Further reading

• Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassichen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Reinhard Lullies, ed. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1988: 12-13
• Sheehan, James J. Museums in the German Art World: From the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of Modernism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 54–55, 79-80
• Kultermann, Udo. The History of Art History. New York: Abaris, 1993, p. 145
• Sedlarz, Claudia, and Johannsen, Rolf Hermann. Aloys Hirt: Archäologe, Historiker, Kunstkenner. Hannover-Laatzen: Wehrhahn, 2004.

External links

• Dictionary of art historians