DOI Heft:
Nr. 3-4
DOI Artikel:Gombrich, Ernst H.: Art and history and the republic of learning
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48916#0199
ARTYKUŁY
ERNST HANS GOMBRJCH
Art History and the Republic of Learning*
Gratias summas tibi, magnifice rector, totaeąue
Facultati agere hora et voluntas aeque me
impellunt. Non vero sum inscius me mineme
dignum esse tanto honore. Laudatione audita,
oculis demessis stupeo, nec advenit responsum:
Lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
Flamma demanat...
Cum autem conspicio turbam istam egregiam
amicorum benevolentium crescunt mihi fortitudo viresque.
Erubesco sane linguam vestram Hispanicam nescire.
Sed iucunda et suavis auribus meis est istae venerabilis
caerimoniae sermo. Latine enim fuit iuramentum quod
Universitati Vindobonensi iuravi quando dignitatem
recepi doctoris, non honoris sed laboris causa. Latine etiam
erant solemnitates apud Universitates Oxonii (et)
Cantabrigiaeque ubi professoris munere olim functus
sum. Nihil aptius: quoniam ista gloriosa lingua multa per
saecula communis et velut universa erat Reipublicae
litterarum. Cuius Reipublicae me civem fecerunt benigna
Fata. Nam Austriaca patria profugo refugium mihi
sodalitas academica Britanniae praebebat, ut Bibliotheca
Warbugenis ex Germania iam feliciter translata studia
humanitatis me secure persequi concessit. Laborabant
enim illo tempore talia studia in angustiis ob fanaticorum
insaniam. At nunc, cum de tribulatione nostri saeculi sit
disserendum, liceat mihi ad linguam hodiemam transire.
I feel today the Republic of Learning and of Letters is
again threatened by the madness that grips mankind from
time to time. I speak of the epidemie of extreme nationalism,
chauvenism and indeed tribalism that has recently tom
whole States assunder and menaces others of Europę and of
Asia with disintegration and chaos. Corruptio optimi
pessima (the corruption of the best is the worst) - to revert
to Latin for a moment. Patriotism, the love of one’s country,
is surely a virtue, but the pride and arrogance that produces
hate and contempt for others is equally surely a vice. It is not
for nothing, after all, that pride, superbia, was reckoned
among the deadly sins. It is against this deadly sin of vanity,
this denial of the brotherhood of man, that my subject, the
history of art, should offer an antidote. Other branches of
the histories, such as the history of literaturę, can be pursued
on a namów national basis, sińce only those who know the
national language can appreciate its literary masterpieces.
The language of the arts has rightly been called universal.
For all his admiration of the bizarre visual sennons of
‘Hieronymus Bosch’ (Jeroen van Aken, from
s’Hertogenbosch), Philip II of Spain was nonę the less a
fervent admirer of the sensuous glories of the Venetian
master, Tiziano Vecelli. I know very well that even our
studies have been misused and exploited in the interests of
nationalist ideologies, but these tendencies are manifestly
absurd. No historian of art would deny that centres of
excellence have developed in the past which rightly secured
for themselves International famę. But such centres in their
tum could never have emerged without contact with
practically the whole of mankind.
With your permission I should like to tell you here of
an experience I had last year when I was invited to the
Italian city of Faenza, a city famous for its ceramic
productions, which gave the name of fayence to a very
popular type of ware. The circumstances of my visit
compelled me to study the history of this centre of
excellence, and it was thus that I discovered the global
connection of all the arts. I leamed that the type of
ceramics known in Italy as Maiolica derived its name from
the Spanish port of Majorca. It was from Majorca that the
Italians imported the beautiful plates and dishes which we
now cali Hispano-Moresąue, and which were indeed the
product of traditions brought to Spain by the Moors. Their
excellence can be traced back to the Islamie workshops of
the Middłe East where Arabie craftsmen invented the
greatest yariety of colours and glazes to satisfy the princes
and merchants of their region. But what surprised me was
Biuletyn Historii Sztuki
R.LXI, 1997, Nr 3-4
177
ERNST HANS GOMBRJCH
Art History and the Republic of Learning*
Gratias summas tibi, magnifice rector, totaeąue
Facultati agere hora et voluntas aeque me
impellunt. Non vero sum inscius me mineme
dignum esse tanto honore. Laudatione audita,
oculis demessis stupeo, nec advenit responsum:
Lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
Flamma demanat...
Cum autem conspicio turbam istam egregiam
amicorum benevolentium crescunt mihi fortitudo viresque.
Erubesco sane linguam vestram Hispanicam nescire.
Sed iucunda et suavis auribus meis est istae venerabilis
caerimoniae sermo. Latine enim fuit iuramentum quod
Universitati Vindobonensi iuravi quando dignitatem
recepi doctoris, non honoris sed laboris causa. Latine etiam
erant solemnitates apud Universitates Oxonii (et)
Cantabrigiaeque ubi professoris munere olim functus
sum. Nihil aptius: quoniam ista gloriosa lingua multa per
saecula communis et velut universa erat Reipublicae
litterarum. Cuius Reipublicae me civem fecerunt benigna
Fata. Nam Austriaca patria profugo refugium mihi
sodalitas academica Britanniae praebebat, ut Bibliotheca
Warbugenis ex Germania iam feliciter translata studia
humanitatis me secure persequi concessit. Laborabant
enim illo tempore talia studia in angustiis ob fanaticorum
insaniam. At nunc, cum de tribulatione nostri saeculi sit
disserendum, liceat mihi ad linguam hodiemam transire.
I feel today the Republic of Learning and of Letters is
again threatened by the madness that grips mankind from
time to time. I speak of the epidemie of extreme nationalism,
chauvenism and indeed tribalism that has recently tom
whole States assunder and menaces others of Europę and of
Asia with disintegration and chaos. Corruptio optimi
pessima (the corruption of the best is the worst) - to revert
to Latin for a moment. Patriotism, the love of one’s country,
is surely a virtue, but the pride and arrogance that produces
hate and contempt for others is equally surely a vice. It is not
for nothing, after all, that pride, superbia, was reckoned
among the deadly sins. It is against this deadly sin of vanity,
this denial of the brotherhood of man, that my subject, the
history of art, should offer an antidote. Other branches of
the histories, such as the history of literaturę, can be pursued
on a namów national basis, sińce only those who know the
national language can appreciate its literary masterpieces.
The language of the arts has rightly been called universal.
For all his admiration of the bizarre visual sennons of
‘Hieronymus Bosch’ (Jeroen van Aken, from
s’Hertogenbosch), Philip II of Spain was nonę the less a
fervent admirer of the sensuous glories of the Venetian
master, Tiziano Vecelli. I know very well that even our
studies have been misused and exploited in the interests of
nationalist ideologies, but these tendencies are manifestly
absurd. No historian of art would deny that centres of
excellence have developed in the past which rightly secured
for themselves International famę. But such centres in their
tum could never have emerged without contact with
practically the whole of mankind.
With your permission I should like to tell you here of
an experience I had last year when I was invited to the
Italian city of Faenza, a city famous for its ceramic
productions, which gave the name of fayence to a very
popular type of ware. The circumstances of my visit
compelled me to study the history of this centre of
excellence, and it was thus that I discovered the global
connection of all the arts. I leamed that the type of
ceramics known in Italy as Maiolica derived its name from
the Spanish port of Majorca. It was from Majorca that the
Italians imported the beautiful plates and dishes which we
now cali Hispano-Moresąue, and which were indeed the
product of traditions brought to Spain by the Moors. Their
excellence can be traced back to the Islamie workshops of
the Middłe East where Arabie craftsmen invented the
greatest yariety of colours and glazes to satisfy the princes
and merchants of their region. But what surprised me was
Biuletyn Historii Sztuki
R.LXI, 1997, Nr 3-4
177