Werner Gross (art historian)

Werner Gross (25 November 1901 – 28 January 1982) was a German art historian.

Biography

Gross studied art history in Jena, Freiburg, Stuttgart (TH), Leipzig (with Wilhelm Pinder) and Munich. From 1937 to 1943, he was assistant to Theodor Hetzer at Leipzig University. This was followed by a substitute professorship in Jena. As a professor of art history, he taught at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich from 1947 to 1965. His research focused on the architecture of the Middle Ages.

Gross died on January 28, 1982 in Gräfelfing, near Munich.

Writings

His work focused on medieval architecture and its relation to antiquity and modern times. His major work Die abendländische Architektur um 1300 (1948), is a standard work of art historical literature.

Werner Gross' analyses focus on the individual work. The classification in the overall picture of art history is for him an essential means to determine the individuality of a work of art in more detail. Conceptual positivism is replaced by evidence, the intelligence of the eye. Comparison is the basic principle of his research as well as of his argumentation. For Gross, comparison is an instrument to make evident, through the dialectic of similarity and contrast, the unrepeatable of the creative achievement, the individual.

In his writings, the special care that Gross gives to language, especially to the choice of the apt term, becomes clear. He considers language and its terms as a world of forms of our thinking, which coexists with that of the works of art and must be brought into an interrelation by the interpreter: It is not only the search for the apt term, but also an interpretation of the terms through the contemplation of the works of art that makes especially his written elaborations so precise and special.

Works

• "Die Hochgotik im Deutschen Kirchenbau: Der Stilwandel um das Jahr 1250," Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 7 (1933)
• "Zur Mittelalterlichkeit der gotischen Kathedrale." In: Festschrift Pinder (1938)
• Von der schwäbischen Gotik (1939)
• Die abendländische Architektur um 1300 (1948)
• "Zur Bedeutung des Räumlichen in der mittelalterlichen Architektur." In: Beiträge zur Kunst des Mittelalters (1950)
• "Die Reutlinger Marienkirche als Stadtkirche." In: Schwäbische Heimat (1952)
• Zentralisierung im abendländischen Bauen (1956)
• Kunst im falschen Licht (1956?)
• Anton Bruckner und der Barock (1960)
• Augenschein in Prag (1960)
• Turmarchitektur um 1400 (1962)
• Mitteldeutsche Chorfassaden um 1400 (1967)
• Überlegungen zum Raumcharakter der mittelalterlichen Architektur (1970)
• Die Gebälkfunktion in Antike, Mittelalter und Neuzeit (1973)
• Zur Restaurierung des Eichstätter Doms (1975)
• Die Einzigartigkeit des Umer Münsters (1977)
• Der Residenzplatz in Eichstätt im Für und Wider seiner geplanten Neugestaltung (1979)
• Das Gebälk in der Architektur Brunellescos (1979)
• Der Vollendete - Kunsthistorische Überlegungen zum Kölner Dom (1980)
• Einleitung zu den Schriften Theodor Hetzers (1981)
• Ernst Strauss zum 80. Geburtstag (1981)

External links

• Werner Gross
• Works by Werner Gross at JSTOR