Tuesday, 16 January 2024

New publication "The Rustic Style"

The first art-historical study on the phenomena of radical naturalism in late Renaissance art was published in 1926 under the title "Der Stil 'rustique'". The focus was on so-called natural casts of plants and animals as well as artificial grottos in Mannerist gardens, primarily in France and Italy. The author of the study - Ernst Kris - was working at the "Kunsthistorisches Museum" in Vienna at the time and was one of the many Jewish art historians who went into exile after the Nazis seized power in Germany and the Anschluss of Austria in order to escape persecution and extermination.

Kris' study of the 'rustique' style is now considered a groundbreaking contribution to the history of late Renaissance art in several respects. It programmatically transcends the boundaries of Viennese style criticism, it builds bridges between art history and natural philosophy and it understands the visual arts as a cultural process of articulating contradictions in a way that is still rare today.

At the end of 2023, Dumbarton Oaks and Harvard University Press published a revised edition of this text in English for the first time. At the invitation of the publishers, Robert Felfe accompanied the translation and provided the introductory essay to this publication.

Ernst Kris
The Rustic Style
Translated with Commentary by Linda B. Parshall, with Essays by Robert Felfe and Anatole Tchikine
Dumbarton Oaks/Trustees for Harvard University, Washington D.C. 2023
ISBN 978-0-88402-498-9
 

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