The Position of the Italian Renaissance in Alois Riegl’s Art Historical Structure

Rebeka Vidrih
Department of Art History, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana
https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2843-8717

Volume 10, April 2026

Abstract When art history as an academic discipline was being established in the second half of 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, its ‘scientificity’, its ‘objectivity’ consisted not only of a critical use of documentary sources and a meticulous observation of artworks, but also of impartial consideration of all art historical periods. The key role in that respect was played by the representatives of the Vienna school of art history. In his major works, Alois Riegl devoted his attention to the previously overlooked periods of Late Roman and Early Christian art, and to the Dutch group portrait of the 17th century. An impression was thus produced that the Italian Renaissance art did not interest him, that he skipped it on behalf of other more pressing topics and theoretical issues. However, in his posthumously published university lectures, in Historical Grammar of Visual Arts and in The Origins of Baroque Art in Rome, the Italian Renaissance, too, had its place, hovering in the background as a point of reference, although an ambiguous one. Hailed by Riegl on the one hand as an achievement of undeniable perfection in formal terms, it was at the same time presented as a regrettable deviation from the general development of art in terms of worldview on the other hand.

Keywords Alois Riegl, Italian Renaissance, Giotto, Vienna School of Art History, Historical Grammar of the Visual Arts

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