Wilhelm Lübke

Wilhelm Lübke (17 January 1826 – 5 April 1893) was a German art historian, born at Dortmund. He studied at Bonn and Berlin; was professor of architecture at the Berlin Bauakademie (1857–61) and professor of the history of art at Zurich (1861–66), Stuttgart (1866–85), and Karlsruhe (1885–93). Previous to his work in art, he gave instruction in vocal and pianoforte music.

File:Spanische-Treppe.jpg

The Spanish Steps in Rome around 1900. Book illustration from Wilhelm Lübke's Grundriß der Kunstgeschicte (14th edition, with contributions from Max Semrau.) Paul Neff Verlag. Berlin 1908.

Lübke was one of the pioneer writers on art history in Germany. His works were for their day both scholarly and appreciative, and correlate the epochs of art history with the great historical periods.

Selective biography

Lübke wrote, in a comprehensive and readable style, numerous valuable works, including:

• Vorschule vor Geschichte der Kirchenbaukunst des Mittelalters (1852; sixth edition, under different title, 1873; English translation, Ecclesiastical Art in Germany during the Middle Ages, Edinburgh, 1870)
• Medieval Art in Westphalia (1853)
• Geschichte der Architektur, (Leipzig, 1855; sixth edition, 1884–86)
• Grundriß der Kunstgeschichte (1860; thirteenth edition, 1899–1907; English translation, under the title Outlines of the History of Art by Clarence Cook, 1878, and reëdited by Russell Sturgis, New York, 1904)
• History of the Renaissance in France (1868)
• History of the Renaissance in Germany (1873)
• Geschichte der Plastik (third edition, 1880; translation by Bunnet under the title History of Sculpture, London, 1878)
• History of German Art (1888)
• Recollections (1891)

References

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