Wilhelm Worringer

Josh Dittrich (University of Toronto)

Ed. by Jill E. Twark, East Carolina University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

Born 13 Jan 1881
Died 29 Mar 1965
Activity 1901-1965

Places

Born in Germany
Active in Germany

Activities

Primary

Art Theorist/ Historian/ Critic
Cultural Theorist/ Critic

Resources

Worringer's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Wilhelm Worringer (1881-1965) was a German art historian who exerted a subtle but enduring influence both in and beyond his academic field. His work as an art critic was crucial to the aesthetic development of German Expressionism and European modernism, and his first and most famous book,

Abstraktion und Einfühlung

(1907;

Abstraction and Empathy: A Contribution to the Psychology of Style

, 1908) – besides being a perennial reference for art historians – has had a distinct impact on literary theory and philosophy in Europe and North America. Considered one of the first theorists of aesthetic abstraction in the twentieth century, as well as one of the first critics to coin the term “Expressionist”, Worringer also speaks to a complex legacy of nineteenth-century vitalist thought (

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1878 words

Citation: Dittrich, Josh. "Wilhelm Worringer". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 January 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5978, accessed 23 November 2024.]