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PRODUCTION, REPRODUCTION, AND RECEPTION
dent to what extent the understanding of art history as universal history-under whose aegis eclecticism had free play-fettered authentic research. And this is true not only for the study of art. In a programmatic explanation, the literary historian Walter Muschg writes: "It is fair to say that the most essential work being done at present is almost exclusively oriented toward the monograph. To a great extent, today's generation no longer believes in the significance of an all-encompassing presentation. Instead it is grappling with figures and problems which it sees marked primarily by gaps during that era of universal histories."3 Indeed, the "turn away from an uncritical realism in the contemplation of history and the shriveling up of macroscopic constructions"4 are the most important hallmarks of the new research. Sedlmayr)s programmatic article "Toward a Rigorous Study of Art," the opening piece in the recently published yearbook Kunstwissenschaftliche Forschungen [Research Essays in the Study of Art], is entirely in accord with this position: The currently evolving phase in the study of art will have to emphasize~ in a heretofore unknown manner, the investigation of individual works. Nothing is more important at the present stage than an improved knowledge of the individual artwork, and it is in just this task, above all, that the extant study of art manifests its incompetence .... Once the individual artwork is perceived as a still unmastered task specific to the study of art, it appears powerfully new and close. Formerly a mere means to knowledge, a trace of something else which was to be disclosed through it, the artwork now appears as a selrcontained small world of its own, particular sort. s
In accordance with these introductory remarks, the three essays which follow are thus rigorously monographic studies. G. A. Andreades presents the Hagia Sophia as a synthesis between Orient and Occident; Otto Pacht develops the historical task posed by Michael Pacher; and Carl Linfert explores the foundations of the architectural drawing. 6 What these studies share is a convincing love for-and a no less convincing mastery of-their subject. The three authors have nothing in common with the type of art historian "who, really convinced that artworks were meant not to be studied (but only 'experienced'), studied them nevertheless-only badly."7 Furthermore, these authors know that headway can be made only if one considers contemplation of one's own activity-a new awareness-not as a constraint but as at'! impetus to rigorous study. This is particularly so beca use such study is not concerned with objects of pleasure, with formal problems, with giving form to experience, or any other cliches inherited from a belletristic consideration of art. Rather, this