Riegl makes history: the Denkmalkultus seen in light of Alois Riegl’s historiography

ABSTRACT

The book Der moderne Denkmalkultus, sein Wesen und seine Entsehung (The modern cult of monuments: its character and origin), by art historian Alois Riegl (1858-1905), is today considered a seminal work of the dialogue we call Conservation and Restoration Theories and in Brazil increasingly studied, with new and even pioneering conceptions in 1903, when it was originally published. A closer reading of Riegl’s oeuvre reveals a much more sophisticated framework than the isolated reading of Denkmalkultus, as is usual in Heritage Studies. Throughout his books, Riegl explores and discusses a particular conception of History and the Historian’s craft. In it, diachronically, is present a growing emphasis on History as a continuous becoming, in which long-term lines of meaning are recognizable - such as the progressive and reactive vectors coexisting in each work of art -, and the possibility of different epochs intersecting each other, from the look at the past, including the contemporary historian. Contributions from Cultural History and the study of worldviews are also synchronously integrated in this conception. Thus, it is revealed that Denkmalkultus, like other texts by Riegl, was not merely provide a description of the global processes that the author believed existed from the Paleolithic to the Modern Era as a concrete example of this teleological progression, a notion that is essential for intepreting Riegl’s work.

KEYWORDS:
Theory; Conservation; Restoration; History; Art