'Projecting the future in German art historiography of the nineteenth century: Franz Kugler, Karl Schnaase, and Gottfried Semper'

In the mid-nineteenth century Franz Kugler and Karl Schnaase decisively shaped the conception of art history as a discipline. Both explored connections between art of former epochs and that of the present. They understood the art of their day to be the result of a tradition of modernity based on the Renaissance and pointing into the future. Schnaase took an evolutionistic view similar to that of the architect Gottfried Semper: both advised against planning a programmatic new style. For Semper, the potential of new developments lay in the continuation of design patterns inherited from the earliest humans.