Georg Humann

Humann worked between 1847 and 1932 across architect, art historian and philologist. This article rests on 8 published texts and 9 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

Humann belong to a long-established Essen family, his father was steward of the estates of Schloss Schellenberg. Humann studied architecture, like his better known cousin Carl Humann, the discoverer of the Pergamon altar. He attended the Polytechnische Schule Hannover from 1873 to 1876. After completing his studies, he returned to Essen, where he dwelt in his maternal family home. For health reasons he was unable to work as an architect. Humann dedicated himself to the Essen Cathedral Treasury and Minster, stimulated by the gothicization of the Minster from 1880. Humann represented an alternative perspective to that of the architect in charge, Peter Zindel, whose plans foresaw the gothicization of the westwerk. Humann prevailed over him when he called in the Prussian conservator Heinrich von Dehn-Rotfelser. Humann's books derive from his work on the Minster and its treasury and were highly valued by his contemporaries, such that Georg Dehio used Humann's line drawings for his section on Essen Minster in his Handbuch der deutschen Kunstdenkmäler (Handbook of German Artistic Monuments). Humann received an honorary doctorate from the Royal Theological and Philosophical Academy of Münster for his research in 1908, as well as Honorary membership of the Essen Historical Society. After his house in Essen had to be sold in 1897 because of an inheritance dispute, Humann settled in Aachen, where he lived in the Vinzenzstift from 1900 and died in 1932. His private library, with around 300 individual volumes on art history as well as his own work was donated by Humann to the Stadtbibliothek Aachen after his death.

• Die Restauration kirchlicher Bauwerke (The Restoration of Church Buildings). Essen 1880. • Der Westbau des Münsters zu Essen (The Westwerk of Essen Minster). Essen 1890 (Digitised). • Die ältesten Bautheile des Münsters zu Essen. (The Oldest Built Elements of Essen Minster). Bonn 1892. • Die ehemaligen Abteigebäude zu Essen. (The Former Abbey Buildings at Essen). Essen 1894. • "Zur Beurteilung mittelalterlicher Kunstwerke in Bezug auf ihre zeitliche und örtliche Entstehung." (On the Assessment of Medieval Artworks in Connection with their Temporal and Geographical Origins) In: Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 25, 1902, pp. 9–40. • Die Kunstwerke der Münsterkirche zu Essen (The Artworks of Essen Minster). Düsseldorf 1904. • Die Beziehungen der Handschriftornamentik zur romanischen Baukunst. (The Relationship of Manuscript Decorations with Romanesque Architecture) Heitz, Straßburg 1907. • Zur Geschichte der karolingischen Baukunst. (On the History of Carolingian Architecture). Part I. Heitz, Straßburg 1909. Part II. Heitz, Straßburg 1911. • Die Baukunst unter Bischof Meinwerk von Paderborn. (Architecture under Bishop Meinwerk von Paderborn). Aachen 1918 (Digitised). • Karolingisch-frühromanische Baukunst in Essen. (Carolingian & Early Romanesque Architecture in Essen). Aachen 1924. • Stützenwechsel in der romanischen Baukunst insbesondere bei Kreuzgängen und Zwerggalerien. (Changes to Support Structures in Romanesque Architecture, particularly in Cloisters and Dwarf Galleries. Heitz, Straßburg 1925.

Georg Humann is recorded with the occupation art historian. Recorded as architect, art historian and philologist.