Herman Grimm

Herman Grimm studied at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium, Frederick William University Berlin and University of Bonn. Paul Lehfeldt is recorded as having studied under Herman Grimm. The recorded working language is German and English. Places of work recorded in the authority are Berlin. Residence is recorded at Matthäikirchplatz. Employment is recorded with Frederick William University Berlin. Positions recorded include professor. Distinctions recorded are Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art and Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts order.

• Name — Herman Grimm • Born — 6 January 1828 • Birthplace — Kassel, Electorate of Hesse, German Confederation • Died — 16 June 1901 • Place of death — Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire • Father — Wilhelm Grimm • Relatives — Jakob Grimm (uncle) Ludwig Emil Grimm (uncle)

Grimm's father was Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859), and his uncle was Jakob Grimm (1785–1863); both were philologist compilers of indigenous folk tales ("Brothers Grimm"). His other uncle was the painter engraver Ludwig Emil Grimm (1790–1863). Herman Grimm is believed to have had only one (known) child at a young age, Martin Grimm. From 1841 Herman attended the Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium in Berlin. He belonged to a clique associated with Bettina von Arnim (1785–1859), wife of the late poet Achim von Arnim (1781–1831), and started publishing drama and novels. He began legal and philological studies at the universities of Berlin and Bonn.

In 1857 he visited Rome where the artistic circle of Peter von Cornelius brought his interests to art. In 1859, he married Gisela von Arnim (1827–1889), the Arnim's daughter, and published his treatise, Die Akademie der Künste und das Verhältniß der Künstler zum Staate. His short-lived periodical, Über Künstler und Kunstwerke (1864–1867), published many important essays. It also contained some of the first photographic illustrations of art in a magazine. The first volume of his biography of Michelangelo, Das Leben Michelangelos, began appearing in 1868. He wrote his dissertation in 1868 from Leipzig and his habilitation (1870) in Berlin. In 1871 he weighed in on the Hans Holbein "Meyer Madonna" debate concluding against the sound reasoning of the "Holbein convention" of eminent scholars, that the Dresden version was the autograph one. He accepted the chair in the newly created discipline of History of Art (Lehrstuhl für Kunstgeschichte) in Berlin in 1872 and remained there the rest of his life. Grimm published the first (though incomplete) edition of his Das Leben Raphaels in 1872. Grimm's art history writing is characteristic of the period consolidation of standards following the unification of Germany, known as the Gründerzeit. When Friedrich Waagen, for example, criticized in the early issues of the Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, Goethe's aesthetic taste of some fifty years before, Grimm, the spokesman for the Gründerzeit, took it personally, refuting Waagen effectively point by point. Grimm's Beiträge zur deutschen Culturgeschichte, essays about important cultural personalities, appeared in 1897. Throughout his life his biographies passed through numerous editions. At his death he was succeeded by Heinrich Wölfflin. His students included Alfred Lichtwark; Julius Meier-Graefe studied under him but did not receive a degree.

Herman Grimm is recorded as having studied at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium, Frederick William University Berlin and University of Bonn.