Frederick Antal facts for kids

Frederick Antal (born Frigyes Antal, later known as Friedrich Antal) was an important art historian from Hungary. He was born on December 21, 1887, and passed away on April 4, 1954. He is especially known for his work in the social history of art, which looks at how art is connected to society and its changes.

Early Life and Education

Antal grew up in Budapest, Hungary, in a wealthy Jewish family. He first studied law, but then decided to follow his passion for art history. He learned from famous professors like Heinrich Wölfflin at the University of Berlin. He earned his doctorate degree from the University of Vienna under Max Dvorák. Antal was also part of an intellectual group called the Sonntagskreis in Budapest, which started in 1915.

Career and Ideas

Antal began his career at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest in 1914. In 1919, he became the Chairman of the Board there for a few months. However, he had to leave Hungary when a political event called the White Terror took over.

After a short stay in Vienna, Antal lived in Italy until 1923. Then, he moved to Berlin, Germany. From 1926 to 1934, he worked as an editor for an art history publication. In 1933, he had to move again because the Nazi Party became powerful in Germany. He settled in England, where he gave lectures at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and continued to write.

Frederick Antal became a leading expert in the social history of art in Britain. He greatly influenced other important art historians like Anthony Blunt and John Pope-Hennessy, as well as writer John Berger.

Antal increasingly used the idea of Marxist dialectical materialism in his art history studies. This means he believed that art styles mainly show the ideology (a set of beliefs), political views, and social class of the time. Some people criticized his work. They felt he focused too much on how society shaped art and didn't consider enough the artist's own unique ideas and feelings. They also thought he linked the artist's work too closely to the social class of the person who paid for the art.

Important Books

• Florentine Painting and its Social Background: The Bourgeois Republic before Cosimo de’ Medici’s Advent to Power: XIV and Early XV Centuries. London, 1948.
• Fuseli Studies. London, 1956.
• Hogarth and his Place in European Art. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1962.
• Classicism and Romanticism, with Other Studies in art history. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966. (This book includes an essay called ‘Remarks on the Method of Art History’.)

See also

In Spanish: Friedrich Antal para niños