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Anton Heinrich Springer

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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ANTON HEINRICH SPRINGER (1825-1891), German writer, was born at Prague on the 13th of July 1825 and was educated at the university of his native city. Taking an interest in art, he visited Munich, Dresden and Berlin, and spent some months in Italy; afterwards he settled at Tubingen and in 1848 he returned to Prague and began to lecture at his own university on the history of the revolutionary epoch. The liberal tone of these lectures brought him into disfavour with the ruling authorities, and in 1849 he left Bohemia and passed some time in England, France and the Netherlands. In 1852 he settled at Bonn, where he lectured on art and became a professor in 1859; in 1872 he went to the university of Strassburg and in 1873 to Leipzig. As a journalist and a publicist Springer advocated the federal union of the states ruled by the Austrian emperor, and asserted the right of Prussia to the headship of Germany; during the Crimean War he favoured the emancipation of the small states in the south-east of Europe from Turkish supremacy. After many years of feeble health, he died at Leipzig on the 31st of May 1891.

Springer is known as a writer both on history and on art. In the former connexion his most important work is his Geschichte Oesterreichs seit dem wiener Frieden (Leipzig, 1863-1865), which has been translated into Czech (Prague, 1867). His other historical works are: Geschichte des Revolutionszeitalters (Prague, 1849); Oesterreich nach der Revolution (Prague, 1850); Oesterreich, Preussen and Deutschland (Prague, 1851); Paris im xiii. Jahrhundert (Leipzig,1856); and Protokolle des Verfassungs-Ausschusses im oesterreichischen Reichstage 1848-1849 (Leipzig, 1885). His principal works on art are: Baukunst des christlichen Mittelalters (Bonn, 1854); the valuable Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte (7th ed., Leipzig, 1906), a revised edition of his Grundziige der Kunstgeschichte (Leipzig, 1887-1888); Geschichte der bildenden Kiinste im xix. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1858); Bilder aus der neueren Kunstgeschichte (Bonn 1867, and again 1886); Raffael and Michelangelo (Leipzig, 1877 and 1885); and Die Kunst des xix. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig 1880-1881). Springer wrote two biographies: Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann (Leipzig, 1870-1872), and Albrecht Diirer (Berlin, 1892); and was responsible for the German edition of Crowe and Cavalcaselle's Lives of the Early Flemish Painters, which was published at Leipzig in 1875. His book of reminiscences, Aus meinem Leben (Berlin, 1892), containing contributions by G. Freytag and H. Janitschek, was edited by his son Jaro Springer (b. 1856), who is also known as a writer on art.