Empathy theory and Heinrich Wölfflin: A reconsideration

Abstract

Empathy theory, which attempts to offer a psychological explanation of how we understand visual forms by endowing them with life, was one of the most important strands in German aesthetics around 1900. This article questions the assumption common in the existing scholarly literature that, while Heinrich Wölfflin was influenced in his early work by Johannes Volkelt’s and Robert Vischer’s ideas on empathy, his mature work leaves empathy theory behind. Wölfflin’s art historiography is related here to a broader range of contributions to empathy theory in order to show that, rather than abandoning the idea of empathy, he shifts from understanding it as a bodily process to seeing it as a primarily optical one. Looking beyond the question of direct influence uncovers significant intellectual historical connections between his later writings and the discourse on empathy, in particular the work of Theodor Lipps.