ABSTRACT
When reorganising the Viennese Imperial collections in the early 1780s, Christian von Mechel decided to hang the paintings by school, offering what he described as ‘a visible history of art’. His decision was widely greeted with approval, although there were some dissenting voices to be heard. Among them was Joseph Sebastian von Rittershausen, a Bavarian polymath, who published a lengthy and highly critical text explaining why, in his opinion, Mechel’s method was faulty. Rittershausen felt that historical hang would efface the paintings’ aesthetic qualities. He also argued that it was an elitist approach and would undermine the art gallery’s claim to appeal to a broad audience. He suggested that paintings should be hung according to their artistic qualities and not according to erudite principles of connoisseurship based largely on attributions rather than aesthetic judgment.
