Puttfarken, Thomas 1943–2006

PERSONAL:

Born December 19, 1943, in Hamburg, Germany; died of an aneurysm, October 5, 2006; son of Franz Ferdinand (a dentist) and Traut Dorothea Puttfarken; married Herma Zimmer, December 19, 1969 (divorced, 1981); married Elspeth Ann Crichton Stuart, October 10, 1981; children: (first marriage) Nathalie, Malte, Ian. Education: University of Hamburg, D.Phil., 1969; attended University of Innsbruck, University of Munich, and Warburg Institute.

CAREER:

Art history scholar. University of Essex, Colchester, England, lecturer, 1970-71, senior lecturer, 1974-78, reader, 1978-84, professor of art history and theory, beginning 1984, dean of students, 1978-81, dean of the School of Comparative Studies, 1984-86, pro-vice chancellor, beginning 1987; lecturer at University of Hamburg, Hamburg, West Germany, 1971-74.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Elected a fellow of the British Academy, 2003.

WRITINGS:

Roger de Piles' Theory of Art, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1985.

(With others) Falkland Palace and Royal Burgh, National Trust for Scotland (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1995.

The Discovery of Pictorial Composition: Theories of Visual Order in Painting 1400-1800, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2000.

Titian and Tragic Painting: Aristotle's Poetics and the Rise of the Modern Artist, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2005.

Contributor to art magazines, including Burlington, Art History, and Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.

SIDELIGHTS:

Thomas Puttfarken was an esteemed art historian who specialized in the study of European art from the Renaissance to the Victorian era. His Roger de Piles' Theory of Art was highly praised in the Times Literary Supplement by critic Richard Wollheim, who commented that the book "is an admirable contribution to the art-theoretical strand of art history…. It is also … an excellent example of how to retrieve the ideas of an interesting, if unsystematic, thinker for posterity." Wollheim considered it "a refreshing departure" that Puttfarken examined the seventeenth-century thinker "not so much for the light he can throw on a related body of painting, but in his own right." The critic particularly admired Puttfarken's own interpretation of illusion and his attention to de Piles's view that illusion and harmony are not only compatible, but mutually supportive of each other.

In The Discovery of Pictorial Composition: Theories of Visual Order in Painting, Puttfarken argued that, prior to the seventeenth century, pictorial composition was not a factor, particularly since Italian artists and patrons concentrated on the representations and interactions of life-size saints depicted in large murals and altarpieces. The book went on to study composition in theory and practice. David Topper, reviewing this volume for Leonardo Digital Reviews wrote, "I have often been disturbed by the incongruity between the foreground and background in most pictures by Leonardo da Vinci. This erudite and tightly argued book gives an answer to that puzzle." London Review of Books contributor Jules Lubbock called the art history "superb."

Puttfarken's final book, Titian and Tragic Painting: Aristotle's Poetics and the Rise of the Modern Artist, questioned traditional thinking about how and why painters have used literary influences in their work. "The core of the book," wrote Michael Podro in his Guardian obituary of Puttfarken, "argues that the depiction of extreme violence and suffering is not an occasional aberration from the pastoral tone of Titian's work … but runs through his work from an early date to the end. Puttfarken links this to the interest in Aristotle's sense of tragic drama that emerged in the mid-sixteenth century among writers close to Titian."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Art Bulletin, December, 2006, Paul Duro, review of Titian and Tragic Painting: Aristotle's Poetics and the Rise of the Modern Artist, p. 777.

London Review of Books, October 31, 2002, Jules Lubbock, review of The Discovery of Pictorial Composition: Theories of Visual Order in Painting 1400-1800, p. 40.

Reference & Research Book News, February, 2006, review of Titian and Tragic Painting.

Renaissance Quarterly, autumn, 2001, review of The Discovery of Pictorial Composition, p. 941; summer, 2006, David Rosand, review of Titian and Tragic Painting, p. 509.

Sixteenth Century Journal, spring, 2002, review of The Discovery of Pictorial Composition, p. 316.

Times Literary Supplement, March 28, 1986, Richard Wollheim, review of Roger de Piles' Theory of Art.

ONLINE

Leonardo Digital Reviews,http://mitpressjournals.org/ (November, 2000), David Topper, review of The Discovery of Pictorial Composition.

OBITUARIES:

PERIODICALS

Guardian, October 21, 2006, Michael Podro.

London Times, October 27, 2006.