Wilhelm Fraenger

Formen des Komischen (Forms of the Comic)
Vorträge 1920–1921 (Lectures 1920–1921)
VOLUME 136

Kunst und Komik: Fraengers Bibliothek

“The peculiar, weird, and mysterious in the arts, especially in folklore and ethnology, were his preferred field of research, in which he created and worked with abundant knowledge, ingenious empathy, and expressiveness.” This is how Carl Zuckmayer judged the work of cultural historian Wilhelm Fraenger in the nineteen-twenties. In 1920–21, he held a lecture cycle at the Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim on the “Formen des Komischen” (forms of the comic) in the arts (from Cervantes to Hogarth and from E.T.A. Hoffmann to Daumier). His lectures describe the comedy of the grotesque and burlesque in clear terms. They also don’t hesitate to point out the contradictions of their subject matter and offer us the chance to fill the silence of the white cube with laughter. The republication of the lectures is intended to provide material for reflection on art and comedy, and to draw attention to an author for whom interdisciplinary thinking was simply a matter of course.

The cultural historian Wilhelm Fraenger (b. 1980 in Erlangen; d. 1964 in Potsdam) worked as an art historian and ethnographer. From 1927 until the Nazis removed him from office in 1933, he was active as a librarian and as the director of the Schlossbibliothek Mannheim. He was the editor of the journal Jahrbuch für historische Volkskunde and, from 1919 on, the founder and motor of the Heidelberg association known as Die Gemeinschaft. Fraenger became known for his interpretations of Hieronymus Bosch, Matthias Grünewald, Jerg Ratgeb, Hercules Seghers, but also of literary works such as Clemens Brentano's Alhambra.

With an essay by Michael Glasmeier.