his controversy with Ernst Herzfeld over the origins of the Mshatta facade, in which Herzfeld's position was eventually proven to be correct; and his two-volume Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa (1918) (The architecture of the Armenians and Europe), in which he claimed to have traced the origins of Gothic architecture to Armenia. Strzygowski retired from the University of Vienna in 1933, but in 1934 founded the Gesellschaft für vergleichende Kunstforschung (Society for comparative art history) to serve as a platform for his theories. "In the final years, Strzygowski embraced the Nazi sentiments of racism and nationalism, although these appeared to be more the logical conclusion of his earlier theories than any attempt to court the political authorities." He died in 1941 in Vienna. Legacy In general Strzygowski's work was characterized by a reliance on formal comparisons at the expense of historical context, and by a pervasive exaltation of the peoples of the "North" and "East", with an attendant disdain for "Mediterranean" culture. If Strzygowski's erratic methodology have largely discredited his own scholarship, his breadth of geographical interest helped to establish Islamic art, (something which, incidentally, Ernst Gombrich denied in his conversations with Didier Eribon), and Jewish art as legitimate fields of study. Certain of his students (most notably Otto Demus, Fritz Novotny, and Ernst Diez) were successfully able to pursue these interests without subscribing to their teacher's ideology. Works Kleinasien, ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte (with contributions by John Winter Crowfoot and J.I. Smirnov), Leipzig 1903 Notes Bibliography J. Elsner, "The Birth of Late Antiquity: Riegl and Strzygowski in 1901", Art History 25 (2002), pp. 358−79 F. Leonelli. Josef Strzygowski (1861—1942), Dmitry Ainalov (1862—1939) and the Question of Geographical Borders in the Theory of Art: The Possibility of a «Geographic Eye». Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 10. Ed: A. V. Zakharova, S. V. Maltseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova. Moscow: Lomonosov Moscow State University / St. Petersburg: NP-Print, 2020, pp. 609–617 C. Maranci, Medieval Armenian Architecture: Constructions of Race and Nation (Louvain, 2001) S. Marchand, "The rhetoric of artifacts and the decline of classical humanism: the case of Josef Strzygowski," History and Theory 33 (1994), pp. 106–30 External links Strzygowski at the Biographical Dictionary of Art Historians Website of the Gesellschaft für vergleichende Kunstforschung (in German) 1862 births 1941 deaths People from Biała People from Austrian Silesia 19th-century Austrian people 20th-century Austrian people Austrian art