by Jon Lackman | 13 April 2006 | Teaching
Blogger and retired professor Wayne Dynes writes: “To my students I would continue to administer a bitter pill: learn German. German thought continues to be important in many fields. These include art history. Wolfgang Sauerländer is the world’s leading medievalist, and many of his works have not been translated. Two other major figures are Hans Belting and Martin Warnke. Only now have the major works of Alois Riegl, on the great Founders of our discipline been translated. When it will come the turn of August Schmarsow, Wilhelm Vöge, and Hans Sedlmayr (the latter represented by one atypical work in English)? I do not know. One can read the magnum opus of the Viennese Julius von Schlosser in German, Italian, and French, but not in English. The notion that ‘if it’s important, it must have been translated’ is a dangerous myth.”
