LOEWY, EMANUEL

LOEWY, EMANUEL (1857–1938), Austrian classical archaeologist. Loewy was born in Vienna and then traveled extensively in Greece and Asia Minor. In 1882 he took part in the excavations of a Lycian burial site, the "Heroon" of Gjölbaşi-Trysa, in which important Greek reliefs from the late fifth century B.C.E. were found. In 1887 he began his academic career as a lecturer in Vienna, becoming a professor in Rome in 1889. He returned to Vienna after World War I and was a professor of classical archaeology. His early writings on the history of ancient Greek artists were influenced by the philology-oriented Seminary in Vienna. His later activity was influenced by contemporary art historiographers of the Vienna School such as F. Wickhoff and A. Riegl; in place of philologico-antiquarian interpretation of ancient works of art, this school put form and style analysis, together with a reevalution of pre- and post-classical style periods. Loewy contributed essentially to the comprehension of the then underestimated archaic art of Greece with his Naturwiedergabe and Typenwanderung. Loewy considered the archaic style not as a preliminary to the classical period, but as an artistic creation, complete in itself. Apart from numerous scholarly works, Loewy reached a wide general public with his popular scientific works Die Griechische Plastik (2 vols., 1911, 19244) and Polygnot, ein Buch von griechischer Malerei (2 vols., 1929). His works include Inschriften griechischer Bildhauer (1885); Naturwiedergabe in der aelteren griechischen Kunst (1900; Eng., 1907); Typenwanderung (Yearbook of the Austrian Archeological Institute, 12 (1909), 14 (1911); and Neuattische Kunst (1922). -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: NDB, 15 (1987), 114f. (Penuel P. Kahane)