Heinrich Wölfflin

Heinrich Wölfflin ( German: [ˈhaɪnʁɪç ˈvœlflɪn]; 21 June 1864 – 19 July 1945) was a Swiss art historian, esthetician and educator, whose objective classifying principles ("painterly" vs. "linear" and the like) were influential in the development of formal analysis in art history in the early 20th century. He taught at the University of Basel, the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in the generation that saw German art history's rise to pre-eminence. His three most important books, still consulted, are Renaissance und Barock (1888), Die Klassische Kunst (1898, "Classic Art"), and Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe (1915, "Principles of Art History").

Wölfflin taught at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin from 1901 to 1912, at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München from 1912 to 1924, and at the University of Zurich from 1924 until his retirement.