Dvorák, Max

Born June 24, 1874, in Raudnitz, Austria-Hungary, now Roudnice, Czechoslovakia; died Feb. 8, 1921, at the Grussbach (Hruŝovany) castle near Znojmo, Czechoslovakia. Austrian art historian, a Czech by nationality.

Dvořák studied at the universities of Prague and Vienna and began teaching at the University of Vienna in 1902, where he became a professor in 1909. He was a member of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna and joined the so-called Viennese school of art analysis. In his works, which were principally on the art of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the baroque period, Dvořák skillfully traced and established the dependence of art on the spiritual life, philosophy, aesthetics, and theological ideas of its epoch. An idealist, Dvořák regarded art history as “the history of the spirit.”