Julius Lange (19 June 1838-20 August 1896)

Abstract

A brief biography and survey of the writings of Julius Lange, an art historian and brother of Carl Lange, the psychologist, who was best known in connection with the James-Lange theory of emotion. Aside from his lecture about Michelangelo’s idiosyncratic relation to his marble blocks, written after the Michelangelo celebrations of 1875, we present the English-speaking audience with a review of the publications of Greek grave stelae and three lectures tracing the history of human gestures as they appear and then disappear within the history of art. These are the hand laid on the chest, the heavenward gaze, and the unusual straddling stance. The latter was then further expanded by Johan Jakob Tikkanen in his immortal, unforgotten ‘Studien über den Ausdruck in der Kunst’.