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There are several possibilities for sampling biographical data, like cohorts based on generations, origin or profession. Within the APIS project, one scholar is focusing on the biographies of artists. Of particular interest are artists who can be linked to the artist association Kiinstlerhaus as well as to other groups of professionals identifiable as art collectors.

Figure 7 There are several possibilities for sampling biographical data, like cohorts based on generations, origin or profession. Within the APIS project, one scholar is focusing on the biographies of artists. Of particular interest are artists who can be linked to the artist association Kiinstlerhaus as well as to other groups of professionals identifiable as art collectors.

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At this point, we should turn our eyes to the author of the biography. Thums. studied medicine in Vienna and Berlin before working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Genealogy and Demography in Munich from 1933, where he qualified as a university lecturer in 1939. As a committed national socialist, he was a member of the NSDAP and the SA (1931) among others, and joined the Austrian Legion (Osterreichische Legion), a paramilitary unit set up in the German Reich to support a German invasion in Austria (Schafranek, 2010; Holzmann, 2011), in 1933; in the mid-1930s, he left the Roman Catholic Church and acceded to the neo-paganist German Faith Movement (Deutsche Glaubensbewegung). During the Nazi era, Thums worked as a professor of hereditary and racial hygiene at the German University in Prague and was one of the most important protagonists of racial hygiene measures in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia as wel as in the Reichsgau Sudetenland. Arrested by the Czech police in 1945, he was dismissed for lack of evidence and returned to Austria, where he subsequently worked as medical officer of the St. Polten district administration and medica counsellor to the Lower Austrian Provincia Government. Figure 1: Part of the institutional relations of Karl Johannes Thums in APIS
At this point, we should turn our eyes to the author of the biography. Thums. studied medicine in Vienna and Berlin before working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Genealogy and Demography in Munich from 1933, where he qualified as a university lecturer in 1939. As a committed national socialist, he was a member of the NSDAP and the SA (1931) among others, and joined the Austrian Legion (Osterreichische Legion), a paramilitary unit set up in the German Reich to support a German invasion in Austria (Schafranek, 2010; Holzmann, 2011), in 1933; in the mid-1930s, he left the Roman Catholic Church and acceded to the neo-paganist German Faith Movement (Deutsche Glaubensbewegung). During the Nazi era, Thums worked as a professor of hereditary and racial hygiene at the German University in Prague and was one of the most important protagonists of racial hygiene measures in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia as wel as in the Reichsgau Sudetenland. Arrested by the Czech police in 1945, he was dismissed for lack of evidence and returned to Austria, where he subsequently worked as medical officer of the St. Polten district administration and medica counsellor to the Lower Austrian Provincia Government. Figure 1: Part of the institutional relations of Karl Johannes Thums in APIS
Figure 2: The eugenic network, i.e. personal and institutional relations, of Karl Johannes Thums.
Figure 2: The eugenic network, i.e. personal and institutional relations, of Karl Johannes Thums.
Lastly, which type of network a person can be linked to depends on his or her biography. The art historians Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz pointed out that certain metaphorical descriptions in biographies of artists have been repeated since antiquity (Kris & Kurz, 1995). It can thus be said that certain types of artists like the academy professor, the bohemian artist, the Orientalist painter and so on each have specific network characteristics. In the case of the Orientalist painter Johann Victor Kramer (1861-1949), more place names can be found in his biography than in many others due to his study trips to Egypt or Palestine. n the main text of an academy professor, on the other hand, one can expect numerous pupils to be mentioned. The biography of a bohemian artist such as Hans Makart is full of names of persons, reflecting his numerous contacts (Kaiser, 2017).
Lastly, which type of network a person can be linked to depends on his or her biography. The art historians Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz pointed out that certain metaphorical descriptions in biographies of artists have been repeated since antiquity (Kris & Kurz, 1995). It can thus be said that certain types of artists like the academy professor, the bohemian artist, the Orientalist painter and so on each have specific network characteristics. In the case of the Orientalist painter Johann Victor Kramer (1861-1949), more place names can be found in his biography than in many others due to his study trips to Egypt or Palestine. n the main text of an academy professor, on the other hand, one can expect numerous pupils to be mentioned. The biography of a bohemian artist such as Hans Makart is full of names of persons, reflecting his numerous contacts (Kaiser, 2017).
The main idea behind the corresponding mappings is the wish to gain a better understanding of how migration worked in the past. So far, the study “A Network Framework of Cultural History” (Schich et al., 2014) is the first approach to this topic in the field of the digital humanities. Based on the metadata collected from three different databases (Freebase.com, the General Artist Lexicon and the Getty Union List of Artist Names), the movements of artists were traced over a period of more than 2000 years.
The main idea behind the corresponding mappings is the wish to gain a better understanding of how migration worked in the past. So far, the study “A Network Framework of Cultural History” (Schich et al., 2014) is the first approach to this topic in the field of the digital humanities. Based on the metadata collected from three different databases (Freebase.com, the General Artist Lexicon and the Getty Union List of Artist Names), the movements of artists were traced over a period of more than 2000 years.
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Digital HumanitiesSocial History of ArtDigital Art History
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