He settled at
Tübingen, but in 1848 returned to Prague and began to lecture at the university on the history of the revolutionary epoch. The
liberal tone of these lectures brought him into disfavour with the ruling authorities, and in 1849 he left
Bohemia and passed some time in
England,
France and the
Netherlands. In 1852 he settled at
Bonn, where he was lecturer and professor (from 1860) for art history. In 1872 he went to the
University of Strasbourg, and in 1873 to
Leipzig University, where he became Professor for Medieval and Modern Art at the newly founded Institute for Art History. As a journalist and a publicist Springer advocated the federal union of the states ruled by the
Austrian emperor, and asserted the right of
Prussia to the headship of
Germany; during the
Crimean War he favored the emancipation of the small states in southeast
Europe from
Turkish supremacy. After many years of feeble health, he died at Leipzig on 31 May 1891. A fiery personality, he disparaged the art historian
Herman Grimm, whom, according to
Kessler, he attacked from the lectern as a writer of dime novels for wealthy readers. Likewise he berated the art historian
Hermann Knackfuß as "Hermann Knackwurst."
Jacob Burckhardt, fully cognizant of Springer's enmity toward him, reportedly gave Springer's student
Gustav Pauli a rough reception when Pauli applied to study under him in
Basel. Springer played an important role in establishing art history as an academic subject. He rejected the more literary or impressionistic approaches of his colleagues like Herman Grimm or Hermann Knackfuß. Among his own works are several treatises on occidental art: a
Compendium on the Architecture of the Christian Middle Ages (1854), a
Handbook on Art History (1855), a
History of Fine Arts in the 19th Century (1858),
Iconographical Studies (1860), a work on
Contemporary Fine Arts (1875), books on
Raphael and
Michelangelo (1878) and (posthumously) a book on
Albrecht Dürer (1892). ==Bibliography==