by Dana Arnold
Art History: A Very Short Introduction
‘arguably the most intelligent introduction to the study of the history of art available today. Accessibly and persuasively written, the author lucidly outlines the variety of interpretative strategies that currently animate the discipline . . . a lively as well as thoughtful introduction to this field.’
Professor Keith Moxey
Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Art History at Barnard College and Columbia University
‘an approachable and lucid overview, not of the history of art, but of the issues and debates within the discipline of art history. Arnold’s strategy is to wrap ideas around concrete examples. By directing us to look at particular works of art, she teaches us to see them with an art historian’s eyes.’
Margaret Iversen, Professor of Art History and Theory, University of Essex
* * *
VERY SHORT INTRODUCTIONS are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide.
The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology.
* * *
Very Short Introductions available now:
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas
THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair
ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia
ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn
ARCHITECTURE Andrew Ballantyne
ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes
ART HISTORY Dana Arnold
ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland
THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin
ATHEISM Julian Baggini
AUGUSTINE Henry Chadwick
BARTHES Jonathan Culler
THE BIBLE John Riches
BRITISH POLITICS Anthony Wright
BUDDHA Michael Carrithers
BUDDHISM Damien Keown
CAPITALISM James Fulcher
THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe
CHOICE THEORY Michael Allingham
CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson
CLASSICS Mary Beard and John Henderson
CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard
THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon
CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY Simon Critchley
COSMOLOGY Peter Coles
CRYPTOGRAPHY Fred Piper and Sean Murphy
DADA AND SURREALISM David Hopkins
DARWIN Jonathan Howard
DEMOCRACY Bernard Crick
DESCARTES Tom Sorell
DRUGS Leslie Iversen
THE EARTH Martin Redfern
EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY Geraldine Pinch
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN Paul Langford
THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball
EMOTION Dylan Evans
EMPIRE Stephen Howe
ENGELS Terrell Carver
ETHICS Simon Blackburn
THE EUROPEAN UNION John Pinder
EVOLUTION Brian and Deborah Charlesworth
FASCISM Kevin Passmore
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION William Doyle
FREUD Anthony Storr
GALILEO Stillman Drake
GANDHI Bhikhu Parekh
GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger
HEGEL Peter Singer
HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood
HINDUISM Kim Knott
HISTORY John H. Arnold
HOBBES Richard Tuck
HUME A. J. Ayer
IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY Sue Hamilton
INTELLIGENCE Ian J. Deary
ISLAM Malise Ruthven
JUDAISM Norman Solomon
JUNG Anthony Stevens
KANT Roger Scruton
KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner
THE KORAN Michael Cook
LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews
LITERARY THEORY Jonathan Culler
LOCKE John Dunn
LOGIC Graham Priest
MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner
MARX Peter Singer
MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers
MEDIEVAL BRITAIN John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths
MODERN IRELAND Senia Pasšeta
MOLECULES Philip Ball
MUSIC Nicholas Cook
NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner
NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and H. C. G. Matthew
NORTHERN IRELAND Marc Mulholland
PAUL E. P. Sanders
PHILOSOPHY Edward Craig
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Samir Okasha
PLATO Julia Annas
POLITICS Kenneth Minogue
POSTCOLONIALISM Robert Young
POSTMODERNISM Christopher Butler
POSTSTRUCTURALISM Catherine Belsey
PREHISTORY Chris Gosden
PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY Catherine Osborne
PSYCHOLOGY Gillian Butler and Freda McManus
QUANTUM THEORY John Polkinghorne
ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway
ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler
RUSSELL A. C. Grayling
RUSSIAN LITERATURE Catriona Kelly
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION S. A. Smith
SCHIZOPHRENIA Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone
SCHOPENHAUER Christopher Janaway
SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY John Monaghan and Peter Just
SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce
SOCRATES C. C. W. Taylor
SPINOZA Roger Scruton
STUART BRITAIN John Morrill
TERRORISM Charles Townshend
THEOLOGY David F. Ford
Available soon:
THE TUDORS John Guy
TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan
WITTGENSTEIN A. C. Grayling
WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman
AFRICAN HISTORY John Parker and Richard Rathbone
ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw
THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea
BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown
CHAOS Leonard Smith
CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead
CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy
CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE Robert Tavernor
CLONING Arlene Judith Klotzko
CONTEMPORARY ART Julian Stallabrass
THE CRUSADES Christopher Tyerman
DERRIDA Simon Glendinning
DESIGN John Heskett
DINOSAURS David Norman
DREAMING J. Allan Hobson
ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta
THE END OF THE WORLD Bill McGuire
EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn
THE FIRST WORLD WAR Michael Howard
FREE WILL Thomas Pink
FUNDAMENTALISM Malise Ruthven
HABERMAS Gordon Finlayson
HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson
HIROSHIMA B. R. Tomlinson
HUMAN EVOLUTION Bernard Wood
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Paul Wilkinson
JAZZ Brian Morton
MANDELA Tom Lodge
MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope
THE MIND Martin Davies
MYTH Robert Segal
NATIONALISM Steven Grosby
PERCEPTION Richard Gregory
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot
PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards
THE RAJ Denis Judd
THE RENAISSANCE Jerry Brotton
RENAISSANCE ART Geraldine Johnson
SARTRE Christina Howells
THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR Helen Graham
TRAGEDY Adrian Poole
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Martin Conway
For more information visit our web site
www.oup.co.uk/vsi
Dana Arnold
ART HISTORY
A Very Short Introduction
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP
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© Dana Arnold 2004
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First published as a Very Short Introduction 2004
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Arnold, Dana.
Art History: a very short introduction/Dana Arnold.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Art. 2. Art history. I. Title.
N7425.A646 2004
709—dc22 2004041451
ISBN 13: 978–0–19–280181–4
ISBN 10: 0–19–280181–3
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4
Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed in Great Britain by
TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall
Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
List of illustrations
1 What is art history?
2 Writing art history
3 Presenting art history
4 Thinking about art history
5 Reading art
6 Looking at art
References
Further information
Glossary
Index
Acknowledgements
The opportunity to write this Very Short Introduction came as my term as editor of the journal Art History was coming to a close. Writing an introduction to the discipline that I had been so closely involved with in all its complexities, and which spreads beyond the purview of this volume, seemed to be a most appropriate way of summing up some of the ways in which art history has developed in recent years as well as identifying new directions in the study of art. This brief volume covers the broadest possible spectrum of the art we might expect to see in galleries and museums. As such the choices I had to make in terms of the approach, material covered and which illustrations to use were the most enjoyable and difficult parts of writing this book. I was fortunate to be inspired and encouraged by many in the preparation of this volume and, although any omissions or errors are my own, I would like to thank Adrian Rifkin, my co-editor of Art History, for providing such a stimulating and collegial working environment during our editorship. I am also indebted to Kate Nicholson, Yvonne Young, Hannah Young McHugh and Ken Haynes for their comments and suggestions on my choice of illustrations and to Julie Schlarman for compiling the index. The final draft of this VSI was written during my tenure as a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles and I would like to thank the Getty staff, my research assistant Emily Scott and my fellow scholars for providing such a welcoming academic environment in which to finish the text.
Dana Arnold
London, 2003
Preface
This book is intended as an introduction to the issues and debates that make up the discipline of art history and that arise from art history’s central concerns – identifying, categorizing, interpreting, describing, and thinking about works of art. The ways in which art history has approached these tasks has changed over time. These shifting attitudes towards the parameters of art history, and how histories can interrogate visual subject matter, have raised questions about the presentation of the history of visual art in written form and the limits verbal language has placed on our ability to do this. In recent years the relative importance of the role of the artist, the subject, and the viewer in the artistic enterprise have also been re-evaluated. These issues in turn raise questions to do with our preoccupation with authorship, authenticity, and chronologically defined linear progression, all of which have informed the traditional canon of art history, which may be only one way of looking at, analysing, and historicizing art.
Thus, traditional histories of art emphasize periods and styles, and focus on Western artistic production, and this can obscure other approaches, for instance the grouping of artworks according to their subject matter, or influence the way in which arts from non-Western cultures are discussed. This book challenges such traditional ways of seeing and writing about art. I have, therefore, chosen examples from different historical moments and cultures to illustrate questions that I see as fundamental to the subject. This being a Very Short Introduction, I have been selective in my choice of illustrations, and the images I use are meant only to be indicative of the issues I discuss in relation to them. As a whole, the illustrations are representative of ‘high art’, that is to say the art we expect to find in museums and galleries. This material enables us to investigate a range of social and cultural issues covered by art history.
I begin with a consideration of the fundamental question ‘what is art history?’ This enables me to draw distinctions between art history and art appreciation and art criticism, and to consider a range of artefacts included in the discipline and how these have changed over time. Although art is a visual subject, we learn about it through reading and we convey our ideas about it mostly in writing. This sets off an interplay between the verbal and the visual which I explore in Chapter 2. Here, I look at how histories of art have been written and the effect that this has had on the object itself and on the subjects of art history. Examples from a broad time span are used, including Pliny, Vasari, and Winckelmann, together with more recent writings by Gombrich, Greenberg, Nochlin, and Pollock. A discussion of these writers introduces the expectations we have of art history as a chronological story about great Western male artists. The bias in this interpretation of the subject opens up the questions of the importance of the canon in art history and how we view non-figurative, primitive, and naïve art.
The importance of the gallery or museum – or more generally of ways of presenting art history – is covered in Chapter 3, which maps out the development of collections from cabinet of curiosities to the private and corporate sponsor and collector of today. Alongside this, I discuss the impact the amassing of objects has had on their perceived value and on the histories of art, and how writing about objects can affect their ‘value’. The question of the canon of art history returns in this chapter in relation to the ability of the gallery or museum either to endorse or to challenge it. I look at this with special reference to the importance of the identity of the artist in gallery display and in answer to the question ‘what difference does it make to the presentation of art history if art is presented to the public as a thematic exploration of a subject or as a chronological sequence?’ This also informs my consideration of how ‘blockbuster’ exhibitions have changed the direction of art history, for instance the Post-Impr
essionism exhibition of 1912 that gave that art movement its name.