Modes of Making Art History

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Bremer

As art history further questions its fundamentals, the exhibition format continues to lose its neutrality. In the preface to the second volume of his compendium, Biennials and Beyond – Exhibitions that made art history: 1962–2002, Bruce Altshuler leads the increasing interest by art historians for exhibitions back to the insight that “exhibitions bring together a range of characters, who, exercising varied intentions in diverse circumstances, generate so much of what comes down to us as art history.”[1] However, the academic rewriting of selected shows is itself subjected to norms which, given their canonizing effects, must be taken into consideration. This article does not intend to question the art historical study of exhibitions tout court. Rather, it criticizes the selection of case studies according to a logic of masterpieces while excluding exhibitions which are regarded as not having made art history. In fact, the different modes by which exhibitions can shape art history require further analysis, eventually casting new light on events which have not hitherto entered the canon of relevant shows.

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 567-586
Author(s):  
Peter Burke

The 1960s and 1970s marked a turning point in the encounters between generalist historians and art historians regarding the study of art. Before that moment, art history, from its very inception as an independent department in universities, had been entirely distinct from the discipline of generalist history. However, three case studies—art and the Reformation, the rise of the art market, and the proliferation of political monuments—reveal the convergence between the two disciplines that has unfolded during the last half-century, culminating in recent discussions of agency and attempts to answer the question, What is Art?


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng He Schöneweiß

The study of Chinese art has long been a specialised field bridging the disciplines of art history and Chinese studies. This essay challenges, as always in a real-life crisis, the usefulness of art history of China in the current Covid-19 pandemic. The agency of art historians is put under the historiographical grill. Through two brief case studies, the essay argues that art historians, though as mortal and fragile, are actually professionally equipped to strike the core consequences of the pandemic in its social, political, and cultural aspects.


Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts

This chapter presents a model of the interaction of media outlets, politicians, and the public with an emphasis on the tension between truth-seeking and narratives that confirm partisan identities. This model is used to describe the emergence and mechanics of an insular media ecosystem and how two fundamentally different media ecosystems can coexist. In one, false narratives that reinforce partisan identity not only flourish, but crowd-out true narratives even when these are presented by leading insiders. In the other, false narratives are tested, confronted, and contained by diverse outlets and actors operating in a truth-oriented norms dynamic. Two case studies are analyzed: the first focuses on false reporting on a selection of television networks; the second looks at parallel but politically divergent false rumors—an allegation that Donald Trump raped a 13-yearold and allegations tying Hillary Clinton to pedophilia—and tracks the amplification and resistance these stories faced.


Author(s):  
Adam J. Silverstein

This book examines the ways in which the biblical book of Esther was read, understood, and used in Muslim lands, from ancient to modern times. It zeroes-in on a selection of case studies, covering works from various periods and regions of the Muslim world, including the Qur’an, premodern historical chronicles and literary works, the writings of a nineteenth-century Shia feminist, a twentieth-century Iranian dictionary, and others. These case studies demonstrate that Muslim sources contain valuable materials on Esther, which shed light both on the Esther story itself and on the Muslim peoples and cultures that received it. The book argues that Muslim sources preserve important, pre-Islamic materials on Esther that have not survived elsewhere, some of which offer answers to ancient questions about Esther, such as the meaning of Haman’s epithet in the Greek versions of the story, the reason why Mordecai refused to prostrate himself before Haman, and the literary context of the “plot of the eunuchs” to kill the Persian king. Furthermore, throughout the book we will see how each author’s cultural and religious background influenced his or her understanding and retelling of the Esther story: In particular, it will be shown that Persian Muslims (and Jews) were often forced to reconcile or choose between the conflicting historical narratives provided by their religious and cultural heritages respectively.


Modernism and Non-Translation proposes a new way of reading key modernist texts, including the work of canonical figures such as T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Ezra Pound. The topic of this book is the incorporation of untranslated fragments from various languages within modernist writing. It explores non-translation in modernist fiction, poetry, and other forms, with a principally European focus. The intention is to begin to answer a question that demands collective expertise: what are the aesthetic and cultural implications of non-translation for modernist literature? How did non-translation shape the poetics, and cultural politics, of some of the most important writers of this period? Twelve essays by leading scholars of modernism explore American, British, and Irish texts, alongside major French and German writers, and the wider modernist recovery of Classical languages. They explore non-translation from the dual perspectives of both ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’, unsettling that false opposition, and articulating in the process their individuality of expression and experience. The range explored indicates something of the reach and vitality of the matter of translation—and specifically non-translation—across a selection of poetry, fiction, and non-fictional prose, while focusing on mainly canonical voices. Offering a series of case studies, the volume aims to encourage further exploration of connections across languages and among writers. Together, the collection seeks to provoke and extend debate on the aesthetic, cultural, political, and conceptual dimensions of non-translation as an important yet hitherto neglected facet of modernism, helping to redefine our understanding of that movement. It demonstrates the rich possibilities of reading modernism through instances of non-translation.


Author(s):  
Paul Brooker ◽  
Margaret Hayward

The Conclusion points out that the preceding seven chapters’ examples and case studies have revealed some expected, and some unexpected conclusions. The six main cases revealed some expected uniformity in the leaders’ selection of rational methods. There was less uniformity, however, in the choice of the methods they emphasized, whether due to their personal preferences or to the circumstances they were facing. Two unexpected findings were the addition of a seventh appropriate rational method—learning—and the prevalence of dual-leadership teams. The conclusion goes on to suggest that this book’s theory and approach should be applied to versions of military leadership and to the political leadership of contemporary democracies.


Author(s):  
Gabriele Pieke

Art history has its own demands for recording visual representations. Objectivity and authenticity are the twin pillars of recording artistic data. As such, techniques relevant to epigraphic study, such as making line drawings, may not always be the best approach to an art historical study, which addresses, for example, questions about natural context and materiality of the artwork, the semantic, syntactic, and chronological relation between image and text, work procedures, work zones, and workshop traditions, and interactions with formal structures and beholders. Issues critical to collecting data for an art historical analysis include recording all relevant information without overcrowding the data set, creating neutral (i.e., not subjective) photographic images, collecting accurate color data, and, most critically, firsthand empirical study of the original artwork. A call for greater communication in Egyptology between epigraphy/palaeography and art history is reinforced by drawing attention to images as tools of communication and the close connection between the written word and figural art in ancient Egypt.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4694
Author(s):  
Carmen Hidalgo-Giralt ◽  
Antonio Palacios-García ◽  
Diego Barrado-Timón ◽  
José Antonio Rodríguez-Esteban

The chief objective of this research was to analyze how the industrial heritage of three European capitals—Madrid, Brussels, and Copenhagen—has been integrated into the dynamics of their urban tourism, thereby generating new resources and cultural spaces. In regards to the latter point, this study poses the working hypothesis that industrial heritage can function as a tool for cultural sustainability, which allows for deconcentration away from historic city centers subjected to significant overtourism. To verify this hypothesis, a methodology has been designed based on the selection of specific indicators and the creation of maps, taking as reference data from the Tripadvisor travel portal. The results obtained are truly encouraging, and it would be interesting to expand this study by incorporating new case studies to allow us to discern additional patterns of behavior around urban industrial tourism.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evonne Levy

<P>This study in intellectual history places the art historical concept of the Baroque amidst world events, political thought, and the political views of art historians themselves. Exploring the political biographies and writings on the Baroque (primarily its architecture) of five prominent Germanophone figures, Levy gives a face to art history, showing its concepts arising in the world. From Jacob Burckhardt’s still debated "Jesuit style" to Hans Sedlmayr’s <I>Reichsstil</I>, the Baroque concepts of these German, Swiss and Austrian art historians, all politically conservative, and two of whom joined the Nazi party, were all took shape in reaction to immediate social and political circumstances. </P> <P>A central argument of the book is that basic terms of architectural history drew from a long established language of political thought. This vocabulary, applied in the formalisms of Wölfflin and Gurlitt, has endured as art history’s unacknowledged political substrate for generations. Classic works, like Wölfflin’s <I>Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe</I> are interpreted anew here, supported by new documents from the papers of each figure.</P>


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