scholarly journals What to do with the “Most Modern” Artworks? Erwin Panofsky and the Art History of Contemporary Art

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 38-49
Author(s):  
Flora Lysen
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art History ◽  
Cultural Distance ◽  
Renaissance Art ◽  
Art Objects ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
History Of ◽  
Erwin Panofsky ◽  
Historical Methods

In the 1930s, when the world-renowned Medieval and Renaissance art scholar Erwin Panofsky became acquainted with the New York contemporary art scene, he was challenged with the most difficult dilemma for art historians. How could Panofsky, who was firmly entrenched in the kunstwissenschaftliche study of art, use his historical methods for the scholarly research of contemporary art? Can art historians deal with the art objects of their own time? This urgent and still current question of how to think about “contemporaneity” in relation to art history is the main topic of this paper, which departs from Panofsky’s 1934 review of a book on modern art. In his review of James Johnson Sweeny’s book Plastic Redirections in 20th Century Painting, Panofsky’s praise for Sweeney’s scholarly “distance” from contemporary art developments in Europe is backed by a claim for America’s cultural distance, rather than a (historical) removal in time. Taking a closer look at Panofsky’s conflation of historical/temporal distance with geographical/cultural distance, this paper demonstrates a politically situated discourse on contemporaneity, in which Panofsky proposes the act of writing about the contemporary as a redemptive act, albeit, as this paper will demonstrate, without being able to follow his own scientific method. 

scholarly journals DO HABITAT NATURAL AO SISTEMA DA ARTE: O CORPO DO ANIMAL COMO EVIDÊNCIA DO COMPLEXO DE MUDANÇAS DO MUNDO / From natural habitat to the art system: the animal’s body as evidence of a changing world

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (41) ◽  
pp. 212-232
Author(s):  
Marco Túlio Lustosa De Alencar
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art History ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Art Object ◽  
Art Objects ◽  
Art Works ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multiple Conformations ◽  
The Continuum

Este artigo situa de que maneira o animal – reconfigurado na forma de objeto de arte – pode ser tomado como evidência do continuum de mudanças que forjaram o mundo. A reprodução “artística” das espécies acompanha o percurso da própria humanidade, e, nos dias de hoje, sua presença estimula novas incumbências para a arte. Obras com essa especificidade têm sido capazes de acionar uma série de problemas de múltiplas conformações, sobretudo, quando os liames de humanos e animais se encontram no foco de instâncias diversificadas. Acompanhando a trajetória desses seres do habitat natural até sua recepção em espaços certificados, vê-se que, no mesmo rumo dos demais artefatos apropriados pelos artistas, trabalhos contendo animais podem ser considerados eminentes para o sistema da arte, a história da arte e a história do mundo.Palavras-chave: Animal na arte; Objetos de arte; História da arte; Arte contemporânea. AbstractThis article situates in what way the animal – reconfigured in the form of an art object – can be taken as evidence of the continuum of changes that forged the world. The “artistic” reproduction of species follows the path of humanity itself and, nowadays, its presence stimulates new tasks for art. Works with this specificity have been able to trigger a series of problems with multiple conformations, especially when the links between humans and animals are the focus of diversified instances. Following the trajectory of these beings from their natural habitat to their reception in certified spaces, one can see that, in the same course as other artifacts appropriated by artists, works containing animals can be considered eminent for the art system, the art history and the history of the world.Keywords: Animal in art; Art objects; Art history; Contemporary art.

Arabesques, Unicorns, and Invisible Masters: The Art Historian’s Gaze as Symptomatic Action?

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 213-232
Author(s):  
Eva-Maria Troelenberg
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Islamic Art ◽  
Methodological Development ◽  
World War ◽  
Taxonomic History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Methods ◽  
Second World

This essay takes two seminal texts of mid-twentieth-century Islamic art history as case studies for the methodological development of the scholarly gaze in the aftermath of the Second World War. Ernst Kühnel’s Die Arabeske (Wiesbaden, 1949) testifies to the continuity of a taxonomic history of styles, rooted in phenomenologist Sachforschung and apparently adaptable to shifting ideological paradigms. Richard Ettinghausen’s The Unicorn (Washington, 1950) stands for a neo-humanist approach. Its negotiation of aesthetic and cultural difference clearly is to be considered against the background of the experience of exile, but also of the rising tide of democratic humanism characteristic for postwar American humanities. Both examples together offer a comparative perspective on the agencies of art historical methods and their ideological and epistemological promises and pitfalls in dealing with aesthetic difference. Consequently, this essay also seeks to contribute exemplary insights into the immediate prehistory of the so-called “Global Turn” in art history. 


Hans Sedlmayr (1896–1984): Structural Approach and Pre-Modern Values

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angel Angelov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Structural Approach ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
History Of

The prevailing part of art historians, critics and theoreticians from the mid-1950s even until today feels related to the means of expression of the modernist art trends from the last decade of 19th c. until the end of 1960-s. Modernism has become a sacred text, whose complexity should be interpreted, but not criticized. Sedlmayr’s conception of art is built on moral, religious, aesthetic and political grounds, which are the very reason for the actuality of his works – both in the specialized sphere of art history and in the wider public debate on values. That is why I will analyse his structural approach mainly in relation to his anti-modern conception of art. This is the task of this study. Sedlmayr’s effort to turn art history into a “strict science” is an independent part of his scientific pursuit; it is in relation, but is not subordinate to his conception of modern art. Those publications of his are discussed but only in the specialized literature on history of the methods in humanities, while his conception against modern art acquires an exceptional popularity. Because of that reason his theoretic contribution to the study of art remains in a penumbra. I argue that Sedlmayr’s conception has the following coinciding points with the official understanding of art in the time of socialism: – A denial to estimate art with aesthetic criteria, which the ideologists of socialist realism define as formalism, and Sedlmayr as aesthetism; – In socialism art should represent a positive ideal; Sedlmayr calls this ideal “human measure”; – Art should habituate to morals; – A conviction that the modern art from the end of 19th c. on is decadent; – A criticism against the “dehumanization” of art.

scholarly journals Temptation, Resistance, and Art Objects: On the Lack of Material Theory within Art History before the Material Turn

2019 ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Charolotta Krispinsson
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Simple Fact ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Visual Culture Studies ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
History Of ◽  
Material Turn

Niccolò di Pietro Gerini's painting “The Temptation of Saint Anthony” (1390-1400) serves as a point of departure for this essay. It depicts Saint Anthony during a lapse of self-control as he attempts to resist an alluring mound of gold. Since the mound is in fact made of genuine gold leaves applied to the painting's surface, it works both as a representation of temptation as well as an object of desire affecting the beholder. The aim of this essay is to explore different approaches to materiality before the material turn within the art history discipline by examining two opposing directions within the writing and practice of art history:  the tradition of connoisseurship; and the critique of the fetish within the theoretical apparatus of new art history and visual culture studies of the 1980s and 90s. As an expression of positivism within art history, it is argued that connoisseurship be considered within the context of its empirical practices dealing with objects. What is commonly described as the connoisseur's “taste” or “love for art” would then be just another way to describe the intimate relationship formed between art historians and the very objects under their scrutiny. More than other humanist disciplines, art history is, with the possible exception of archaeology, an object-based discipline. It is empirically anchored in the unruly, deep sea of objects commonly known as the history of art. Still, there has been a lack of in-depth theoretical reflection on the materiality of artworks in the writings of art historians before the material turn. The question however, is not ifthis is so, but rather, why?In this essay, it is suggested that the art history discipline has been marked by a complicated love-hate relationship with the materiality of which the very objects of study, more often than not, are made of; like Saint Anthony who is both attracted to and repelled by the shapeless mass of gold that Lucifer tempts him with. While connoisseurship represents attraction, resistance to the allure of objects can be traced to the habitual critique of fetishism of the first generations of visual culture studies and new art history. It reflects a negative stance towards objects and the material aspect of artworks, which enhanced a conceived dichotomy between thinking critically and analytically in contrast to managing documents and objects in archives and museum depositories. However, juxtaposing the act of thinking with the practice of manual labour has a long tradition in Western intellectual history. Furthermore, it is argued that art history cannot easily be compared to the history of other disciplines because of the simple fact that artworks are typically quite expensive and unique commodities, and as such, they provoke not just aesthetic but also fetishist responses. Thus, this desire to separate art history as a scientific discipline from the fetishism of the art market has had the paradoxical effect of causing art historians to shy away from developing methodologies and theory about materiality as an act of resistance. 

Considering the future of art bibliography: the FAB initiative

2011 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Salomon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Art History ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
The Future ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
History Of ◽  
Review Current ◽  
Research Institute ◽  
Current Practices

The Future of Art Bibliography (FAB) initiative developed out of various conversations among colleagues in the United States and Europe. Events in the art historical community, including limited funding resources for art libraries and projects internationally, and the cessation of the Getty’s support for the production of the Bibliography of the history of art (BHA) provided the catalyst for the Kress Foundation grant to the Getty Research Institute. A series of international meetings of art librarians, art historians, publishers and information specialists ensued. The goal was to review current practices, take stock of changes, and seriously consider developing more sustainable and collaborative ways of supporting the bibliography of art history in the future.

Approaching the Mughal Past in Indian Art Criticism: The case of MARG (1946 –1963)

2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-203
Author(s):  
DEVIKA SINGH
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Art History ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
Art Journal ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Art And Architecture ◽  
Indian Art ◽  
Contemporary Artists

AbstractThe paper examines the model value of the Mughal period in MARG, the leading art journal of 1940s and 1950s India. It combines a discussion of some of the key historiographical questions of Indian art history and the role played by specific art historians, including European exiles who were among the contributors to the journal, with broader questions on the interaction of national cultural identity with global modernism. In this context, the Mughal period—celebrated in MARG for its synthesis of foreign and indigenous styles—was consistently put forward as an example for contemporary artists and architects. From its inception in 1946 until the 1960s the review favoured a return to the spirit of India's prestigious artistic past, but not to its form. Its editorials and articles followed a clearly anti-revivalist and cosmopolitan line. It aimed at redressing misunderstandings that had long undermined the history of Indian art and surmounting the perceived tensions in art and architecture between a so-called Indian style and a modern, international one.

scholarly journals Is Art History of China Useless in a Pandemic?

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng He Schöneweiß
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Art History ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Chinese Art ◽  
Life Crisis ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
The Core ◽  
Chinese Studies ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
History Of

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.

scholarly journals On the problem of the meaning and scope of the term school in contemporary art history (by the case of the Far Eastern region)

2021 ◽  
pp. 270-275
Author(s):  
Н.А. Левданская
Keyword(s):  
Art Education ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Art History ◽  
Far East ◽  
Eastern Region ◽  
Long Period ◽  
The Far East ◽  
History Of ◽  
Style Preferences ◽  
Far Eastern

Редкое исследование, посвященное современному художественному процессу, его участникам, обходится без употребления термина «школа». При этом его содержание трактуется очень широко: от сложившейся и действующей на протяжении большого отрезка времени системы полного цикла профессионального художественного образования до принадлежности художников одной территории или следования за лидером в выборе стилевых предпочтений. В статье дается краткий очерк истории появления и бытования термина «школа», предлагается уточнение его содержания в современных условиях и на этой основе предпринимается попытка оценить ситуацию с формированием региональных школ в России на примере Дальнего Востока. A rare study devoted to the contemporary art process, its participants, dispenses with the use of the term "school". At the same time, its content is interpreted very broadly: from the system of a full cycle of professional art education that has been established and has been operating for a long period of time to artists belonging to the same territory or following the leader in choosing style preferences. The article gives a brief outline of the history of the emergence and existence of the term "school", suggests clarifying its content in modern conditions and on this basis attempts to assess the situation with the formation of regional schools in Russia, using the example of the Far East.

Erwin Panofsky

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wagner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Art History ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Full Professor ◽  
New York University ◽  
Erwin Panofsky ◽  
The University

Erwin Panofsky (b. 1892–d. 1968) was a German art historian who, after immigrating to the United States in 1933, became one of the most influential figures in 20th-century art history. His method of reading works of art as historical documents and understanding their interpretation as intimately connected to the literary and philosophical currents of their times is called iconology. While his early writings reflect the theoretical problems of art historical analysis, his later writings aim more at applying than at justifying this procedure. Panofsky was born in Hanover. He went to high school in Berlin and subsequently studied art history at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, where he completed his doctorate in 1913 with a prize thesis on Albrecht Dürer’s art theory. He worked as a Privatdozent from 1920 at the University of Hamburg, where he was appointed to the chair of art history in 1926 after defending his thesis on formal principles in the works of Michelangelo and Raffael. In his Hamburg years two important influences on Panofsky’s thought stand out: On the one hand, the neo-Kantianism of Ernst Cassirer and on the other, Aby Warburg’s iconological project of the afterlife (Nachleben) of Antiquity in Western art. Cassirer’s neo-Kantianism contributed to Panofsky’s project to define principles by which one may evaluate the artwork’s transhistorical aesthetic values. Aby Warburg’s concern for the shifts of meaning caused by the artwork’s relation to historical discontinuities contributed to Panofsky’s insight that a purely stylistic interpretive system, as proposed, for example, by art historian Heinrich Wölfflin would not do. Panofsky’s focus on the complex historical embeddedness of an artwork’s content in relation to its formal aspects, a focus influenced by his 1920 reworking of art historian Alois Riegl’s concept of Kunstwollen, facilitated the success of his iconological method. Panofsky taught in Hamburg as full professor until 1933, when he and his Jewish colleagues were dismissed. The new Nazi law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service excluded non-Aryans from teaching at universities. In 1934 Panofsky immigrated to the United States, where he had already taught at New York University as a visiting professor for alternate terms since 1931. In 1935 he became professor of art history at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. All of his later publications were written in English. Panofsky’s importance for art history rests as much on his groundbreaking work for this academic discipline as on his ability to popularize his research via public lectures and eloquent studies.

[no title]

1992 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-31
Author(s):  
Halina Rusak
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
York City ◽  
Art History ◽  
Art World ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
Insight Into

My involvement as an artist and as an art librarian allows me to see a full spectrum of art history from its inception by an artist to its assessment by an art historian. It enables me to better understand the needs of faculty and students in the field of visual arts, as well as to interface effectively with faculty and scholars in art history. My gallery membership at SOHO 20 in New York City provides me with insight into art trends in the making. It demonstrates well a woman’s place in the contemporary art world, and a role of a critic in promoting or establishing an artist. I feel that this knowledge makes me a better librarian.

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