Art Historical Approaches: Theories and Methodologies for Understanding Images
Readings: Theory Text Ch. 4, 13:2
Emperor Qinshihuang's Tomb (r. 221-207 BC), rediscovered c. 1974
Xian another view
Pompei & Herculaneum-rediscovery c. 1748
Art & Images as a way to understand or know history, life & the world
Portrait of literate woman from Herculaneum c. 50 AD
Pompei--Vesuvius Erupts 79 AD
Foundations of Art History as a Discipline (Western Traditions) & It’s Influence on Ways of Thinking about
(and analyzing) Visual Images• Discussion of Art History as a Discipline (take notes as this part is not
included in detail in this outline)
• Changing notions & debates : what visual is representation doing?– Mimesis
• Art as imitation of absolute ideas (world of forms--Plato)
• Art does not reproduce visual appearance but essential idea (not just what exists but what could or should exist--Artistotle)
– Imitatio (art as representation of nature, reality, the world)• Imitation of what (ancients? natural world? Universal truths? Artist’s vision? Reflection
of context? Anticipation of viewer?)
• Questions of formalism, iconography, iconology, stylistic movement, etc…
Core early foundations inspired by humanists from the Italian Renaissance:
– Leon Battista Alberti (1404• Philosopher: rationalism,
moderation, following nature, public good, ancient philosophers
• Admiration for ancient styles: Major work analyzing architectural styles & role of architecture in civic life, notions of beauty : De Re Aedificatoria, c. 1450-72
– Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Architects, Painters and Sculptors (Lives of Artists in your readings) 1550
– Notion of connecting art to world views, socio-economic & cultural contexts emerges
Maison Carré, Nimes, c. 19 AD
Greco-Roman Architecture
• Large built public spaces
• Visual display of power
• Lost engineering skills
• Insights into culture
• Framing spectacles
Classification & Analysis of
Architectural Styles--Relation to General
Theories of Life-Nature
• Illustration from Diderot’s Encyclopedie
Transition from Byzantine to Early Renaissance
Cimabue Madonna Enthroned 13th c. Gentile da Fabriano early 14th c.
Notion of New Techniques for Depicting ‘Reality’/Nature as “we” see it or “as it really is” (??)
• Renaissance rediscovery of linear perspective (Edgerton)
• Depicting 3 dimensions (3D) on picture plane (2D)
• Not just about art & science--“art in the service of God” (Edgerton)
Rediscovery of Linear Perspective
Art & Science “in the service of God”
• D. Veneziano, Madonna & Child 1445
Edgerton’s analysis of
use of symbolic use
of perspective
• Form & composition as key to meaning or content
Content/Meaning, Norm & Form
• Formalism• Example: theories of Heinrich
Wöfflin Principles of Art History…
1-Linear vs. painterly2-Plane vs. recession3-Closed form to open form4-Multiplicity to unity5-Absolute clarity to relative clarity
– For 16th-17th art but applicable to later art
– Examples: Ingres vs. Delacroix in 19th c. French painting
Ingres Valpincon Bather
Delacroix--Liberty Leading the People
Panofsky’s ideas about meaning & iconology (Theory Text Ch. 4:1)
Iconology & Search for Methodologies Beyond Formalism
• Panofsky is critical of Wolfflin’s Formalist analysis (ex. triangle between legs of Michelangelos’s David)--Analysis of motifs & compositions
• Seeks ‘intrinsic’ meaning or content
“Intrinsic Meaning”=Underlying principles that reveal attitudes (Panofsky)
• Examples of change in conventions about depictions of “The Adoration of Christ)
Madonna Kneeling
Abstract Art as a Challenge to
“the canon”• Picasso Les
Demoiselles d’Avignon
• Continues 19thc tradition of new art challenging the ‘establishment’
MANET Dejeuner sur l<herbe
Impressionism (1870s)
Neo-Impressionism
Proliferation of stylistic movements
• Cloisonism --Pont Aven School
Re-evaluation of artists & art in terms
of subsequent developments
• Van Gogh self-portrait
Relationships between artistic
movements• Alfred Barr--
Museum of Modern Art exhibition catalogue
Gombrich on art & invention or discovery
• Example: Constable
Constable
JM Turner: Steam & Fog (before 1844)
Svetlana Alpers
• Meanings & the position of the viewer--when the artist becomes the observer & the gaze is turned on the spectator
• Analysis of Velazquez’ Las Meninas
• who is the viewer-subject?
• What is the painting about?
• Idea of multiple meanings• Modes of picturing
relationships between the “viewer-subject”
Detail of Velazquez’ Las Meminas
• Detail
Manet’s Olympia
Buck-Morris on critical analysis of contemporary images & image-making
• Aesthetic Experience & the “virtual”
• Example of Surrealsm--S. Dali The Persistence of Memory
The “New Art History”
• c.1980s• Context
– “art for art’s sake”
– Political and economic contexts
– Anti-racist, feminist & post-colonialist influences
• Not just “great works” (canons) or “great men” (questioning bias in art historical methods)
• Re-thinking older classifications of art and non-art
– Non-representational art
– Popular culture
Pop Art (Roy Lichtenstein Nude with Beach Ball)
Artists had long been challenging definitions of what is art, art history and
who can define it
Marcel Duchamp. Fountain, original (left) and recreations of lost 1917 “Original”
