Art History's History

From Library Journal The current discipline of art history has undergone a number of changes through the years. This book is an attempt to track the evolution of its methodology and demonstrate why art history has been presented and taught, particularly in American academia. In the course of delineating this history, however, Minor confuses brevity for elegance. He mentions the standard authorities (e.g., Winckelmann, Riegl, Wolfflin, and Fry) and gives succinct coverage of Marxism, feminist theory, deconstruction, and semiotics. Yet, while his abbreviated summaries of the treatment of art from antiquity to the 18th century are good, important points seem to be telescoped and their relevance diminished. In addition, his concluding "Consequences for Art History" is astonishingly short. Meant for students and general readers, this work does not compare favorably with W. McAllister Johnson's Art History: Its Use and Abuse (Univ. of Toronto Pr., 1988), and the growth of the newer methodological approaches is better explained in The New Art History (Humanities Pr., 1988). Paula A. Baxter, NYPL Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Book Description Written in jargon-free, reader-friendly language, this is one of the first volumes to make art historical theory accessible to those at the introductory level. A review of contemporary theory of art history provides readers with lucid prose and concrete examples. Discussion of eighteenth- and nineteenth- century theories that are important to art history offers readers a review of historically important issues in philosophy. Illustrations of well-known works of art show readers how theory has application to images. Art historians and educators. The publisher, Prentice-Hall Humanities/Social Science Written in jargon-free, reader-friendly language, this is one of the first volumes to make art historical theory accessible to those at the introductory level. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From the Back Cover Written in jargon-free, reader-friendly language, this is one of the first volumes to make art historical theory accessible to those at the introductory level. A review of contemporary theory of art history provides readers with lucid prose and concrete examples. Discussion of eighteenth- and nineteenth- century theories that are important to art history offers readers a review of historically important issues in philosophy. Illustrations of well-known works of art show readers how theory has application to images. Art historians and educators. Preface to the Second Edition Since this book first appeared in 1994 there has been a surge of interest in the history of art history. A reader interested in these kinds of issues now has any number of books to choose from, and I have tried to incorporate into the appropriate bibliographies newer publications on the historiography of art history. Because there is this continuing and growing concern with theoretical matters and because art historians find it ever more necessary to interrogate (and even to doubt) the hypotheses and suppositions of the so-called discipline of art history, my editors at Prentice Hall and I decided that a new edition of Art History's History was warranted. As much as I was tempted to do so, I have not recast the basic text. It stands essentially as it was in the first edition. I have, however, updated bibliographies, made some corrections of fact, moved around the odd colon or semicolon, and added new material. On the sound advice of one of the readers of the first edition, I have included a discussion of the work of the American critic Clement Greenberg in Chapter 11, "Visual Supremacy: Connoisseurship, Style, Formalism." Because the terms "New Art History" and "visual culture" have received considerable attention in the past decade, I felt that they deserved their own chapter (now Chapter 13). I have also rewritten the chapter previously entitled "From Word to Image: Semiotics and Art History" and have renamed it "Reading Art History: Word, Image, Iconology, Semiotics" (Chapter 15). Although the previous discussion of semiotics remains unaltered, I have added short essays on ut pictura poesis, and on the learned art historian Erwin Panofsky (perhaps the single most potent voice in art history in the twentieth century) and his inculcation into our discipline of the words "iconography" and "iconology." In the final chapter (Chapter 19), I have taken on such embattled but still powerful concepts as influence, originality, and greatness, while making a modest proposal for the adoption of a term quite current in literary theory, "intertextuality." As with the first edition, I have not included footnotes or specific page citations for quotations. The bibliography at the end of each chapter contains the necessary references to artists and texts, however. When the source of the

VERNON HYDE MINOR was the first to recognize and respond to the growing need for art historical theory made accessible at the introductory level, offering a reader-friendly introduction to historical writings about art history, including contemporary theory, and providing background on aesthetics to demonstrate that art history arises from general philosophical questions. Now in this second edition of his work, the author has expanded his survey to include the American critic Clement Greenberg, developed his treatment of New Art History and Visual Culture, and added a special essay on the learned art historian Erwin Panofsky and his contribution to Iconography and Iconology. Minor then considers the concepts of influence, originality, and greatness.