World Art History Research Articles

Whiteness and “The Canon”

It is a great tragedy that all things in this society, including history, pedagogy, and the pursuit of knowledge, must struggle under the asphyxiating sludge of race, which is the legacy of the myth of whiteness. I grew up in a different society where color has no meaning outside the painter's palette, and my early training was such that I developed a healthy admiration for the work of artists as varied as Francisco de Goya, Gustave Courbet, Kathe Kollwitz, Charles White, Jacob Lawrence, and Ben Shahn, without consciousness of their color.3 I also had considerable exposure to a history of world art without prejudice toward the contributions ofmy own culture to that heritage. I knew one language of art history; a race coding of that language would have appeared ludicrous.However, having since taught in the academy on three continents, I must testify to the cogency of the issues that you raise. A cursory look at the curricula of art history programs across the United States quickly reveals a methodical blindness to all that is not rooted in Western civilization, which is as troubling as it is enduring. This predilection is as evident in course plans and program leanings as it is in faculty hiring practices and student recruitment. My experience was not entirely different in Britain. There is truth, therefore, to the notion of a race-specific pedagogical system and environment so suffused with “absences of vital presences” as to alienate those who may not find themselves or their backgrounds reflected.4

Aegean art and architecture

1. Introduction: Aegean Art and Architecture The environment Discovering the Aegean World Art and art history Objectives Organization. 2. The Neolithic Period and the Prepalatial Early Bronze Age Settlements Burial practices. 3. The First Palace Period Middle Bronze Age palaces and villas The vernacular tradition in Greece and Crete Ritual practices Summary. 4. The Second Palace Period Public art, private art, and the palatial architectural style The Second Palaces: Knossos, Phaistos, Gournia, and Kato Zakro Minoan villas: function and design The terminology and typology of Minoan palatial buildings The Minoan and Mycenaean spheres of influence Religious practices Burial practices. 5. Mycenaean Domination and the Minoan Tradition The Mycenaean palace at Pylos The Mycenaean palace at Knossos Haghia Triadha and Kommos The continuation of Minoan building techniques in the Third Palace Period Burial practices The Mycenaean shrine at Phylakopi The circuit walls at Mycenae and Tiryns. 6. Conclusion: Disruptions, (Dis)Continuities, and the Bronze Age The eastward migration of Aegean traditions The international style Cyprus, Palestine, and the Peoples of the Sea Tradition and transformation What goes around comes around: Daedalus returns to Crete. Notes List of Illustrations Bibliographic Essay Timeline Index

Art as Made and Sensuous: Hegel, Danto and the ‘End of Art’

Hegel's lectures on aesthetics embrace the world history of art in its broadest sense, encompassing the advanced cultures of Asia, Egypt, and Mesopotamia as well as the specifically European tradition that extends from Classical Antiquity through to the art of the Nazarenes and the burgeoning Romanticism of his own day. This attempt to bring the different stages and forms of art into a coherent system and to tell the story of their successive unfolding from the standpoint of philosophy lies at the very heart of Hegel's aesthetics. Indeed, the detailed attention that Hegel pays to the historical development of art has led Ernst Gombrich to recognise him as the founding father of the modem discipline of art history, with all the ambivalence that this expression conveys. In this paper, however, I am concerned less with the way in which Hegel's aesthetics have informed, and continue to inform, our ongoing attempts to understand the art of the past than with the relevance that his ideas still possess in relation to the art of the present. I shall argue that Hegel's aesthetics can tell us a great deal about contemporary art and that, read in the right way, his views provide an important corrective to a significant strand of contemporary art theory.I want to start by addressing something that must be regarded as a considerable obstacle to any such endeavour: Hegel's theory of the ‘end of art’. If, as popular conceptions of this theory would have it, Hegel saw the development of art as in some way a completed historical enterprise superseded in his own time by the new science of philosophy, not only would there seem to be little meaningful role left for art to play in his larger philosophical system but also little that such a philosophy of art can contribute to helping us understand the new and unexpected directions that art has taken, and continues to take, right up to the present day. This interpretation of Hegel's views remains highly problematic and anyone familiar with Hegel's method of argumentation will remain dissatisfied with such a one-sided representation of his position. Nonetheless, the extant text of the Lectures on Aesthetics does appear to offer some support to such claims.

Art History and Criticism: The Past as Present

is, for better or worse, a basic working assumption of most art historians; apparently born with the discipline itself, it has occasionally been challenged but never really upset. Even its critics have had to recognize its usefulness, for by concentrating on the formal, art historians have been able to isolate an aesthetic sine qua non, the essential quality shared by all works of art. The concept of style has allowed us to construct a model that transcends the constraining specificity of historical setting and to assign to works of art their own particular parameters of sequential development. We have been able thereby to break the parochial bonds of inherited cultural prejudices and conceive of a world history of art, moving easily, synchronically, among the cultures and epochs of museum exhibits.1

Desafios da pesquisa em história da arte hoje – pensando história da arte e globalização a partir de experiências com arte, África e Brasil

O estudo de relações entre arte, África e Brasil pode ser vinculado à demanda contemporânea pela produção de uma “história da arte mundial”. Assim, a partir de conexões entre “arte afro-brasileira” e “história da arte global”, o texto articula obras de autores que têm contribuído para pensar desafios, ideias, praticas e realizações neste campo fértil da historiografia da arte na contemporaneidade.Palavras-chave: História da arte global; historiografia da arte; arte afro-brasileira

Cosmogony and Mythology of the Agriculturalists of the Eneolithic (Part I)

One of the most vivid and attractive pages in the history of primitive Old World art is the ornamentation of painted eneolithic ware.

A layman's eye view of abstract art

Today the layman finds himself in a peculiar position regarding his feelings about art. On the one hand he sees violent adherents to the new expression of the twentieth century, while on the other he is aware of scoffing and derision of decadent modernism. Who is he to believe, and for what is he looking when he is confronted by a contemporary work? Even the term modern has taken on a suspect connotation in regard to art. In my beginning painting classes I am invariably asked by cautious students, their eyes narrowed, You're not going to give us any of that modernistic stuff, are you? This is, of course, symptomatic of the perplexity shared by the majority of laymen as they react to the work of contemporary artists. It is at precisely the moment of my called for answer that I intend to begin this discussion of the abstract qualities of art. Suppose we start by clarifying the meaning of abstraction. I refer to it as the act of withdrawing the essence of experience, epitomizing or summarizing the real-life activity. In this sense, even a photograph is abstract, for it is no longer the actual form but is a summary of the form on a twodimensional plane, greatly reduced in scale, and frequently in black and white rather than full color. Man the artist has chosen to abstract in many ways, and to different degrees in order to best express himself in relation to his time. The degree of abstraction is sometimes greater in twentieth century art than in fifteenth century art, but the underlying principles are the same. Now in particularizing the discussion I shall refer to specific works of artists, and for purposes of clarity it would be greatly beneficial if you could look at the examples pointed out. I shall be careful to choose only those works found in A New World History of Art by Sheldon Cheney, published by the Dryden Press of New York in 1956. The nineteenth century painter, Paul Cezanne, was an artist who wanted to recapture the solidity and abiding strength of the old masters.