Social History Of Art Research Articles

The Imagery of Death in the Visual Discourse of French Illumination of the 13th-15th Centuries: Iconographic Typologies and Artistic Practice

Classical historical and art studies in the context of the development of modern humanities are frequently synthesised with research on visual culture and social art history, forming a broad discourse on the study of the culture of a particular era, country, or community. This optics is taken as the basis for this study, wherein such a fundamental philosophical concept as the attitude towards death is considered from the standpoint of art history iconographic and cultural studies to identify worldviews and ideology in the development of visual narratives that cover and represent them. In this dimension, illuminated manuscripts are the research subject and object where, through the synthesis of text and image, the ability to semiotically read images and decode the symbolic content of cultural categories opens up wide interpretative possibilities for the researcher. The purpose of this study is to outline the wide variability of iconographic typologies associated with the theme of death in the late medieval European culture of the Latin West and to cover the features of the connection of visual culture with the system of worldview representations based on symbolism rooted in religion, folklore, and court aristocratic culture. The proposed study uses an interdisciplinary scientific approach and an art history approach. The research is based on the methods of stylistic and formal analysis, semiotics, and hermeneutics. The typological approach allowed identifying groups of images united by identical semantics of image interpretation, joint compositional and plot solutions designed to accessibly decode their semantics. First, the ontological and metaphysical foundations of the perception of death as a phenomenon in the philosophical and anthropological dimension in culture in general, and in western European culture in particular, are defined and characterised. In the context of the analysis of the features of the symbolic and iconographic interpretation of images of death in the visual culture of illumination of the 13th-15th centuries, groups of images are identified, united by identical semantics of interpretation of these images, joint compositional and plot solutions designed to accessibly decode their semantics, namely the imagery of the death of saints and clergy, imagery of the death of monarchs, the death of soldiers, noble chivalry, the death of fallen in battle, the death of women, imagery of suicides, as well as imagery of violent death, murder. This study covers a wide range of potential recipients in modern humanitarianism and can be useful for historians, medievalists, art historians, anthropologists, and cultural scientists.

Kafka’s Drawings and the Social History of Art

This article discusses several of Franz Kafka’s recently published drawings in the estate of Max Brod from the materialist perspective of the social art history of art, reflecting on their ideological possibilities and effective limits. It relates the form and iconography of these drawings to long-standing traditions of political representation and social critique in art history and visual culture, in particular the nineteenth-century image of the barricade and the culture of satirical caricature that flourished in Central Europe at the fin-de-siècle. It situates them within the framework or field of avant-garde practice in Prague, in which Brod was an important figure. It sees in them largely private evidence of Kafka’s interests and ambitions as a largely auto-didactic, idiosyncratic amateur visual artist—a body of work that excited Brod, but failed to resonate in Prague’s modernist artistic culture. While distinguishing these drawings quantitatively, qualitatively, and functionally from the work of contemporaneous professional modern artists, the article nonetheless concludes that Kafka’s drawings can be fruitfully studied as visual expressions of Kafka’s complex class and ethnic background, ideological sympathies and political diffidence, and all-too-hegemonic conception of sex, gender, and artistic creativity.

Enlightenment Response: A Study of Rational Spirit in the Works of Jean-Honoré Fragonard

This paper utilizes Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s paintings, housed in collections across Europe and North America, as primary source material. Employing methods from art history, social art history, literary analysis, and intellectual history, the study aims to explore the connections between Fragonard’s artistic philosophy, the social context of 18th-century France, and the cultural trends of the time. The paper investigates Fragonard’s response to Enlightenment and rationality through his paintings. The results indicate that, situated in an era oscillating between Rococo and realistic styles, Fragonard’s works provide a glimpse into the social and cultural milieu of late 18th-century France. Driven by the spirit of reason, Fragonard created a series of landscapes and genre paintings. Simultaneously, his sensitivity to emotions rendered his works vivid and dynamic, embodying the collaborative interplay of sensibility and reason.

Romanian Art History During the 1950s as a Form of Social History of Art

Summary The Romanian Workers’ Party – the political party that led Romania from 1947 until 1965 – need for legitimisation led to the rewriting of history in a way that the history of Romania was presented as a linear progression finally leading to communism. In art history, art also became a linear phenomenon, progressively advancing towards Socialist Realism. The tactics of constructing the new narrative in art history during the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s can be read as a form of the social history of art. Although the methodology could have led to remarkable results, ethical boundaries were violated: only some historical episodes and moments from artists’ biographies were selected. Within this context, this study investigates whether papers and monographs about Romanian painters active in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century can be read as a form of social history of art.

В.Е. Маковский и русские писатели XIX века. Неизвестные материалы

The Peredvizhnik artist Vladimir Makovsky (1846–1920) went down in history of Russian art as a recognized master of “small genre”, the author of a short entertaining story in painting. This article for the first time analyses the parallels between the artworks of V. Makovsky and texts of Russian writers of the 19th century — N. Gogol, I. Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, M. Gorky, and A. Chekhov. Based on the analysis of memoirs of contemporaries and materials from periodical press, the author comes to the conclusion that many paintings by V. Makovsky could be inspired by the texts of Russian literature of the 19th century. The language of his paintings is often in unison with the literary words. In the texts of each of the writers, the master found something for himself: he was attracted by the lyrical beginning in I. Turgenev’s stories, in the texts by N. Gogol he found humour and social satire, in the literary works by L. Tolstoy — the theses of humanism. The present article is based on the comparison of verbal and visual works, iconographic parallels, the analysis of form and style, and the study of the biographies of writers and the artist. The research methodology includes the comparative approach and the social history of art. The article introduces into scientific circulation a large number of previously unpublished materials of the periodical press. An important part of this research is the review and analysis of art history texts by both Russian and foreign scientists.

Poryadok, paradigma i politika estetiki: reforma odezhdy v period nepa (1921–1928)

Based on the combing and analysis of historical documents and newspaper images, this paper examines the early Soviet social costume style in the New Economic Policy (NEP) period, and the reasons for its transformation from the perspective of social history of art. The research shows that the dress reform during the NEP period of the Soviet Union experienced multiple model stages such as the paradigm shift from “simple imitation” to “self-construction”, and the discourse integration of “modern” and “national”. At the same time, the aesthetic discourse of socialist fashion, as the politics of aesthetics in daily life, become the mythic metaphor of socialist utopia in the process of constructing national ideology, social and cultural concepts and citizenship consciousness.

Recollection of the Parisian painters in 1650–1800

The article is dedicated to research of sources and documents linked with recollection of Parisian painters of 1650–1800 by contemporaries and scholars. Since the origin of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture appeared regularly a sum of biographical essays devoted to French academic masters. The texts were created by historiographer of Academy until the middle of the 18th century. Later it were connoisseurs of fine art who continued to produce these writings. The authors were recruited from members of Academy as well as friends and relatives of an artist. After research of such sources and documents, the author strives to define a role of memory and posthumous glory for the most eminent artists and representatives of artistic milieu. The author takes in consideration an image of a Parisian painter displayed before his descendants. The article also treats an idea of personal glory connected with artists’ aim to make the Academy and its pictorial school flourish and rule throughout Europe. The research novelty is based on the lack of fundamental publications on the topic in Russian and Western historiography. The relevance of this study is caused by recent trends of social art history interested in everyday life and worldview of a real artist in the real world. Author’s careful work with authentic documents helped to trace a certain scheme used in such biographical writings. They contain biographical data, a tribute to personal qualities of the late artist and, finally, a scrupulous description of his works. The texts written by artist’s friends and relatives are usually more sentimental and have a touch of biographical novel. Virtually, both of these genres were intended not only to keep memory of artist’s creative heritage but also to represent his individuality. In doing so the biographers of any artist not only aimed to compose several individual vitae but also to create a panoramic view of French school of painting as the leader of artistic progress of the time.

Skimming Through the History of Art with a Wide-Angle Lens: Review of Hauser’s Social History of Art

Arnold Hauser’s scholarly theories as a master of the sociology of art have sparked a paradigm shift in Western scholarship regarding the study of art history. In Hauser’s first book, The Social History of Art, published in 1951, he was groundbreaking in clarifying the dual determinist position of art, applying classical sociological theorizing to the study of art history. To a certain extent, it dissolves the principle of artistic self-regulation, highlights the materialist-historical perspective, and unmasks the mystery of artistic development. As a central figure in the field of art historical studies who has driven a change in research perspectives, Hauser has contributed to a diversification of perspectives in art historical research and in the process has refined the theoretical system of art sociology, becoming a pioneer in the field of art sociology.

Dailės mecenatystė Radvilų dvare Vetinų laikais: našlės, žmonos ir dukros

Patronage of Art at the Radvila Court During the Wettin Period: Widows, Wives and Daughters The article deals with the patronage of art by the Radvila women of the Nesvizh- Olyka branch of the family. It is seen as a complex organisational process that involved not only clients but also intermediaries. The aim is to reveal the typical roles of female patrons, identify the areas of art they supported the most, and assess the individual contribution of women. Firstly, the focus of the article is the hitherto less explored aspects of patronage by Ona Sanguškaitė-Radvilienė (1676–1746): her strategies for recruiting artists, the role of intermediaries, the organisation of artists’ work, and the duchess’s involvement in the execution of commissions. The article reveals how, assisted by intermediaries, this noblewoman could mobilise and control high-level professionals at her court. The duchess’s initiatives covered a wide range of artistic fields and had a lasting impact on several generations of the Radvila. Moreover, works by the masters from Ona Radvilienė’s court were passed on to other aristocrats of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and supposedly influenced the art of their courts. The patronage of other Radvila women was less extensive. They were primarily involved in the decoration of the interiors of palaces and in commissioning portraits and religious paintings. The activities of Pranciška Uršulė Radvilienė (1703–1753) were quite significant in this field. Her education and amateur art practices may have influenced her artistic initiatives, her contacts with artists, and her mediation in executing her husband’s commissions. Research into the women’s activities during the Wettin period helps to reveal an important and still underestimated aspect of the social history of art in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: the importance of family ties and cooperation in art commissions. The women often acted as intermediaries for their spouses and mother, Ona Sanguškaitė-Radvilienė. Compared to Western European countries, in the eighteenth century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had a poorly developed network of art agents and specialised art dealers. Therefore family ties and women’s mediation were crucial both in the hiring of artists and in the control of their work. Keywords: the Radvilas, female patronage, commissioning art, 18th century, network.

Anticipating Brazil’s Redemocratization in the Early 1980s

This article examines Preparação II (Preparation II, 1976) and Tarefa I (Task I, 1982), two works of video art produced by Brazilian artist Letícia Parente during the last phases of Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964–85). The actions recorded in these two videos directly respond to political and social transitions experienced in Brazil in the early 1980s: those implemented by the military government as a way to retain soft control of individual bodies, and those enacted by civilians as empowering manifestations of political participation for social change. This article argues that the explicit manipulation of female bodies in Parente’s work—the injection, labeling, and pressing down upon them—evokes the collective anticipation of Brazil’s redemocratization in 1985. Drawing from feminist and social art history approaches, I compare the strategies used by Parente in these two works of video art with the manipulation of female bodies for artistic purposes included in the artworks of Parente’s Rio de Janeiro-based contemporaries Lygia Pape and Anna Maria Maiolino. Examining how Parente’s videos bear witness to Brazil’s slow transition to democracy provides visual evidence of the ways in which national and international political powers inform individual (female) bodies by both enacting physical control over selected populations and catalyzing intersectional feminist movements.

The Art Market in Rome in the Eighteenth Century: A study in the social history of art

This anthology in ten chapters, based on an international conference held in 2012 at Palazzo Barberini in Rome, is a welcome addition to Brill’s series Studies in the History of Collecting and Art Markets. Paolo Coen, author of an earlier monographic study on the Roman art market of the eighteenth century – Il mercato dei quadri a Roma nel diciottesimo secolo (2010) – brings together essays by well-known scholars working on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Rome. The aim of the volume is to take stock of the current state of studies and to offer new approaches to a subject that, especially in the last two decades, has received much attention. The main ambitions of the publication are twofold: first to re-evaluate the history of collecting, patronage and the art market – a field of study that sits precariously between art history, history and the social and economic sciences – as being placed firmly within the social history of art. The methodological position is clearly outlined in Coen’s introduction to the volume and in Peter Burke’s opening essay. The former provides a very useful overview of the dynamics and historiography of the Roman ‘art system’ in the eighteenth century, emphasizing the need to adopt a humanistic rather than a purely economic approach to the study of art production and consumption. The latter, entitled ‘The social histories of art’, offers an incisive introduction to the field of studies and its developments in recent decades.

Fighting for Visibility: Lithuanian Artists in Argentina

The paper analyses the role of the Lithuanian diaspora and its artists in the art field of Argentina in the 30’s and 40’s, and overviews their input into the development of the nativist discourse. The paper employs social art history to show the impact the transatlantic migration had on the social mobility of migrant artists and their careers in South America and Lithuania.

Kokoschka: The Untimely Modernist by Rüdiger Görner

Reviewed by: Kokoschka: The Untimely Modernist by Rüdiger Görner Claude Cernuschi Kokoschka: The Untimely Modernist. By Rüdiger Görner. Trans. by Debra S. Marmor and Herbert A. Danner. London: Haus Publishing. 2022. 352 pp. $29.95. ISBN 978–1912208814. Among art historians, biography enjoys a far from stellar reputation. If T. J. Clark openly declared his 'hatred' of the genre during a symposium on social art history in 1997, it was, presumably, because life histories (however thorough) frequently side-step the socio-political dimension of works of art. Biographers raise serious questions to be sure, but often sustain the 'great man' version of history, yielding to the temptation of lionizing artists as exceptional individuals who outpace the cultures from which they spring. Whether Rüdiger Görner's new study — an English translation of Oskar Kokoschka: Jahrhundertkünstler, published in 2018 by Zsolnay — will dispel these suspicions is difficult to say. But one may question the necessity for yet another biography of enfant terrible Expressionist Oskar Kokoschka. One says 'yet another' because four such studies already exist (Edith Hoffmann, Oskar Kokoschka: Life and Work, 1947; J. P. Hodin, Oskar Kokoschka: The Artist and His Time: A Biographical Study, 1966; Frank Whitford, Oskar Kokoschka: A Life, 1986; and Susanne Keegan, The Eye of God: A Life of Oskar Kokoschka, 1999). And while all acknowledge their predecessors, not one graces the bibliography of Görner's latest addition to the list (though Hoffmann's is cited in several footnotes). Surely, these antecedents do not deserve so ungenerous an omission, especially as the first two, for all their imperfections, relied on first-hand interactions with the artist himself. Granted, there is no shortage of revisionist embellishment, even downright fabulation, in Kokoschka's recollections (something his early biographers fully acknowledge). But the artist's direct testimony proved extremely valuable in elucidating the symbolism of his rather obscure wartime allegories. Without these elucidations, upon which Görner himself relies, hermetic pieces such as The Red Egg, The Crab or What We Are Fighting For would have remained largely unintelligible. Additionally, one might regret the rapidity with which Görner glosses over Kokoschka's formative years in Vienna, especially as these marked the important intellectual mentorship of Adolf Loos and Karl Kraus. No less pivotal was his subsequent sojourn in Berlin, during which he worked for the avantgarde periodical Der Sturm under the tutelage of Herwarth Walden. As deeply and enduringly as Alma Mahler's rejection wounded him, and as bizarre as his ill-fated attempt to commission a life-size doll to 'recreate' his lover may strike contemporary audiences, Kokoschka's connection to these important [End Page 199] cultural figures (and his place in the polemical debates they initiated) warrants comparable attention. Given Görner's literary background, and how seriously Kokoschka turned to theatrical endeavours, the study is stronger when outlining the artist's relationship with writers such as, say, Georg Trakl, Richard Dehmel, Rainer Maria Rilke and Thomas Mann. Equally welcome is his allowing the artist's ties with musicians to emerge in sharper relief: composers such as Ernst Křenek, Gottfried von Einem and Werner Egk, performers such as Yehudi Menuhin and Pablo Casals and directors such as Wilhelm Furtwängler, not just the usual suspects such as Schönberg, Berg and Webern. Görner is also effective when stressing the importance of pedagogy in Kokoschka's overall worldview: his lifelong fidelity to the principles of John Amos Comenius, and his commitment to his pupils' freedom to create in unconventional ways (which got him into trouble on more than one occasion). Since Kokoschka's writings on art prove rather nebulous, impeding the emergence of a lucid, workable aesthetic philosophy, his teaching practice provides a more useful entry point into his thought process, all the more so as he, perhaps naively, considered teaching to be a powerful political as much as pedagogical tool. Conveniently, the discussion of his teaching provides a natural segue into Görner's useful account of Kokoschka's activities in the public sphere, and of his lifelong political engagement. Against this backdrop, what emerges most sharply from Görner's biography is Kokoschka's complex, contradictory...

V. Gordon Childe and Arnold Hauser on the social origins of the artist

Vere Gordon Childe’s theory of craft specialisation was an important influence on Arnold Hauser’s book The Social History of Art, published in 1951. Childe’s Marxist interpretation of prehistory enabled Hauser to establish a material foundation for the occupation of the artist in Western art history. However, Hauser’s effort to construct a progressive basis for artistic labour was complicated by art’s ancient connections to religion and superstition. While the artist’s social position and class loyalties were ambiguous in Childe’s accounts of early civilisations, Hauser consigned artists to the lower echelons of society. This relegation did not imply that Hauser had a low regard for artistic skills. Quite the opposite, the artist’s inferior social status enabled Hauser to distance artists from the ruling class, and consequently, to separate artistic handiwork from the dominant ideology that works of art manifested.

Sergey Timofeyevich Konenkov’s Mythopoetics

The article deals with the features of mythopoetic models in S.T. Konenkov’s sculpture. Despite the fact that monographs, albums, dozens of articles are devoted to the maestro’s works and they are quite well studied, the nature of the mythologism of S.T. Konenkov’s artistic thinking has not been fully revealed. In the ideological context of Soviet art studies, which were based on the methodology of the “social history of art”, only the fact of the sculptor’s deep interest in archaic folk traditions was noted, while this topic can be considered as a natural manifestation of the myth-making process characteristic of the art of the 20th century as a whole. Using the example of S.T. Konenkov’s works, the article attempts to retrace the formation specifics of the “non-classical artistic language” of mythopoetics in the Russian land, which consisted in the fact that, unlike Western European artists who would immerse in the exotic world of archaic art of non-European origin (primarily Africa), Russian masters were fascinated by their home antiquity. When considering the mythological structures that served as the basis for the mythopoetic models of S.T. Konenkov’s sculptural projects, three basic groups can be conditionally distinguished: a direct appeal to ancient mythology, pagan Slavic reminiscences, and a mythological interpretation of a freshly created new world. It is thanks to myth-making that the characters of S.T. Konenkov’s sculptural compositions, despite all the heterogeneity of specific subjects, belong to the integrity of a single cosmos created by the mythopoetic consciousness of the maestro. At the same time, the common mythological foundations of the Russian sculpture development in that period determine the commonality of the mythopoetic models, characteristic not only of S.T. Konenkov’s works. In many ways, they are also quite clearly manifested in the works of S.D. Erzia, A.S. Golubkina, and others.

Frederick Antal and the Marxist challenge to art history

First published in 1948, Frederick Antal’s Florentine Painting and Its Social Background was an important milestone in anglophone art history. Based on European examples, including Max Dvořák, it sought to understand art history’s relationship to social and intellectual history. When Antal, a Hungarian émigré, arrived in Britain in 1933, he encountered an inward-looking discipline preoccupied with formalism and connoisseurship; or, as he phrased it, art historians of ‘the older persuasion’ ignorant of ‘the fruitful achievements of modern historical research’. Despite its considerable scholarship and erudition, Antal’s book was not warmly received, largely because he had used historical materialism to understand the production of art and the development of styles. Antal’s class-based account of the social position of the artist and the role of the patron in determining the emergence of early Renaissance styles was especially controversial. However, although Marxist analysis was used to challenge the assumptions of Anglo art history, it was not Antal’s intention to weaken art history’s disciplinary autonomy. With historical materialism, he sought to place art history on a firmer historical footing. Most importantly, this approach was compatible with the discipline’s Central European tradition, where art-historical scholarship was framed by questions of method and based on broad historical research. Without defending its more deterministic features, this article supports a re-evaluation of Antal’s book, as an important forerunner of interdisciplinary art scholarship. It considers why Antal’s legacy has not endured, despite the ‘social history of art’ enjoying widespread acceptance in English-speaking art history in later decades.

Arte abstrata no Brasil

Este artigo trata sobre arte abstrata no Brasil a partir da cidade de Belém (PA), em suas ligações com outros campos artísticos. Foca-se em três casos vivenciados nesta cidade entre 1957 e 1961: a obra da artista Estela Campos, o Clube de Artes Plásticas da Amazônia (CAPA) e a Equipe Gestalt. Esses casos são estudados principalmente a partir de textos em jornais e da bibliografia existente sobre o tema, usando a abordagem teórica e metodológica da história social da arte. São mostradas as tendências não-figurativas adotadas por alguns artistas em Belém, bem como a recepção crítica de suas obras. As relações com a ideologia artística abstracionista são analisadas a partir das ideias de arte “atrasada” e “avançada”, presentes em muitos discursos de intelectuais e artistas.

The Art of Protest: Artistic Opposition to Francoism

The issues of interaction between art and politics are part of the problematic field of the social history of art, where one of the most significant issues is related to the assessment of the possibilities of cultural solidarity, which often goes beyond the declared politicization. In reality, oppositional cultural practices focus not only on undermining political regimes, but also on established ways of seeing and perceiving. This article presents a study of the politicization of Spanish art during the Francoist period and analyzes the role of politically and socially involved art in the formation of an anti-Francoist opposition and an alternative artistic discourse to official aesthetic attitudes.

Ключевые проблемы изучения дворцовой архитектуры Болоньи эпохи Кватроченто на рубеже XX–XXI веков: ретроспектива и перспективы

The article focuses on the studies of Bologna Quattrocento palace architecture which are getting more relevant along with a current growing interest to Italian Renaissance regional styles. At the turn of the 20th–21st centuries, scientific approaches to the mentioned architecture have been characterized by new tendencies. Three of them have been the subject of our special analysis aimed to reveal their actual peculiarities. The tendencies mentioned can be defined as “retrospective”, “monographic”, and “prospective” accordingly. The first one implies new attention to the “positivism era” local research, the second one deals with a constantly widening range of new monographic publications on different buildings, and the third one touches upon a question of Bologna palaces in a general European context. Firstly, the studies of the “positivism epoch” have been represented today, seen anew, in contemporary works. This fact induces one to choose a bilateral approach. On one hand, to turn to the above said period as it is (with research practice, its results and publications on the eve of the 20th century, data on demolished buildings, historical causes of Renaissance Bologna palaces’ intense research in the years of Risorgimento, as well as “Amilia ars” group activity (1898), work of A. Rubbiani and F. Malaguzzi Valeri especially). On the other hand, the contemporary approach to the old research is two-fold as well: generalizing the information and knowledge accumulated, giving “assessment” of achievements (A. M. Shanken, V. Rubbi), and stimulating new facsimile editions. Secondly, a widening range of publications on different palaces (S. Bettini, for one) is mostly in tune with a so-called social history of art, demonstrating at the same time new possibilities of reconstructing initial image of Bologna Quattrocento architecture (M. T. Sambin De Norcen, R. Schofield). Thirdly, a signal example of a new interest to Bologna 15th century palaces and its history in European context is provided by the example of Bologna portico. Special work on porticoes was partly inspired by a nomination of Bologna porticoes to the UNESCO World Heritage List (F. Bocchi, R. Smurra).

On Masculinity and Male Sexuality in Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Soldiers' Bath

This essay examines Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's painting Soldiers' Bath, the largest picture that Kirchner produced on the subject of military life after his brief experience as a recruit during the First World War. Through close visual analysis, iconographic comparison, consideration of the artist's social circle, and discussion of the widespread public interest in, and explosive scandals about, the sexuality of German soldiers, the essay questions the almost unanimous art‐historical understanding of the painting. Linking the principles of the social history of art with fundamental insights from queer theory, it argues that the painting is not only an expression of anti‐war criticism. While differing significantly from Kirchner's many other depictions of bathers, this ambitious and ambivalent painting, which is beautifully composed but not without traces of anxiety, is also seen as a symptom of a crisis of gender and sexuality that the painter seems to have experienced at that time.