The Shaping of Art History
Meditations on a Discipline
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Pennsylvania State University Press
Published:25th Feb '08
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£28.95(9780271033068)
The Shaping of Art History is a provocative assessment of the discipline, examining both its problems and its promise.
Invites readers to consider and reconsider how past thinkers - from Pliny and Alberti to Freud and Fried - have conceptualized the history of Western art.
In this provocative book, Patricia Emison invites the reader to consider and reconsider how past thinkers—from Pliny and Alberti to Freud and Fried—have conceptualized the history of Western art. What a book review attempts to be for a book, this extended essay attempts to be for several hundred years’ worth of books in a field: an indicator of problems with the old attempts and hopes for the new ones. It is a defense of art history for those outside the field who question its reliability or even its importance; it is a critique of art history for those in the field who may have been preoccupied with looking at trees but who might be interested in trying to see the forest.
“This book brings profound issues into new and vivid focus.”
—Angus Trumble, Yale Center for British Art
“At a moment when the discipline of art history is in flux, beset by new methodologies and conflicting theories of what matters in a work of art, it is refreshing to find a seasoned scholar stepping back and calmly appraising the strengths and weaknesses of the profession.
Wittily, lightly, endearingly, the author convinces readers that room still exists for passion and generosity in dealing with the universe of wonders that is the world of art.”
—D. Pincus Choice
“This wise and thoughtful book would make an excellent text for a methodology course and should be read by all who are interested in the field. Emison’s reorientation of art history will seem confrontational to some, but for an old veteran like me, it was a very consoling read.”
—David Wilkins Renaissance Quarterly
ISBN: 9780271033051
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 9mm
Weight: 367g
120 pages