The Shaping of Art History

Meditations on a Discipline

Patricia Emison author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Pennsylvania State University Press

Published:15th May '09

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The Shaping of Art History cover

The Shaping of Art History is a provocative assessment of the discipline, examining both its problems and its promise.

Considers how past thinkers - from Pliny and Alberti to Freud and Fried - have conceptualized the history of Western art. This book presents a defense of art history for those outside the field who question its reliability or even its importance.

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: 9780271033068

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 9mm

Weight: 227g

120 pages