Art 18, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28, 30, 33

Methods & Theories of Art History (Third Edition)

Michael Cothren and Anne D’Alleva

● Clear, accessible introduction to the critical theories used in analysing art

● Essential handbook for students taking a range of art history courses

● Updated and revised for greater clarity between the different analytical methods and theories

This invaluable introduction to the critical theories used in analysing art has been updated to reflect recent scholarship in contemporary art and has been broken down into smaller sections for greater clarity and accessibility. The book begins with a revised discussion of the difference between method and theory. The following chapters apply the varying approaches to works of art, and the book ends with a new conclusion that focuses on the way the study of art is informed by theory.

AUTHOR Anne D’Alleva is Dean of the School of Fine Arts, University of Connecticut. She is the author of Arts in the Pacific Islands and Fundamentals of Art History. Michael Cothren is Scheuer Family Professor Emeritus of Humanities, Swarthmore. He is co-author of Art History and Art: A Brief History and Fundamentals of Art History. INFO 9781913947026

34 illustrations

200 pages 8⅜ x 5½ ins $19.99 • Paperback

AUGUST 2021

not narrative and symbolic. In her view, Dutch painters participated in a distinctive visual culture that led them to value detailed paintings of everyday life as a way of knowing the world, not as a way of presenting disguised moralistic messages. She connected painting to the production of maps, lenses, and mirrors as expressions of a distinctive Dutch visual culture. Other scholars (e.g., Willem Lash) have argued that both perspectives on Dutch painting could be right—that Dutch artists deliberately created open-ended works which viewers could interpret symbolically, if they chose to, or experience as a fresh and penetrating view of the world if that was their inclination.

Practicing iconography and iconology

When beginning an iconographic and iconological analysis, it helps to work slowly and systematically through Panofsky’s three stages, usually in order. Only rarely, however, will all three be surveyed in order when crafting a final presentation of your analysis and interpretation. A painting entitled De Style (1993) by American artist Kerry James Marshall can serve as an example of the beginning of such a systematic, three-step analysis (Figure 1.5).

1.5 Kerry James Marshall, De Style, 1993. Acrylic and collage on unstretched canvas. 8ft 8in x 10ft 2in (2.64 x 3.10m). Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

42 / chapter 1 style, iconography, and iconologyy

The pre-iconographic description or natural subject matter will be quite rudimentary or somewhat more involved depending on the viewer’s or scholar’s life experiences and the relationship of these experiences to the subject portrayed in the painting.

. What does this painting represent, on the simplest level?

It portrays five human figures within an interior setting. Two stand and three sit. The four whose heads are visible address viewers directly, almost as if they had just come into the room. Those already in the room seem to be acknowledging them. On a basic level, the setup is similar to that in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Double Portrait, but unlike that now-familiar painting, although there is a mirror on the back wall—not the relatively small, framed convex mirror of the double portrait, but a broad strip of reflective glass that extends all the way across this room—if viewers are entering this room, they are not reflected here. What is reflected rather prominently, however, are the backs of the two standing figures, and since those reflections are not directly behind them but off their right shoulders, either they or the mirror are tilted, or the viewer is slightly off center.

Because of overlapping, not everything is visible in this crowded painting, but behind and around the monumental human forms we can see a sizable collection of objects and furnishings. Many viewers will draw on their own experiences to interpret these, as well as on the broad expanse of the mirror and the postures and actions of the figures posed in front of it, as evidence that this scene is set in a barber shop. Since the figures are Black, presumably this is a barber shop that serves an African-American clientele.

An iconographic analysis usually requires research on the part of viewers or scholars who are not already familiar with the subjects and symbols portrayed in the painting.

. Which aspects of the painting carry specific conventional or symbolic significance that will help us focus our understanding on the meaning of the painting as a whole?

. What are the salient aspects of the setting and the conventional meaning of the individual objects within it?

The room in which these men stand is full of tools used in cutting hair (e.g., the electric clippers in the right hand of the barber) and products used to style it (e.g., Royal Crown Hair Dressing, a still well-known pomade used in grooming that sits on a surface near the barber’s right elbow). The particular barber shop represented (real or imagined) is identified as Percy’s House of Style in a diploma framed with what must be a souvenir first-dollar-earned and hung in front of the mirror at upper left. In the same area of the painting, the mirror itself reflects in reverse a part of the shop’s name—presumably painted on the other side of a street-front window glass. On the other side of the painting, the mir-

chapter 1 style, iconography, and iconology / 43 Are works of art puzzles? Do they pose problems?

Are art historians needed to put together the pieces or solve those problems?

Underlying formalist and iconographic/ iconological approaches to art history is the basic question of whether or not a work of art is something that needs to be deciphered, like a puzzle or a murder mystery. Do artworks pose problems of understanding that need to be solved? Do we need to crack their visual, iconographic, and iconological codes before we can understand them?

In his undergraduate classes on the methods and theories of art history, Michael Cothren often assigned an article and asked students to figure out

1. what was the problem the art historian was addressing?

2. what was the solution they offered?

3. what was the theoretical and methodological system and the nature of the evidence that allowed them to move from problem to solution, like walking from ignorance on a bridge to knowledge on the other side?

After they had accomplished this, he suggested that they ponder what was at stake in choosing to address the problem and posing a solution in their particular way. Sometimes, scholars make the rationale for, and the perceived importance of their studies, very clear from the outset in their publications. Good examples are Meyer Schapiro’s 1939 article on the transition from Mozarabic to Romanesque style in medieval Spain and Linda Seidel’s 1989 revisionist study of the iconography and iconology of Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Double Portrait. Sometimes, however, we as readers have to figure out the inspiration and reasons for the study, as well as the nature of the methods used to draw its conclusions, in the process of reading the article itself.

Art historian James Elkins has proposed that, because this deciphering or problemsolving mode has become such a basic art-historical practice, art historians tend to focus on works of art that can be treated this way, that call for problem-solving and code-cracking. He says, “We are inescapably attracted to pictures that appear as puzzles, and unaccountably uninterested in clear meanings and manifest solutions. The discipline thrives on the pleasure of problems well solved, and it languishes in the face of the good, the common, the merely true, the skillful, the private, and above all, the image that refuses to present itself as a puzzle.” (p. 258)

If art historians are detectives and problem solvers, is it because we choose to be? Or do the works of art themselves call for it?

46 / chapter 1 style, iconography, and iconologyy School of Beauty, School of Culture (2012). The scene shifts here from a crowded barber shop to a more spacious beauty shop, using many of the same pictorial devices and iconographic strategies with even more obvious references to great works within the European tradition.

Of course, iconography and iconology do not have to be used in isolation from other theoretical viewpoints. A three-part Panofskian analysis could be executed as a starting point, using it to generate ideas, and then using those ideas as the basis for addressing issues of ideology, class, gender, or race, informed by specific contextualizing theories presented in subsequent chapters of this book.

Beyond the object

Traditional practice of iconography and iconology as envisioned by Panofsky, as well as traditional visual analysis, runs the risk of an inadvertent emphasis on material objects—painting, sculpture, architecture, drawings, prints, etc.—as the primary, or even the exclusive, subjects of art-historical analysis. We must keep in mind that art history can be concerned with multiple subjects that may or may not focus on objects, including the history of art institutions, the roles of patrons and collectors, the way objects are or were used in ritual or performance, and how performance itself can constitute a form of art. Can these traditional systems of inquiry be useful in the interpretation of works of art that are not object-based?

Performance is a vibrant form of practice in contemporary art, and there are many different theorizations of contemporary performance art. In the 1990s, French art critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud developed the theory of relational aesthetics to account for the work of contemporary artists responding to the social relations and artistic practices made possible by new technologies, including digital media and the Internet. “The role of artworks is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities,” he declared, “but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real, whatever the scale chosen by the artist.” (p.13) For example, Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Untitled (Free) was an event in which the artist took all the hidden work that usually goes on in an art gallery and put it on display—gallery employees went about the business of buying and selling works, cataloguing them, doing accounting, etc., in the galleries rather than the back offices— while, at the same time, Tiravanija set up a kitchen and cooked Thai curry, which he offered to gallery visitors. The work created an arena

chapter 1 style, iconography, and iconology / 47

Sh*t They Didn’t Tell You

How to Succeed in the Creative Industries

Paul Woods

● An irreverent guide for anyone starting out in the creative industries

● Filled with common-sense tips, practical exercises, and how-to flow charts and diagrams on topics such as completing your portfolio, finding a job, and preparing a visa application

● Focuses on the skills you need to have a creative and lucrative career and lifestyle

This straight-talking, fun book is aimed at fresh graduates planning a career in the creative industries. It gives them the tools to identify and navigate the right path. Filled with practical tips and exercises, and illustrated with “how to” flow charts and diagrams, it focuses not just on the creative skills needed for a successful and lucrative career but a great lifestyle too.

AUTHOR Paul Woods is CCO of global design agency Edenspiekermann, based in LA. Paul has created award-winning work for brands including Red Bull and Google, and is the author of How To Do Great Work Without Being an Asshole (2019). INFO 9781786279538

90 illustrations

144 pages 7⅞ x 5¾ ins $17.99 • Paperback

AUGUST 2021

ALSO AVAILABLE How To Do Great Work Without Being an Asshole

Fabric for Fashion (Revised Second Edition)

The Swatch Book

Clive Hallett and Amanda Johnston

● Revised and updated edition of bestselling title

● New yarn windings and unspun fibres added to this edition

● New pages on sustainability impacts and product development

Fabric for Fashion: The Swatchbook is a unique resource with 125 swatches of the most recognized and widely used varieties of fabric and over a dozen yarn windings, allowing readers to appreciate not just the aesthetic appeal of the textiles but also their structure, feel, and weight. Natural fabrics such as cottons, silks, wools, and linens are included, as are alternative plant fibres like bamboo and hemp, and a wide range of manmade ones.

AUTHOR Clive Hallett has worked in the fashion industry since 1972 and lectured at the London College of Fashion, Northumbria University, and, as a guest, at many other institutions including the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Amanda Johnston has worked as a design consultant since 1982 and teaches at London College of Fashion. Amanda is curator at The Sustainable Angle and delivers industry seminars in this role. INFO 9781913947613

70 illustrations

102 pages 11⅛ x 8⅝ ins $135.00 • Ringbinder

OCTOBER 2021

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