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88-699: In art history , an anonymous master is an Old Master whose work is known, but whose name is lost. Only in the Renaissance did individual artists in Western Europe acquire personalities known by their peers (some listed by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists ), such as those known by: The idea of a named and recognised painter originated among art historians early in the 20th century, who were attributing works they recognised to known painters. They later went back on some of these attributions, renaming as anonymous

176-414: A collective consciousness . Art historians do not commonly commit to any one particular brand of semiotics but rather construct an amalgamated version which they incorporate into their collection of analytical tools. For example, Meyer Schapiro borrowed Saussure 's differential meaning in effort to read signs as they exist within a system. According to Schapiro, to understand the meaning of frontality in

264-466: A legend for a map. The word symbol derives from the late Middle French masculine noun symbole , which appeared around 1380 in a theological sense signifying a formula used in the Roman Catholic Church as a sort of synonym for 'the credo'; by extension in the early Renaissance it came to mean 'a maxim' or 'the external sign of a sacrament'; these meanings were lost in secular contexts. It

352-407: A "symbol-using, symbol making, and symbol misusing animal" to suggest that a person creates symbols as well as misuses them. One example he uses to indicate what he means by the misuse of the symbol is the story of a man who, when told that a particular food item was whale blubber, could barely keep from throwing it up. Later, his friend discovered it was actually just a dumpling. But the man's reaction

440-459: A decade, scores of papers, articles, and essays sustained a growing momentum, fueled by the Second-wave feminist movement , of critical discourse surrounding women's interactions with the arts as both artists and subjects. In her pioneering essay, Nochlin applies a feminist critical framework to show systematic exclusion of women from art training, arguing that exclusion from practicing art as well as

528-492: A full-blown art-historical methodology. Sedlmayr, in particular, rejected the minute study of iconography, patronage, and other approaches grounded in historical context, preferring instead to concentrate on the aesthetic qualities of a work of art. As a result, the Second Vienna School gained a reputation for unrestrained and irresponsible formalism , and was furthermore colored by Sedlmayr's overt racism and membership in

616-686: A means of complex communication that often can have multiple levels of meaning. Symbols are the basis of all human understanding and serve as vehicles of conception for all human knowledge. Symbols facilitate understanding of the world in which we live, thus serving as the grounds upon which we make judgments. In this way, people use symbols not only to make sense of the world around them but also to identify and cooperate in society through constitutive rhetoric . Human cultures use symbols to express specific ideologies and social structures and to represent aspects of their specific culture. Thus, symbols carry meanings that depend upon one's cultural background. As

704-514: A more affirmative notion of leftover materials of capitalist culture. Greenberg now is well known for examining and criticizing the formal properties of modern art. [3] Meyer Schapiro is one of the best-remembered Marxist art historians of the mid-20th century. After his graduation from Columbia University in 1924, he returned to his alma mater to teach Byzantine, Early Christian, and medieval art along with art-historical theory. [4] Although he wrote about numerous time periods and themes in art, he

792-552: A particular symbol's apparent meaning. Consequently, symbols with emotive power carry problems analogous to false etymologies . The context of a symbol may change its meaning. Similar five-pointed stars might signify a law enforcement officer or a member of the armed services , depending upon the uniform . Symbols are used in cartography to communicate geographical information (generally as point, line, or area features). As with other symbols, visual variables such as size, shape, orientation, texture, and pattern provide meaning to

880-420: A red rose often symbolizes love and compassion. Numerals are symbols for numbers ; letters of an alphabet may be symbols for certain phonemes ; and personal names are symbols representing individuals. The academic study of symbols is called semiotics . In the arts, symbolism is the use of a concrete element to represent a more abstract idea. In cartography , an organized collection of symbols forms

968-481: A result, the meaning of a symbol is not inherent in the symbol itself but is culturally learned. Heinrich Zimmer gives a concise overview of the nature, and perennial relevance, of symbols. Concepts and words are symbols, just as visions, rituals, and images are; so too are the manners and customs of daily life. Through all of these, a transcendent reality is mirrored. There are so many metaphors reflecting and implying something which, though thus variously expressed,

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1056-461: A similar work by Franz Theodor Kugler . Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945), who studied under Burckhardt in Basel, is the "father" of modern art history. Wölfflin taught at the universities of Berlin, Basel, Munich, and Zurich. A number of students went on to distinguished careers in art history, including Jakob Rosenberg and Frida Schottmüller  [ de ] . He introduced a scientific approach to

1144-426: A specific pictorial context, it must be differentiated from, or viewed in relation to, alternate possibilities such as a profile , or a three-quarter view . Schapiro combined this method with the work of Charles Sanders Peirce whose object, sign, and interpretant provided a structure for his approach. Alex Potts demonstrates the application of Peirce's concepts to visual representation by examining them in relation to

1232-438: A symbol always "points beyond itself" to something that is unquantifiable and mysterious; symbols open up the "depth dimension of reality itself". Symbols are complex, and their meanings can evolve as the individual or culture evolves. When a symbol loses its meaning and power for an individual or culture, it becomes a dead symbol. When a symbol becomes identified with the deeper reality to which it refers, it becomes idolatrous as

1320-412: A work of art. Art historians employ a number of methods in their research into the ontology and history of objects. Art historians often examine work in the context of its time. At best, this is done in a manner which respects its creator's motivations and imperatives; with consideration of the desires and prejudices of its patrons and sponsors; with a comparative analysis of themes and approaches of

1408-431: Is a mark, sign , or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea , object , or relationship . Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise different concepts and experiences. All communication is achieved through the use of symbols: for example, a red octagon is a common symbol for " STOP "; on maps , blue lines often represent rivers; and

1496-449: Is an especially good example of this, as the Russian avant-garde and later Soviet art were attempts to define that country's identity. Napoleon Bonaparte was also well known for commissioning works that emphasized the strength of France with him as ruler. Western Romanticism provided a new appreciation for one's home country, or new home country. Caspar David Friedrich 's, Monk by

1584-401: Is an icon for all of womankind. This chain of interpretation, or "unlimited semiosis" is endless; the art historian's job is to place boundaries on possible interpretations as much as it is to reveal new possibilities. Semiotics operates under the theory that an image can only be understood from the viewer's perspective. The artist is supplanted by the viewer as the purveyor of meaning, even to

1672-455: Is best remembered for his commentary on sculpture from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Arnold Hauser wrote the first Marxist survey of Western Art, entitled The Social History of Art . He attempted to show how class consciousness was reflected in major art periods. The book was controversial when published in 1951 because of its generalizations about entire eras, a strategy now called " vulgar Marxism ". [5] Marxist art history

1760-414: Is concerned with the fundamental nature of art. One branch of this area of study is aesthetics , which includes investigating the enigma of the sublime and determining the essence of beauty. Technically, art history is not these things, because the art historian uses historical method to answer the questions: How did the artist come to create the work?, Who were the patrons?, Who were their teachers?, Who

1848-401: Is ineffable, though thus rendered multiform, remains inscrutable. Symbols hold the mind to truth but are not themselves the truth, hence it is delusory to borrow them. Each civilisation, every age, must bring forth its own." In the book Signs and Symbols , it is stated that A symbol   ... is a visual image or sign representing an idea – a deeper indicator of universal truth. Semiotics

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1936-471: Is non-representational or a work of expressionism . An iconographical analysis is one which focuses on particular design elements of an object. Through a close reading of such elements, it is possible to trace their lineage, and with it draw conclusions regarding the origins and trajectory of these motifs . In turn, it is possible to make any number of observations regarding the social, cultural, economic and aesthetic values of those responsible for producing

2024-476: Is possible to trace the ideas of Xenokrates of Sicyon ( c.  280 BC ), a Greek sculptor who was perhaps the first art historian. Pliny's work, while mainly an encyclopaedia of the sciences, has thus been influential from the Renaissance onwards. (Passages about techniques used by the painter Apelles c. (332–329 BC), have been especially well-known.) Similar, though independent, developments occurred in

2112-597: Is substituted for another in order to change the meaning. In other words, if one person does not understand a certain word or phrase, another person may substitute a synonym or symbol in order to get the meaning across. However, upon learning the new way of interpreting a specific symbol, the person may change his or her already-formed ideas to incorporate the new information. Jean Dalby Clift says that people not only add their own interpretations to symbols, but they also create personal symbols that represent their own understanding of their lives: what she calls "core images" of

2200-537: Is the Master of Flémalle (c 1378–1445), painter of the comté de Hainaut , who was established as Robert Campin . Other examples include: Art history Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, art history examines broader aspects of visual culture , including the various visual and conceptual outcomes related to an ever-evolving definition of art. Art history encompasses

2288-513: Is the study of signs, symbols, and signification as communicative behavior. Semiotics studies focus on the relationship of the signifier and the signified, also taking into account the interpretation of visual cues, body language, sound, and other contextual clues. Semiotics is linked with linguistics and psychology. Semioticians not only study what a symbol implies but also how it got its meaning and how it functions to make meaning in society. For example, symbols can cause confusion in translation when

2376-589: The Mona Lisa . By seeing the Mona Lisa , for example, as something beyond its materiality is to identify it as a sign. It is then recognized as referring to an object outside of itself, a woman, or Mona Lisa . The image does not seem to denote religious meaning and can therefore be assumed to be a portrait. This interpretation leads to a chain of possible interpretations: who was the sitter in relation to Leonardo da Vinci ? What significance did she have to him? Or, maybe she

2464-525: The psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams , art, mythology , world religion and philosophy . Much of his life's work was spent exploring Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy , astrology , sociology , as well as literature and the arts. His most notable contributions include his concept of the psychological archetype , the collective unconscious , and his theory of synchronicity . Jung believed that many experiences perceived as coincidence were not merely due to chance but, instead, suggested

2552-532: The three dimensions of sculptural or architectural space to create their art. The way these individual elements are employed results in representational or non-representational art. Is the artist imitating an object or can the image be found in nature? If so, it is representational. The closer the art hews to perfect imitation, the more the art is realistic . Is the artist not imitating, but instead relying on symbolism or in an important way striving to capture nature's essence, rather than copy it directly? If so

2640-411: The "symbol is taken for reality." The symbol itself is substituted for the deeper meaning it intends to convey. The unique nature of a symbol is that it gives access to deeper layers of reality that are otherwise inaccessible. A symbol's meaning may be modified by various factors including popular usage, history , and contextual intent . The history of a symbol is one of many factors in determining

2728-466: The 6th century China, where a canon of worthy artists was established by writers in the scholar-official class. These writers, being necessarily proficient in calligraphy, were artists themselves. The artists are described in the Six Principles of Painting formulated by Xie He . While personal reminiscences of art and artists have long been written and read (see Lorenzo Ghiberti Commentarii , for

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2816-477: The English-speaking academy in the 1930s. These scholars were largely responsible for establishing art history as a legitimate field of study in the English-speaking world, and the influence of Panofsky's methodology, in particular, determined the course of American art history for a generation. Heinrich Wölfflin was not the only scholar to invoke psychological theories in the study of art. An unexpected turn in

2904-675: The Litany , The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History , and Reclaiming Feminist Agency: Feminist Art History After Postmodernism are substantial efforts to bring feminist perspectives into the discourse of art history. The pair also co-founded the Feminist Art History Conference. As opposed to iconography which seeks to identify meaning, semiotics is concerned with how meaning is created. Roland Barthes 's connoted and denoted meanings are paramount to this examination. In any particular work of art, an interpretation depends on

2992-519: The Modern era. Some of this scholarship centers on the feminist art movement , which referred specifically to the experience of women. Often, feminist art history offers a critical "re-reading" of the Western art canon, such as Carol Duncan 's re-interpretation of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon . Two pioneers of the field are Mary Garrard and Norma Broude . Their anthologies Feminism and Art History: Questioning

3080-599: The Nazi party. This latter tendency was, however, by no means shared by all members of the school; Pächt, for example, was himself Jewish, and was forced to leave Vienna in the 1930s. Our 21st-century understanding of the symbolic content of art comes from a group of scholars who gathered in Hamburg in the 1920s. The most prominent among them were Erwin Panofsky , Aby Warburg , Fritz Saxl and Gertrud Bing . Together they developed much of

3168-491: The Russian Revolution and the communist ideals. Artist Isaak Brodsky 's work of art Shock Workers from Dnieprostroi in 1932 shows his political involvement within art. This piece of art can be analysed to show the internal troubles Soviet Russia was experiencing at the time. Perhaps the best-known Marxist was Clement Greenberg , who came to prominence during the late 1930s with his essay " Avant-Garde and Kitsch ". In

3256-760: The Sea (1808 or 1810) sets a sublime scene representing the overwhelming beauty and strength of the German shoreline at the Baltic Sea. In the infancy of the American colonies, the people believed it was their destiny to explore the Western, "untamed", wilderness. Artists who had been training at the Hudson River School in New York, took on the task of presenting the unknown land as both picturesque and sublime. Symbol A symbol

3344-529: The World War in 1914, wanted to create artworks which were nonconforming and aimed to destroy traditional art styles. [2] These two movements helped other artists to create pieces that were not viewed as traditional art. Some examples of styles that branched off the anti-art movement would be Neo-Dadaism, Surrealism, and Constructivism. These styles and artists did not want to surrender to traditional ways of art. This way of thinking provoked political movements such as

3432-403: The art is non-representational—also called abstract . Realism and abstraction exist on a continuum. Impressionism is an example of a representational style that was not directly imitative, but strove to create an "impression" of nature. If the work is not representational and is an expression of the artist's feelings, longings and aspirations or is a search for ideals of beauty and form, the work

3520-457: The article anonymously. Though the use of posthumous material to perform psychoanalysis is controversial among art historians, especially as the sexual mores of Michelangelo's and Leonardo's time and Freud's are different, it is often attempted. Carl Jung also applied psychoanalytic theory to art. Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist , an influential thinker, and founder of analytical psychology . Jung's approach to psychology emphasized understanding

3608-645: The best early example), it was Giorgio Vasari, the Tuscan painter, sculptor and author of the Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects , who wrote the first true history of art. He emphasized art's progression and development, which was a milestone in this field. His was a personal and a historical account, featuring biographies of individual Italian artists, many of whom were his contemporaries and personal acquaintances. The most renowned of these

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3696-462: The canonical history of art was the consequence of cultural conditions which curtailed and restricted women from art producing fields. The few who did succeed were treated as anomalies and did not provide a model for subsequent success. Griselda Pollock is another prominent feminist art historian, whose use of psychoanalytic theory is described above. While feminist art history can focus on any time period and location, much attention has been given to

3784-432: The creator's colleagues and teachers; and with consideration of iconography and symbolism . In short, this approach examines the work of art in the context of the world within which it was created. Art historians also often examine work through an analysis of form; that is, the creator's use of line , shape , color , texture and composition. This approach examines how the artist uses a two-dimensional picture plane or

3872-493: The direct inspiration for Karl Schnaase 's work. Schnaase's Niederländische Briefe established the theoretical foundations for art history as an autonomous discipline, and his Geschichte der bildenden Künste , one of the first historical surveys of the history of art from antiquity to the Renaissance, facilitated the teaching of art history in German-speaking universities. Schnaase's survey was published contemporaneously with

3960-524: The discipline. As in literary studies, there is an interest among scholars in nature and the environment, but the direction that this will take in the discipline has yet to be determined. The earliest surviving writing on art that can be classified as art history are the passages in Pliny the Elder 's Natural History ( c.  AD 77 –79), concerning the development of Greek sculpture and painting . From them it

4048-471: The essay Greenberg claimed that the avant-garde arose in order to defend aesthetic standards from the decline of taste involved in consumer society , and seeing kitsch and art as opposites. Greenberg further claimed that avant-garde and Modernist art was a means to resist the leveling of culture produced by capitalist propaganda . Greenberg appropriated the German word ' kitsch ' to describe this consumerism, although its connotations have since changed to

4136-459: The extent that an interpretation is still valid regardless of whether the creator had intended it. Rosalind Krauss espoused this concept in her essay "In the Name of Picasso." She denounced the artist's monopoly on meaning and insisted that meaning can only be derived after the work has been removed from its historical and social context. Mieke Bal argued similarly that meaning does not even exist until

4224-411: The founders of art history, noted that Winckelmann was 'the first to distinguish between the periods of ancient art and to link the history of style with world history'. From Winckelmann until the mid-20th century, the field of art history was dominated by German-speaking academics. Winckelmann's work thus marked the entry of art history into the high-philosophical discourse of German culture. Winckelmann

4312-529: The history of art criticism came in 1910 when psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud published a book on the artist Leonardo da Vinci , in which he used Leonardo's paintings to interrogate the artist's psyche and sexual orientation. Freud inferred from his analysis that Leonardo was probably homosexual . In 1914 Freud published a psychoanalytical interpretation of Michelangelo's Moses ( Der Moses des Michelangelo ). He published this work shortly after reading Vasari's Lives . For unknown reasons, he originally published

4400-442: The history of art, focusing on three concepts. Firstly, he attempted to study art using psychology, particularly by applying the work of Wilhelm Wundt . He argued, among other things, that art and architecture are good if they resemble the human body. For example, houses were good if their façades looked like faces. Secondly, he introduced the idea of studying art through comparison. By comparing individual paintings to each other, he

4488-406: The identification of denoted meaning —the recognition of a visual sign, and the connoted meaning —the instant cultural associations that come with recognition. The main concern of the semiotic art historian is to come up with ways to navigate and interpret connoted meaning. Semiotic art history seeks to uncover the codified meaning or meanings in an aesthetic object by examining its connectedness to

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4576-427: The image is observed by the viewer. It is only after acknowledging this that meaning can become opened up to other possibilities such as feminism or psychoanalysis. Aspects of the subject which have come to the fore in recent decades include interest in the patronage and consumption of art, including the economics of the art market, the role of collectors, the intentions and aspirations of those commissioning works, and

4664-413: The internet or by other means, has transformed the study of many types of art, especially those covering objects existing in large numbers which are widely dispersed among collections, such as illuminated manuscripts and Persian miniatures , and many types of archaeological artworks. Concurrent to those technological advances, art historians have shown increasing interest in new theoretical approaches to

4752-570: The manifestation of parallel events or circumstances reflecting this governing dynamic. He argued that a collective unconscious and archetypal imagery were detectable in art. His ideas were particularly popular among American Abstract expressionists in the 1940s and 1950s. His work inspired the surrealist concept of drawing imagery from dreams and the unconscious. Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern humans rely too heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of

4840-492: The most important twentieth-century art historians, including Ernst Gombrich , received their degrees at Vienna at this time. The term "Second Vienna School" (or "New Vienna School") usually refers to the following generation of Viennese scholars, including Hans Sedlmayr , Otto Pächt, and Guido Kaschnitz von Weinberg. These scholars began in the 1930s to return to the work of the first generation, particularly to Riegl and his concept of Kunstwollen , and attempted to develop it into

4928-455: The nature of artworks as objects. Thing theory , actor–network theory , and object-oriented ontology have played an increasing role in art historical literature. The making of art, the academic history of art, and the history of art museums are closely intertwined with the rise of nationalism. Art created in the modern era, in fact, has often been an attempt to generate feelings of national superiority or love of one's country . Russian art

5016-481: The neuter noun symbolum refer to "a mark or sign as a means of recognition." The Latin word derives from Ancient Greek : σύμβολον symbolon , from a verb meaning 'put together', 'compare', alluding to the Classical practice of breaking a piece of ceramic in two and giving one half to the person who would receive a future message, and one half to the person who would send it: when the two fit perfectly together,

5104-478: The object. Many art historians use critical theory to frame their inquiries into objects. Theory is most often used when dealing with more recent objects, those from the late 19th century onward. Critical theory in art history is often borrowed from literary scholars and it involves the application of a non-artistic analytical framework to the study of art objects. Feminist , Marxist , critical race , queer and postcolonial theories are all well established in

5192-513: The page devoted to them), although doubts continue surrounding some, such as Giovanni Gaddi (after 1333 – 1383) maybe the Master of the Misericordia dell’Accademia . In recent years the names of a variety of artists who were formerly listed as "anonymous" have become known; accordingly scholarly writings and museum labels have been changed to reflect their new identities. Much the most famous of these

5280-429: The painters they had formerly named. One example is the case of Pier Francesco Fiorentino , to whom Bernard Berenson attributed a number of works which were later re-attributed to Pseudo Pier Francesco Fiorentino , a Florence copyist. Some painters have even been described as anonymous (even many times like Barthélemy Eyck ) before later being recognised. They thus held several names historically (those who are noted on

5368-852: The person. Clift argues that symbolic work with these personal symbols or core images can be as useful as working with dream symbols in psychoanalysis or counseling. William Indick suggests that the symbols that are commonly found in myth, legend, and fantasy fulfill psychological functions and hence are why archetypes such as "the hero", "the princess" and "the witch" have remained popular for centuries. Symbols can carry symbolic value in three primary forms: Ideological, comparative, and isomorphic. Ideological symbols such as religious and state symbols convey complex sets of beliefs and ideas that indicate "the right thing to do". Comparative symbols such as prestigious office addresses, fine art, and prominent awards indicate answers to questions of "better or worse" and "superior or inferior". Isomorphic symbols blend in with

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5456-491: The philosophy of art (aesthetics) often hinders this inquiry. Art of Central Asia Art of East Asia Art of South Asia Art of Southeast Asia Art of Europe Art of Africa Art of the Americas Art of Oceania Art history is an interdisciplinary practice that analyzes the various factors—cultural, political, religious, economic or artistic—which contribute to visual appearance of

5544-422: The piece. Proper analysis of pigments used in paint is now possible, which has upset many attributions. Dendrochronology for panel paintings and radio-carbon dating for old objects in organic materials have allowed scientific methods of dating objects to confirm or upset dates derived from stylistic analysis or documentary evidence. The development of good color photography, now held digitally and available on

5632-541: The political and economic climates in which the art was created. Linda Nochlin 's essay " Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? " helped to ignite feminist art history during the 1970s and remains one of the most widely read essays about female artists. This was then followed by a 1972 College Art Association Panel, chaired by Nochlin, entitled "Eroticism and the Image of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Art". Within

5720-504: The reactions of contemporary and later viewers and owners. Museum studies , including the history of museum collecting and display, is now a specialized field of study, as is the history of collecting. Scientific advances have made possible much more accurate investigation of the materials and techniques used to create works, especially infra-red and x-ray photographic techniques which have allowed many underdrawings of paintings to be seen again, including figures that had been removed from

5808-461: The real emphasis in the study of art should be the views of the learned beholder and not the viewpoint of the artist. Winckelmann's writings thus were the beginnings of art criticism. His two most notable works that introduced the concept of art criticism were Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst , published in 1755, shortly before he left for Rome ( Fuseli published an English translation in 1765 under

5896-486: The receiver could be sure that the messenger bearing it did indeed also carry a genuine message from the intended person. A literary or artistic symbol as an "outward sign" of something else is a metaphorical extension of this notion of a message from a sender to a recipient. In English, the meaning "something which stands for something else" was first recorded in 1590, in Edmund Spenser 's Faerie Queene . Symbols are

5984-590: The same symbol means different things in the source and target languages. A potential error documented in survey translation is the symbol of "x" used to denote "yes" when marking a response in the English language surveys, but "x" usually means "no" in the Chinese convention. Symbols allow the human brain continuously to create meaning using sensory input and decode symbols through both denotation and connotation . An alternative definition of symbol , distinguishing it from

6072-472: The study of objects created by different cultures around the world and throughout history that convey meaning, importance or serve usefulness primarily through visual representations. As a discipline, art history is distinguished from art criticism , which is concerned with establishing a relative artistic value for individual works with respect to others of comparable style or sanctioning an entire style or movement; and art theory or " philosophy of art ", which

6160-821: The surrounding cultural environment such that they enable individuals and organizations to conform to their surroundings and evade social and political scrutiny. Examples of symbols with isomorphic value include wearing a professional dress during business meetings, shaking hands to greet others in the West, or bowing to greet others in the East. A single symbol can carry multiple distinct meanings such that it provides multiple types of symbolic value. Paul Tillich argued that, while signs are invented and forgotten, symbols are born and die. There are, therefore, dead and living symbols. A living symbol can reveal to an individual hidden levels of meaning and transcendent or religious realities. For Tillich

6248-454: The symbol. According to semiotics , map symbols are "read" by map users when they make a connection between the graphic mark on the map (the sign ), a general concept (the interpretant ), and a particular feature of the real world (the referent ). Map symbols can thus be categorized by how they suggest this connection: A symbolic action is an action that symbolizes or signals what the actor wants or believes. The action conveys meaning to

6336-448: The term sign was proposed by Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung . In his studies on what is now called Jungian archetypes , a sign stands for something known, as a word stands for its referent. He contrasted a sign with a symbol : something that is unknown and that cannot be made clear or precise. An example of a symbol in this sense is Christ as a symbol of the archetype called self . Kenneth Burke described Homo sapiens as

6424-541: The theories of Riegl, but became eventually more preoccupied with iconography, and in particular with the transmission of themes related to classical antiquity in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. In this respect his interests coincided with those of Warburg, the son of a wealthy family who had assembled a library in Hamburg, devoted to the study of the classical tradition in later art and culture. Under Saxl's auspices, this library

6512-603: The title Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks ), and Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums ( History of Art in Antiquity ), published in 1764 (this is the first occurrence of the phrase 'history of art' in the title of a book). Winckelmann critiqued the artistic excesses of Baroque and Rococo forms, and was instrumental in reforming taste in favor of the more sober Neoclassicism . Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897), one of

6600-803: The unconscious realm. His work not only triggered analytical work by art historians but became an integral part of art-making. Jackson Pollock , for example, famously created a series of drawings to accompany his sessions with his Jungian analyst, Joseph Henderson. Henderson, who later published the drawings in a text devoted to Pollock's sessions, realized how powerful the drawings were as a therapeutic tool. The legacy of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology in art history has been profound, and extends beyond Freud and Jung. The prominent feminist art historian Griselda Pollock, for example, draws upon psychoanalysis both in her reading into contemporary art and in her rereading of modernist art. With Griselda Pollock 's reading of French feminist psychoanalysis and in particular

6688-449: The vocabulary that continues to be used in the 21st century by art historians. "Iconography"—with roots meaning "symbols from writing" refers to subject matter of art derived from written sources—especially scripture and mythology. "Iconology" is a broader term that referred to all symbolism, whether derived from a specific text or not. Today art historians sometimes use these terms interchangeably. Panofsky, in his early work, also developed

6776-468: The writings of Julia Kristeva and Bracha L. Ettinger , as with Rosalind Krauss's readings of Jacques Lacan and Jean-François Lyotard and Catherine de Zegher's curatorial rereading of art, Feminist theory written in the fields of French feminism and Psychoanalysis has strongly informed the reframing of both men and women artists in art history. During the mid-20th century, art historians embraced social history by using critical approaches. The goal

6864-484: Was Michelangelo . Vasari's ideas about art were enormously influential, and served as a model for many, including in the north of Europe Karel van Mander 's Schilder-boeck and Joachim von Sandrart 's Teutsche Akademie . Vasari's approach held sway until the 18th century, when criticism was leveled at his biographical account of history. Scholars such as Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) criticized Vasari's "cult" of artistic personality, and they argued that

6952-514: Was a direct consequence of the symbol of "blubber" representing something inedible in his mind. In addition, the symbol of "blubber" was created by the man through various kinds of learning . Burke goes on to describe symbols as also being derived from Sigmund Freud 's work on condensation and displacement , further stating that symbols are not just relevant to the theory of dreams but also to "normal symbol systems". He says they are related through "substitution", where one word, phrase, or symbol

7040-442: Was able to make distinctions of style. His book Renaissance and Baroque developed this idea, and was the first to show how these stylistic periods differed from one another. In contrast to Giorgio Vasari , Wölfflin was uninterested in the biographies of artists. In fact he proposed the creation of an "art history without names." Finally, he studied art based on ideas of nationhood . He was particularly interested in whether there

7128-532: Was an inherently "Italian" and an inherently " German " style. This last interest was most fully articulated in his monograph on the German artist Albrecht Dürer . Contemporaneous with Wölfflin's career, a major school of art-historical thought developed at the University of Vienna . The first generation of the Vienna School was dominated by Alois Riegl and Franz Wickhoff , both students of Moritz Thausing , and

7216-530: Was characterized by a tendency to reassess neglected or disparaged periods in the history of art. Riegl and Wickhoff both wrote extensively on the art of late antiquity , which before them had been considered as a period of decline from the classical ideal. Riegl also contributed to the revaluation of the Baroque. The next generation of professors at Vienna included Max Dvořák , Julius von Schlosser , Hans Tietze, Karl Maria Swoboda, and Josef Strzygowski . A number of

7304-681: Was developed into a research institute, affiliated with the University of Hamburg , where Panofsky taught. Warburg died in 1929, and in the 1930s Saxl and Panofsky, both Jewish, were forced to leave Hamburg. Saxl settled in London, bringing Warburg's library with him and establishing the Warburg Institute . Panofsky settled in Princeton at the Institute for Advanced Study . In this respect they were part of an extraordinary influx of German art historians into

7392-459: Was during the Renaissance in the mid-16th century that the word took on the meaning that is dominant today, that of 'a natural fact or object evoking by its form or its nature an association of ideas with something abstract or absent'; this appears, for example, in François Rabelais , Le Quart Livre , in 1552. This French word derives from Latin, where both the masculine noun symbolus and

7480-491: Was read avidly by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller , both of whom began to write on the history of art, and his account of the Laocoön group occasioned a response by Lessing . The emergence of art as a major subject of philosophical speculation was solidified by the appearance of Immanuel Kant 's Critique of Judgment in 1790, and was furthered by Hegel 's Lectures on Aesthetics . Hegel's philosophy served as

7568-416: Was refined by scholars such as T. J. Clark , Otto Karl Werckmeister  [ de ] , David Kunzle, Theodor W. Adorno , and Max Horkheimer . T. J. Clark was the first art historian writing from a Marxist perspective to abandon vulgar Marxism . He wrote Marxist art histories of several impressionist and realist artists, including Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet . These books focused closely on

7656-419: Was the audience?, Who were their disciples?, What historical forces shaped the artist's oeuvre and how did he or she and the creation, in turn, affect the course of artistic, political and social events? It is, however, questionable whether many questions of this kind can be answered satisfactorily without also considering basic questions about the nature of art. The current disciplinary gap between art history and

7744-455: Was to show how art interacts with power structures in society. One such critical approach was Marxism. Marxist art history attempted to show how art was tied to specific classes, how images contain information about the economy, and how images can make the status quo seem natural ( ideology ). [1] Marcel Duchamp and the Dada Movement jump-started the anti-art style. German artists, upset by

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