NAME
William Durand (1230-1296)
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472)
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574)
Filippo Baldinucci (1624-1697)
MAIN THEMES AND IDEAS
French Canonist and liturgical writer.
Architecture as orientation; the physical model expresses
the abstract nature of spiritual beliefs
Italian humanist author, artist, architect and philosopher
Alberti's treatises on painting and architecture have been
hailed as the founding texts of a new form of art, breaking
from the Gothic past. His ideas were influential on
Renaissance artists.
According to Alberti, prestige lies not so much in material
used (i.e. gold leaf), but in the prowess of the artist alone
and claims that painting was pre-eminent among the arts.
Dutch Renaissance humanist and theologian.
Relevant writing on Magnificence
- characteristic of a ruler: virtue, cultivation,
excellent behaviour;
- moral virtue opposite to self-aggrandisement.
Italian artist and writer.
His Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and
Architects (1568) is considered the ideological foundation
of art-historical writing. It’s a ‘fundamental source of
information on Italian Renaissance art and a key
document in shaping the attitudes about the period for
centuries afterwards’. His book is ‘not only a collection of
biographies, but also a critical history of style’ (Oxford
Dictionary of Art & Artists).
Main points:
- progress in painting consists in the perfecting
representation of nature;
- representational skills taken to high levels in
classical antiquity;
- long period of decline during the Middle Ages;
- revival starts in 14th century Tuscany and
culminates with the Renaissance artists (Leonardo,
Raphael, Michelangelo etc.)
This viewpoint coloured most writing of the period.
Italian art historian and biographer.
Among the most significant Florentine
biographers/historians of the artists and the arts of the
Baroque period, he published a biography of Gian Lorenzo
Bernini in 1682, a primary source for the artist’s life.
Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768)
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)
Eugene Viollet-le Duc (1814-1879)
German art historian and archaeologist.
A key figure in the Neoclassical movement and in the
development of art history as an intellectual discipline. His
account of the stylistic development of Greek sculpture
was a milestone in archaeological writing.
Most important books:
Reflections on Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks
(published in English in 1765)
History of Art in Antiquity (1764)
Main points:
- proclaimed the superiority of Greek art and
culture;
- concept of ‘ideal beauty’ as a perfected and
idealised representation of natural forms;
- related is the concept of ‘grace’, a particular kind
of idealised representation of the poses,
expressions, movements and dress of the human
forms; ‘Grace is the harmony of agent and action’.
- he praises subtlety, understatement and
refinement over crude naturalism of Baroque.
English painter and writer on art.
Reynolds was the leading portraitist of his day, the first
president of the Royal Academy, a major art theorist, and
perhaps the most important figure in the history of British
painting. He delivered a series of lectures to the
Academy’s students, and these fifteen Discourses, forming
the classic expression of the academic doctrine of the
‘Grand Manner’ (ODoA&A).
Main points:
- upholds the centrality of the classical tradition;
- pursuit of ideal beauty as opposed to the
mechanical imitation of nature;
- importance of the study of ancient sculpture;
- claims to the status of painting as liberal and
intellectual art;
- outlines the principles of selection and invention
to be followed by artists to produce history
paintings; ‘It ought to be either some eminent
instance of heroic action, or heroic suffering’.
French architect and author.
He restored many prominent medieval landmarks in
France, including Notre Dame Cathedral and the Basilica of
Saint Denis. He wrote about the relationship between
form and function in architecture.
Main points:
- biological metaphor, seeing Gothic buildings as
living bodies;
- suggests ‘internal evidence’ to understanding
buildings.
Gustav Courbet (1819-1877)
John Ruskin (1819-1900)
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)
French painter.
He established himself as a leader of the Realist
movement. He rejected idealisation and concentrated on
the tangible realty of things. According to him, painting
should abandon historical and classical scenes and
concern itself with ‘things seen’. ‘I have never seen angels.
Show me an angel, and I will paint one’.
His views had enormous influence on 19th century art and
inspired a new generation of artists – including the
Impressionists – to concentrate on expressing ‘visual
experience’.
English writer, artist, social reformer and philanthropist.
The most important English art critic of the 19th century,
he was concerned with the relationship between art,
morality and social justice.
Main publications:
Modern Painters (1843-60)
The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849)
The Stones of Venice (1851-53)
Main points:
- sincerity and truth to nature;
- good art is essentially moral, bad art is insincere
and immoral;
- defended the Pre-Raphaelites for their ‘labour and
fidelity’;
- dismissed art of the 17th century as ‘insincere’
- emphasized the dignity and value of labour and
regarded factories as degrading places; sees
modern labour in a dim light when compared with
the work of medieval artisans (The Stones of
Venice).
- Medieval Christian society was superior.
His opinions were particularly influential on William
Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement.
French poet and art critic.
A key theorist of modernity and a supporter of Edouard
Manet.
Main points:
- modern painting must capture the ‘epic side of
modern life’, ‘the particular beauty of our age’
- it is necessary to avoid ‘public and official subjects’
(i.e. history painting);
- artists should turn their attention to ‘the daily life
of a modern city’;
- modern painting needs to challenge bourgeois
morality;
- art should distil an element of timeless beauty out
of the ‘transitory, fugitive element’;
- concerned with ‘the two halves of art’: form and
subject matter.

Heinrich Wölfflin (1864-1945)
Roger Fry (1866-1934)
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-
1944)
Baudelaire offers a more even-handed account of modern
painting than does *Greenberg’s formalism. However,
Baudelaire is unable to say what this modern art might
actually look like; he lacks the vocabulary that Greenberg
applied retrospectively.
Swiss art historian.
His objective classifying principles ("painterly" vs. "linear"
etc) were influential in the development of formal analysis
in art history in the early 20th century.
Main publication:
Principles of Art History (1915)
Main points:
Wölfflin formulated five pairs of opposed or contrary
precepts in the form and style of art of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries:
- from linear to painterly;
- from plane to recession;
- from closed form to open form (composition);
- from multiplicity to unity (i.e. baroque abolishes
the uniform independence of the parts);
- from absolute clarity to relative clarity of the
subject.
Wölfflin wrote about the transition of one style to another
– ‘classic’ to ‘baroque’ – in primarily formalist terms, he
nevertheless held that art was both influenced by and had
influence on the context in which it was created. Styles
change because the context in which art is produced
changes.
His views on art and styles and lack of interest in
iconography are out of tune with much of modern
thinking on art history.
English critic, writer and lecturer.
He became one of the period’s most eloquent champion
of modern French painting – he especially praised
Cézanne. He organised two exhibitions of Post
Impressionist painting that are regarded as milestones in
the history of British taste.
Italian writer and poet.
He became the founder and leading figure of Futurism,
the avant-garde movement spanning literature and music
as well as visual art, and which had enormous influence
across Europe before WWI.
Main points:
- break with the past and academic culture;
- celebration of technology, dynamism and power;
- Cubism influence – fragmented forms and
multiple viewpoints accentuating the sense of
movement;
subjects drawn from urban life and often political
in intent.
Clive Bell (1881-1964) British writer on art.
He was a close collaborator of Roger Fry’s.
Main publication:
Art (1914)
Main points:
- theory of ‘significant form’ = ‘the quality that
distinguishes works of art from other classes of
objects’ and that exists independently of
representational or symbolic content;
- subject matters is an irrelevant distraction.
His ideas were influential in spreading an attitude that
placed emphasis on the formal qualities of a work of art.
Bell viewed nineteenth-century British painting as not
really ‘art’ at all because of its reliance on subject matter.
The formalist values of critics such as Bell and *Greenberg
have led to Victorian painting being marginalised.
Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968) German-American art historian.
One of the greatest art historians of his age, he is
renowned particularly for his contribution on the study of
iconology.

Iconography has often been seen as the antithesis of

formalism: formalism focuses on morphology of forms,
iconography focuses on themes and ideas.

He distinguishes ‘iconographical analysis’ and

‘iconological interpretation’.

Iconographical analysis = knowledge of literary sources,

familiarity with themes and concepts. Considers subject
matter, stories and allegories.

Iconological interpretation = synthetic intuition, history of

cultural symbols. Considers intrinsic meaning.

Panofsky argued that iconographical analysis provides the

basis for an iconological interpretation that reveals the
‘intrinsic meaning or content’ of the work of art. Such a
concern with ‘intrinsic meaning’ and the accompanying
assumption that there is one correct interpretation
means, however, that iconology does not ultimately
depart so very far from iconography’s concern with
describing and classifying subject matter. Both stand in
contrast to the more open-ended approach to meaning
and interpretation now widespread in art history.

Note: in the module he is especially relevant to the

chapters on Gothic architecture (Book 1) and Dutch
painting (Book 2).
Alfred H. Barr (1902-1981)
Harold Rosenberg (1906-1978)
Clement Greenberg (1909-1994).
American art historian and museum administrator.
He played an enormously influential role in establishing
an intellectual framework for the study and appreciation
of modern art.
Main points:
- he charted the development of modern art in his
catalogue to the exhibition ‘Cubism and Abstract
Art’ (1936);
- the chart shows a tendency towards abstraction;
- presents art in a insular way, autonomous and
unconnected to its social milieu (formalist
approach);
- Cubism central to the development of abstract art.
Barr’s diagram presents the history of modern art in a
reductive way, as a linear succession of movements (with
Cubism central, others peripheral) which bear little on the
social developments in which they are embedded. This
was a time, after all, when formalist critics were side-lining
contextual factors and promoting the autonomy of art.
American art critic.
One of the most influential critics in the field of modern
and contemporary art and one of the major champions of
Abstract Experessionism. He coined the term ‘action
painting’.
Main points
- Rosenberg focuses upon the canvas as an arena in
which to act. ‘What was to go on the canvas was
not a picture but an event’;
- he argues that the formal concerns of European
painting are superseded by the rugged
individualism of the American painter – action
over contemplation; he elevated American avant-
garde over and above that produced in Paris;
- ethical and political concept of art;
- authentic modern art should be perpetually
disruptive.
Rosenberg’s interpretation would prove to be useful for
the next generation of American avant-garde artists. His
claim that this painting has ‘broken down every distinction
between art and life’ was key in this respect.
American art critic.
Most influential writer on modern and contemporary art
in post-War years. His approach is ‘formalist’. He
championed abstraction and particularly Abstract
Expressionism of Jackson Pollock. Greenberg insists on the
origins and originality of Abstract Expressionism while at
the same time establishing its international pre-eminence.
Main publication:
Art and Culture (1961)
Main points:
 - focuses upon the object of painting;
- stress on the flatness of the picture surface;
- rejection of any kind of illusionistic modelling;
- regarded aesthetic judgements as autonomous;
- autonomy of art against the rise of dictators
(propaganda) and capitalistic commercialisation
(kitsch).
Greenberg’s view became dominant because of its
internal coherency and use value to museums and
galleries which lay in the way that it systematically aligned
this new painting to its European modernist antecedents.
Greenberg considered Olympia by Edouard Manet to
have initiated Modernism His influence was at its height in
the 1950s and 1960s but it waned in the face of
development such as Conceptual Art and New Figuration.
Jürgen Habermas (b.1929) German sociologist and philosopher.
He is perhaps best known for his theories on
communicative rationality and the public sphere.
Main publication:
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962)
Main points:
Habermas argues that prior to the 18th century, European
culture had been dominated by a ‘representational’
culture, where one party sought to ‘represent’ itself on its
audience by overwhelming its subjects. Habermas
identifies ‘representational’ culture as corresponding to
the feudal stage of development.
In Habermas's view, the growth in newspapers, journals,
reading clubs, and coffeehouses in 18th-century Europe,
marked the gradual replacement of ‘representational’
culture with ‘public sphere culture’, which was critical in
its nature. Unlike ‘representational’ culture where only
one party was active and the other passive, the public
sphere culture was characterized by a dialogue as
individuals either met in conversation, or exchanged views
via the print media.
Habermas maintains that as Britain was the most liberal
country in Europe, the culture of the public sphere
emerged there first around 1700, and took place over
most of the 18th century in Continental Europe. In his
view, the French Revolution was in large part caused by
the collapse of ‘representational’ culture, and its
replacement by public sphere culture.

- The public sphere was largely made up of middle-

class people, otherwise known as the bourgeoisie;
- it was a distinctively urban phenomenon,
characteristic of ‘the town’;
- brought people together for the exchange of news
and ideas (‘sociable discussion’ and ‘critical
debate’).
 The importance of the term for the history of art and
visual culture lies in the way that the public sphere
entailed the development of a new public art world, with a
much larger audience for art than had been the case in the
exclusive world of courtly culture.

Svetlana Alpers (b.1936) American art historian.

Main publication:
The Art of Describing: Dutch Painting in the Seventeenth
Century (1983)
Main points:
Alpers challenged the iconological approach (see
Panofsky) to Dutch painting, maintaining that its surface
realism was of interest in its own right and not simply as
the means by which hidden meaning was conveyed,
neither presents a straightforward moral lesson nor simply
depict a domestic interior in a skilfully realistic way.
Alpers’s arguments are representative of the recent trend
in art history away from a belief that a work of art has a
single inherent meaning towards a more open-ended
approach to interpretation.
Lucy Lippard (b.1937) American writer, art critic, activist and curator.
Lippard was among the first writers to recognize the
‘dematerialization’ at work in conceptual art and was an
early champion of feminist art. She was active in the anti-
modernist avant-garde of the 1960s
She considers the meaning of the term ‘a sense of place’
and its relationship with a notion of ‘regionalism’.
Richard Shiff (b.1955) American Professor of Art History.
In Originality he explores the Romantic or modern
conception of artistic originality.
- distinction between a classical attitude to
originality and a Romantic or modern attitude;
- new value placed on individual experience in
modern society;
- for the classically minded, originality is compatible
with ‘imitation’ i.e. selective repetition; innovation
takes place within the framework of inherited
values and principles;
- instead, ‘modernist’ located their own unique
point of origin within themselves.
The problem with this model of originality:
- potential that it offers for commodification;
- artists compete with each other for recognition of
their unique ‘selling point’;
- artists self-consciously strive after it in a way that
undermines the very possibility of simply being
original.
Paul Binski (b.1956) British Professor of the History of Medieval Art
Formal properties can be combined with a wider historical
analysis; approach to understanding WHY Gothic churches
looked the way they do.