Art History: Its Use and Abuse

393 Pages·1990·22.87 MB·English

by  W. McAllister Johnson

Art History
Qui trop embrasse, mal etreint: Lithograph (I/H) by Pierre-Narcisse Guerin
1816. Coll, Anne et Arsdne Bonafous-Murat, Paris
ART HISTORY:
Its Use and Abuse
w. MCALLISTER JOHNSON
La destinee des connoissances,
est de se perdre par degres,
comme elles se sont acquises,
& par les memes causes
qui les ont portees a leur perfection.
WATELET & LEVESQUE,
Encyclopedic methodique. Beaux-Arts, 1789
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
University of Toronto Press 1988
Toronto Buffalo London
Printed in Canada
Paperback edition 1990
ISBN 0-8020-6841-3
Printed on acid-free paper
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Johnson, W. McAllister (William McAllister), 1939-
Art history: its use and abuse
Bibliographies.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8020-6841-3
i. Art - Historiography. I. Titles.
N38o.j641988 707'.2 088-093918-4
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian
Federation for the Humanities, using funds provided by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
To Homer L. Thomas and the late Jean Adhemar,
to whom so much is owed
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Contents
PREFACE Xi
INTRODUCTION xiii
ART HISTORY IN TRANSLATION 2
iRESEARCH
Research and Factors Conditioning Research 3
Research: From Great Expectations to Bleak House 4
The Research Process: Hard Times and Great Expectations 6
Readers, Reading, and Institutional Relations 11
Archives and Their Denizens 18
Treasures and Trash: Art and Its Literature through the Ages 34
The Usual Books of Reference 44
Dictionaries and Lexica 47
Some 'Determining' Studies 55
Collected Essays and Commemorative Volumes 57
Transcribed Lectures 61
Periodicals and Series 61
2 BIBLIOGRAPHY
On Bibliography 77
Bibliographies 82
Form and Function in Historical Writing 82
Periodical Catalogues 83
Some Indexes to Specific Periodicals 85
A Selection among Institutional Catalogues 85
Some Indispensable Titles 87
Some Notable Approaches to Subject 90
The Corpus: A Representative Selection 94
viii / Contents
Auction and Exhibition Catalogues 97
Theoretical and Practical Literature on Exhibitions 102
Canadiana 103
3 WRITING
On Quality in Writing 109
The Writing of Art History 114
Choosing and Developing a Topic 118
Taking Note 126
Assumptions 132
On Imitation and Emulation in Art History 137
The Mechanization of Art History 141
Scaling Up and Scaling Down 145
Scholarly Generosity 151
When Writing for Periodical Publication 155
Reviewers and Reviewing 157
Diminished Powers, or a Sense of Proportion 162
Night Thoughts 168
4 UNIVERSITY AND PUBLIC LIFE
Seminars and Pro-Seminars 172
Theses and Dissertations 176
Academic Alienation 185
Public Lectures 191
The Student's Emergency Kit for Notation 197
'Abbreviated Reference' in Archaeology and Art History 198
Reference and Notation 199
Describing the Work of Art 205
Full Bibliographical Reference 206
Architectural Reference 207
Illuminated Manuscripts 209
Prints and Drawings 210
Photographic Sources and Reproductions 214
The Bibliography and Its Intellectual Uses 217
5 CATALOGUING THEORY
On Cataloguing and Some Unrelated Matters 227
Half-a-Dozen Heresies Mainly Regarding Collections, Exhibitions,
and Catalogues 239
Describing a Work of Art 270
The Catalogue Raisonne 272
ix / Contents
6 CATALOGUING PRACTICE
Catalogues: The Search for Form 277
Temporary (Loan) Exhibitions 293
Permanent-Collection Catalogues 298
Some Informational and Notational Problems 304
Visitors, Guides, and Installation Shots 310
Models 315
NOTES 327
INDEX 351