ARTS-299-01

Methods of Art History

MWF 10:00-10:50
Spring 2014
Erik Inglis
Art building 132
X58554
Einglis@oberlin.edu
Office Hours: Monday 1:30-2:30, Thursday 1:00-2:30 and by appt.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
This course has two goals. First, we will investigate the history of art history, how the discipline began, changed,
and reached its present shape. My aim is to denaturalize art history, making you self-conscious about your own
intellectual interests and their history. Second, we will work hard to develop skills in reading, understanding, and
critiquing primary and secondary sources, to improve your ability to argue historically.
COURSE PRINCIPLE:
While it is easy to discuss methods in a vacuum, it doesn't get you very far. I see little point in talking about
theoretical means unless they are attached to concrete ends. Thus, the class will strive to be as rooted as possible in
actual works of art.
COURSE LACUNA:
A complete history of art history is impossible in the time we have. To me, the most glaring absence from this
course is the absence of art history outside the modern Western tradition; China, the Islamic world, and Africa are
barely present in the course. The course also pays less attention than it might to the institutional history of the
discipline.
COURSE STRUCTURE:
There are assigned readings for almost every class, posted on blackboard or available online. You are expected to:
complete them before class; be able to summarize them; be prepared to give informed critiques of them, both in their
particular details and in the general issues they raise. To get you started, in the first half of the semester, each
reading has a few assigned tasks to complete with brief written passages, which you will hand in each class; these
must be completed but will not be graded. Most days either I or a team of students will introduce the day's major
theme and, whenever possible, a relevant work or two from the Allen. NB: If you print the reading, I encourage
you to bring your copy to class, so that cooperative close reading will be possible.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
I am grateful to my colleagues Susan Kane, Bonnie Cheng, John Harwood, Sarah Hamill and Esra Akin for all their
input on this syllabus, and to Christina Neilson and Christina Normore for sharing the syllabi for their methods
courses.
ASSIGNMENTS:
Participation.
This includes but is not limited to: being prepared for each class by doing the reading, speaking, listening
attentively to others, encouraging others to comment, arguing respectfully, asking questions, clarifying areas of
accord or disagreement, summing up the comments of others, supplying useful bibliography and coming to talk to
me in office hours. Since attendance and participation are essential to learning this material, I will deduct half a
grade for every absence after the third
NB: Its very easy not to speak. But silence frequently prevents us from testing our ideas, discovering our
difficulties, and refining our thought. Participation is also required in this class, making up a large part of your

grade. Therefore, I will call on people. If you are predisposed to silence in class, please see me privately outside
class so we can identify strategies that will make speaking easier. There are many.1
I intend the participation grade to be meaningful; since this is an area where it is essential to understand
what I expect, I will give you a preliminary participation grade two Fridays before break, so you can adjust as
necessary. Here is the rubric for participation grade:
D: missed multiple sessions, did not do the reading, made no contribution to the class.
C: attended most sessions, did most reading, listened attentively but never spoke, frequently failed to email me
images in time.
B: attended most sessions, did the readings; listened attentively, was ready with informed responses to prompts.
made good comments; raised good questions or issues, emailed me images in time; went to the research lab sessions.
A: attended every session; did all the reading; always emailed images in time; was ready with informed responses to
prompts; followed up intelligently on comments others made; helped establish intellectual momentum in the class;
went to the research lab sessions.
Getting started paper
What do art historians do, and why do they do it? Two page paper. Credit/no entry
2 reports on a guest speaker
There will be the several guest speakers in the Art Dept this semester, and I will announce them as early as I
can. You need to go to two of these talks and write a one page report on its content. Your paper should place the
presentation in its art historical context as we have discussed it in class. The paper must be turned in within 7 days after
the talk. Cr/ne
Prompts and Responses
Most days are discussion days, and most discussions will begin with prompts assigned ahead of time. I
will give several of these at the beginning, with the explicit goal of offering a template for how you should do yours.
Even at the outset I will ask for relevant images from the Allen; these should be emailed to me by 9:00 the evening
before the class meets. In the second half of the semester, assigned student teams will be responsible for generating
the prompts and leading the discussion that flows from them. The teams are also responsible for prompts to the
class 72 hours before the session, together with a list of 4-6 relevant works from the Allen. The individual students
in each team will write a 1-2 page response to their own prompts, to be handed in at the next class. Your grade will
be based on the utility of your prompts and your response to them.
Review Papers
To allow (force) you to reflect on class discussions and order your thoughts concretely, there are three short
papers in class. Note that there are three of these papers, an indication from the syllabus that writing this kind of
essay is a skill we'll be building over the semester. Accordingly, the first one counts for (only) 5% of the final
grade; the next one is 15% and the third and final one is 20%. I've allocated the grades this way to lower the
pressure on the first try, using it as a chance to get your feet wet on this sort of project.
First review paper:
Select a days reading that we did between February 17 and March 10 (inclusive). In your paper, you will briefly
summarize the reading's thesis and the means used to advance it. (This should take no more than 2 pages, though
such brevity costs effort). After this, you should engage both in discussion, offering your appreciation of their
strengths and a critique of their weaknesses. These papers should be about 1200 words (including footnotes).
Please indicate the word count on the paper.

An apposite and skeptical quote about the pedagogic value of class discussions: Tom thinks the best method of
teaching anything is to rely on discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky
neurotics discuss for fifty minutes something that neither their teacher nor they know. Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin.

This assignment is effectively the fourth stage of digestion as you ruminate on the topic. The first stage was reading
it; the second stage was responding to the prompts/tasks about it; the third stage was the discussion of it in class.
Now you're attempting a sort of summary of what you think was important in the day's reading, based on all three of
the previous exercises. It does not have to be everything that was important in the reading--but can be just one or
two themes. For example, you might take a prompt and build a paper around it. For example, just about any of the
prompts from the Vasari day could generate a paper.
Another way of understanding this assignment would be to imagine that you have to write 1200 words to explain to
an art historian why Vasari, or Winckelmann, or early cultural historians, were important to the field; what they
achieved and failed to achieve. In that sense, you could treat the essay as if it was an exam question--though for an
open book exam with no time limit.
Second review paper:
There are two options for this paper.
1) Write a paper like the first review paper on one days topic, but extend it by using one of the suggested additional
readings to broaden and deepen your analysis.
2) For another class that you are taking this semester, preferably in art history, find an article that relates to an
approach discussed in the third unit. It can be an old essay, contemporary with the ones we read, or a more recent
application of the same sort of method deployed in the text we read in class. You should talk to me, to the professor
in your other class, and to Barbara Prior to identify a suitable article. NB: If you pick an article that is
inappropriate, you will have to start overso confirm it ahead of time! This paper has two parts. In the first part,
500-600 words, you should analyze the article. In the second part, 500-600 words, you should explain how it relates
in approach to we discussed in class. The more concrete you can be the better.
Third review papers:
For another class that you are taking this semester, preferably in art history, find an article that relates to an
approach discussed in the third unit. It can be an old essay, contemporary with the ones we read, or a more recent
application of the same sort of method deployed in the text we read in class. You should talk to me, to the professor
in your other class, and to Barbara Prior to identify a suitable article. NB: If you pick an article that is
inappropriate, you will have to start overso confirm it ahead of time! This paper has two parts. In the first part,
500-600 words, you should analyze the article. In the second part, 500-600 words, you should explain how it relates
in approach to we discussed in class. The more concrete you can be the better.
Research Lab with Barbara Prior, Art Librarian
In addition to its focus on intellectual history, the course is also designed to orient you to art historical research and
careers. Thus, I have scheduled a mix of sessions in and outside normal class time to cover research tools in the
field. Attendance at the out-of-class sessions is optional, but highly encouraged. They will help you in this class
specifically and in the major as a whole. The topics to be covered are:
Corpora vs. Catalogues raisonns;
Encyclopedias;
Bibliographies vs. Jstor vs. Google;
Field specific search tools;
how to find and apply for an internship.
Final Paper
You will write a final paper of 12-15 pages. Your topic should relate to another art history class, preferably
one you are in this semester. If you dont think this is possible, please see me. There are three sorts of topics you
may engage. First, you may write a book review of a significant art historical monograph published in the last 10
years.. Second, you may describe the state of the question on a significant art historical topic or controversy. Third,
you may research a significant moment or figure in the history of art history at Oberlin. The key term in all three of
these is significant; in all cases you must consult with me in advance and have your topic approved.

Grades:
NB: All assignments must be completed to pass the course. Failure to complete any assignment will result in
failing the class.
Participation...........................25%
What do art historians do, and why?..cr/ne
2 guest speaker reportscr/ne
1 Prompt and Response ........................10%
3 review papers...................40% (5% plus 15% plus 20%)
Final Paper.............................................25%
A NOTE ON HOW TO DO ALL THIS READING:
Im assigning you a lot of reading, certainly too much to read every word with equal attention. So one skill you
need to develop to a high level is intelligent skimming, along with learning to recognize when not to skim. It helps
to keep a few key questions constantly before you; you may even want them literally and physically beside you on a
piece of paper as you read. A few good ones are:
what kind of text is this? is it an argument, a description, an analysis? etc
what question or questions interest the author?
what does this writer help you understand about the works s/he writes about?
how does s/he explain these features?
why is this writer interested in these features?
what does this writer ignore?
how would the author explain and/or justify this ignorance?
would you accept that explanation?
why or why not?
how would you explain this ignorance?
how is your understanding of this piece harmed by this ignorance?
If you come up with other good general questions, please send them to me; this list is a work in progress.
Additionally, if you have or develop any other good techniques for quick but cogent reading, please share them with
the class.
Whats the difference between challenging and stressful? whats the difference between stressful and too
stressful?
Those questions are hard to answer. I hope that this class is challenging, both in the nature and the quantity of its
material, and I recognize that intellectual and logistical challenges are stressful. However, I never want all the protocols
and details of the class to create an unhealthy level of stress. If you are feeling like theres too much, or if the work is
unmanageable, or you have circumstances in your life that require priority, please let me know; things can always be
adjusted to make it possible for you to do all the work successfully while living a balanced life. I will work with you to
make this class work for you.
HONOR CODE:
I take the honor code very seriously, and expect the same of my students. You should all be familiar with
the honor code (http://new.oberlin.edu/arts-and-sciences/academic-resources-and-support/honor-code.dot) and
expect your professors to describe its application on their syllabi. In particular, it is essential that you write and sign
the honor code on all work you hand in for this class. If you do not, I will return the paper to you without entering a
grade until you sign it and return it to me. The Honor Code reads: I affirm that I have adhered to the Honor Code
on this assignment.

I value the Honor Code because it is fundamental to education in a liberal arts setting. Unlike some educational
environments, a liberal arts college believes that education is a transforming experience, both personally and socially. To
claim someone elses work as your own makes that transformation impossible, thus negating our purpose for being here.
I do not anticipate many problems in this course, which by its nature requires collaboration to be
successful. Indeed, I encourage you to share your work with your colleagues, seeking their input, comments, and
corrections. In the end, however, your work must be substantively your own. Others may suggest improvements in
your paper; they may not redraft it for you. In your paper, you must cite all your sources in academically formatted
footnotes. For guidelines to acceptable practices, see the brief outline Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing
about Art, 6th edition, (New York, Longman, 2000), or the extensive version in the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th
edition (Chicago, 1993) or 15th edition (Chicago, 2003), all available in the Art Library and/or Mudd reference
section.
If you have any confusion about how the honor code applies to any assignments in the course, please
ask me for clarification.
POLICY ON INCOMPLETE WORK, LATE WORK, AND ABSENCES:
Incomplete work: All work must be complete to pass the class. Failure to complete any assignment will result in a
no entry for the class.
Late work: Unless otherwise noted, all work is due at the beginning of class on the assigned day (except for the
report on speakers and the final paper). Late work will be accepted without penalty only in cases of true emergency
or by prior agreement with me. In other cases, work turned in late will be accepted, with half a grade deducted for
every day between the due date and the date it's handed in.
Absences: Attendance, as an essential part of learning this material, is mandatory. Students who miss class need to
write a 2-page summary of the readings for that day. This option will only be available twice, after which I will
deduct half a grade for every absence. More than three unexcused absence will result in a C or lower particpation
grade.

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CLASS AND ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE

Introduction day; Logistics
Discussion: What do art historians do?
Interpretive Case Study/Oberlin Moments, Part 1: Augustus Saint-Gaudens Shaw Memorial part 1
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Reminiscences, pages 327-47
Freeman Henry Morris Murray, Emancipation and the Freed in American Sculpture (Washington, D.
C. 1916 [reprinted 1972]), The Freedman, by J. Q. A. Ward, The Freedwoman, by Edmonia
Lewis, The Shaw Memorial, Boston, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, pp. 12-19, pp. 19-23, pp. 16474.
http://books.google.com/books?id=Wo0DAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
for images for Murrays book, see blackboard.
Due: 100 hundred words for each of these sources, explaining whether they contribute to your
understanding of the monument, and if so how?
Interpretive Case Study: Augustus Saint-Gaudens Shaw Memorial part 2
Albert Boime, The Art of Exclusion 199-219.
Kirk Savage, "Uncommon Soldiers: Race, Art, and the Shaw Memorial," in M. Blatt, Hope and
Glory, 156-67.
Due: How to read an article assignment: paragraph by paragraph outline of the Savage article
What is each authors thesis? Answer in a paragraph.
What general kind(s) of evidence does the author use to support his thesis? Answer with as many
general categories as necessary.
What specific evidence does the author use to support his thesis? Supply the specifics grouped in the
categories found above.
Why does the author believe this body of evidence is convincing?
Do you agree? Why or why not?
What assumptions does the author make? Explicit or implicit?
Are these assumptions sound?

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Summary: what is the crux of the disagreement between Boime and Savage? In 100 words, sum up
how Boime and Savage differ over which evidence is most important for interpreting the Memorial
Research Tools 1: with Barbara Prior, Art Librarian (meet in Art Library)
The Corpus and the Catalogue Raisonn
Research Tools 2: with Barbara Prior, Art Librarian (meet in Art Library)
Encyclopedias
no classthere is a lot of reading/writing for next week, though
Renaissance Foundations of Art History: Alberti (perspective begun)
NB: Note that this is the first of several discussions we'll have that address perspective; we'll also be
dealing with this in Vasari and Panofsky; thus, perspective is one of the leitmotifs of the class. My
hope is that with each subsequent discussion, youll return to your replies to the earlier prompts, thus
using and increasing your understanding of Alberti as you develop your understanding of newer
authors.
1) Leon Battista Alberti, Grove Dictionary of Art online
2) Alberti, On painting, trans. Cecil Grayson (London, 1972), Books 1-3, pp. 34-96.
prompts:
1) According to Alberti, what does a painter do? what is his function?
2) in outline form, list and briefly define three critical terms that Alberti uses
3) use two or three of them to evaluate three paintings from the following list of works in the Allen
Neri di Bicci, Altar Wing with Five Saints, ca. 1445
Attributed to Baldassare Peruzzi, The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine,
Giovanni Boccati, St. John the Baptist and St. Sebastian
Apollonio di Giovanni, Battle between the Athenians and the Persians
Anonymous, Adoration of the Child with Portrait of a Donor, 1943.420
you should praise one in Albertian terms
and use Albertian terms to criticize one for what Alberti would perceive as
its shortcomings
4) why does Alberti start with geometry? what are the consequences of discussing painting in
geometrical terms?
5) why does he borrow from rhetoric when he discusses composition? what are the consequences of
discussing painting in rhetorical terms?
6) write a paragraph about either: Albertis understanding of art history, or the historical implications
of his treatise.
7) How have you been taught to define a picture's composition? How does Alberti define it? What
relationship is there between these two definitions? Pick a painting from the Allen that dates before
1600, and give two rapid compositional summaries of it, once in your terms, once in Alberti's.
Renaissance Foundations of Art History: Giorgio Vasari (perspective continued)
1) Giorgio Vasari, in Grove online
2) Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Artists, 2nd edition 1568, translated by George Bull (London, ),
volume 1,
Preface to the Lives, pp. 25-47, "Preface to Part II," pp. 83-93
Preface to Part III, pp. 249-54
passages from the Lives of Cimabue, pp. 49-56
Giotto, pp. 57-8, 60-62, 68-69, 78-81
Brunelleschi, pp. 136-7
Leon Battista Alberti, pp. 208-13
Life of Michelangelo, pp. 325-34, 337-40, 349-61, 374-83, 417-42.
Tasks: 1) Write a sentence or three in response to each of these questions:
how does Vasari understands the art historian's task?
how does Vasari understand artistic change in time?
how does he explain artistic change in time?
what relationship does Vasari establish between historical description (this is what happened),

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explanation (this is why it happened) and evaluation (whether it's good or bad, and if good, how
good).
2) Write a paragraph on how Vasari's biographies relate to Alberti's criteria of artistic excellence.
3) Send me an email with one work in the Allen that Vasari would praise, and another he would
criticize. Write two sentences of Vasarian criticism for each.
4) Pick a key paragraph from one of Vasari's three Prefaces and be prepared to press it for its
significance. You can identify it by page # and paragraph #, and its first words.
5) What can you tell about Vasari's audience? Who is he writing for? Take into account both what
he says explicitly about that audience, and what you can read between the lines.
Vasari, continued
review assigned passages from the Lives of Cimabue, Giotto, Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti,
Michelangelo.
E. Panofsky, "The First Page of Giorgio Vasari's 'Libro': A Study on the Gothic Style in the Judgment
of the Italian Renaissance," (originally published as Das erste Blatt aus dem Libro Giorgio Vasaris:
Eine Studie ber der Beurteilung der Gotik in der italienischen Renaissance, Stdel Jahrbuch 6
(1930), 25-72), English version published in Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts (Garden City, NY,
1955), pp. 169-77, 205-225.
Vasari had an extensive collection of drawings from c. 1300 to c. 1550, and mounted them in frames
he designed (the assembly was called the Libro de desegni). Panofsky studies the frame that Vasari
added to one of the earliest drawings in the collection, attributed to Cimabue (d. 1302). He asks why
Vasari, who despised Gothic architecture, drew a Gothic frame around this drawing.
Alexander Nagel, Authorship and Image-Making in the Monument to Giotto in Florence
Cathedral, RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 53/54 (Spring - Autumn, 2008), pp. 143-151.
How did Vasaris presentation of Giotto differ from Benedetto da Maianos portrait of Giotto from
1490? How did the dominance of Vasaris presentation of Giotto keep post-Vasarian observers from
attending to Benedettos portrait?
How to read an article assignment: hand in a paragraph summary of Nagels article (it will be easier
to do this if you start with a longer summaryor even a complete outline).
Art Institutions in the 17th and 18th Centuries
I will lecture on this topic
Francis Haskell, History and its Images, chs. 7, The Birth of Cultural History, and 8, The Arts as
an Index of Society, pp. 201-229.
Tasks: Write a paragraph for one of these questions:
how do early cultural historians understand art's relationship to the society that produced it?
How do early cultural historians understand the relationship of individual artists to the society and
culture in which they live?
How is cultural history different from history history? from art history?
How to read a book assignment: use JSTOR to find 2 reviews of Haskells book. Read them, and be
ready to discuss which you find more useful for this class.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann
1) bio in Grove Dictionary of Art online
2) Johann Joachim Winckelmann, History of Art of Antiquity, intro by Alex Potts, translated by Harry
Francis Malgrave (Los Angeles, 2006),
Preface, pp. 70-80;
Part I, chapter 1, section 1, pp. 111-4; section 3, pp. 117-23;
Part I, chapter 4, section 1, pp. 186-91, section 2, pp. 191-207, section 3, pp. 227-44, section 4, pp.
244-5
Part II, pp. 299-351.
Tasks: 1) Write one to three sentences in response to each of these questions:
how does Winckelmann understand artistic change in time?
how does he explain artistic change in time?
how does Winckelmann's approach to artistic change in time relate to Vasari's?

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in what ways are they similar?

in what ways are they different?
2) Winckelmanns approach to Greek art involves him in periodization, the divvying up of all ancient
Greek art into different periods. What are these periods, and how are they distinct from each other?
How does his concrete historical periodization relate to his overarching theme, announced at the
beginning, that art moves from the necessary, to the beautiful, to the superfluous?
2) list three critical terms that Winckelmann uses
3) Attend carefully to how he discusses these four works:
the Apollo Belvedere on pp. 333-4;
the (so-called) Belvedere Antinous on p. 341.
the Laocon on pp. 313-4
the Belvedere Torso (which he calls the mutilated Hercules) pp. 323-4
Write one to three sentences on the role of these passages, and how they relate to the rest of the text.
4) Both Vasari and Winckelmann write about the Laocon, the Belvedere Torso, and the Arch of
Constantine. What is similar about their comments? What is different? You should also think here
not just about what they say specifically, but the larger framework for their comments. The same
words may have different meanings in different contexts.
5) Both Vasari and Winckelmann are attempting to address several centuries of art. How are their
projects similar? How are they different? How do their strategies relate to each other? How are they
different?
A glance outside the West I: A Chinese art historical text
1) In Grove Art online, read the entries on:
Xie He
Gu Kaizhi
Zhang Yanyuan
2) Hsieh Ho (now transliterated as Xie He), Old record of the classifications of painters, in W. R. B.
Acker, ed. and trans., Some Tang and pre-Tang texts on Chinese painting (Leiden, 1954-1974), vol.
1, pp. 3-32; you do not need to read the footnotes.
Chang Yen-Yuan (now transliterated as Zhang Yanyuan), Record of the Famous Painters ch. 1,
sections 1-4, ch. 2, sections 2-5, in W. R. B. Acker, ed. and trans., Some Tang and pre-Tang texts
on Chinese painting (Leiden, 1954-1974), vol. 1, pp. 59-153, 177-215. You do not need to read the
footnotes.
Tasks: Compare the length and detail of Groves entries on these three with those dedicated to
Alberti and Vasari in Grove Art.
List the stylistic criteria and/or terms used by Xie He and Zhang Yanyuan.
Compare these stylistic criteria to those of Alberti and Vasari; how are they similar? how do they
differ?
How do these authors conceive their project? What are they trying to do with their texts?
A glance outside the West II: An Islamic art historical text
Esra Akin, ed., Mustafa li Epic Deeds of Artists (1587), (Leiden, 2011), pp. 17-27, 206-61.
How does Mustafa Ali organize his chapter on the writers of the nastaliq script?
How does the author describe stylistic changes or continuities in the history of the nastaliq script?
According to Mustafa Ali, what are the a) professional, and b) personal merits of a perfect
calligrapher?
How does Mustafa Alis describe perfect calligraphy in visual terms?
After reading Mustafa Alis comparison between masters Sultan Ali of Mashhad and Mir Ali of
Herat (pp. 232-235), discuss the strengths and limitations of the authors art-historical writing.
What is Mustafa Alis critique of the art market of his time?
Birth of the Modern Museum
1) Carol Duncan, Alan Wallach, The Universal Survey Museum, Art History (Dec 1980) pp. 44869.
2) Andrew McClellan, Inventing the Louvre : art, politics, and the origins of the modern museum in
eighteenth-century Paris (California, 1994), ch. 1, The Luxembourg Gallery, 1750-79, ch. 3, The

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Revolutionary Louvre.
Kant, Hegel and Arts role in the birth of Cultural History
1) Bios of Kant and Hegel in Grove
2) Donald Preziosi, Aesthetics, Introduction, in Preziosi, Art of Art History, pp. 63-69
3) Elizabeth Prettejohn, Beauty & Art: 1750-2000 (Oxford, 2005), pp. 40- 63.
4) Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment, in Preziosi, Art of Art History, pp. 76-96
Write 1-3 sentences to answer each of these questions:
how does Kant define beauty?
why is it worthwhile to define beauty?
what separates beauty from the agreeable?
why cant beauty involve interests?
how does Kants notion of the beautiful affect art history?
1) G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Fine Art, in Preziosi, Art of Art History, pp. 97-106.
2) Michael Podro, The Critical Historians of Art, Introduction, ch. 1, The project, ch. 2, Hegel,
pp. XV-XXVI, 1-30
3) Ernst H. Gombrich, The Father of Art History: A reading of the Lectures on Aesthetics of F. W.
F. Hegel (1770-1831), in Gombrich, Tributes: Interpreters of our cultural tradition (Ithaca: 1984),
pp. 51-69.
Podro distinguishes between an archeological approach to history, and a critical approach. What
does he mean?
Additional Reading: E. H. Gombrich, In Search of Cultural History, in Gombrich, Ideals and Idols:
Essays on values in history and in art (Oxford, 1979), 24-59.
1ST REVIEW PAPER DUE
Art History in America, the first 100 years (Oberlin Moments, part 2)
Laurine Mack Bongiorno, The Fine Arts in Oberlin, 1836-1918,
AMAM Bulletin, Volume XV, No. 3 (Spring 1958).
I. T. Frary, The Dudley Peter Allen Memorial Art Building, Oberlin, Ohio, Architectural Record
44/2 (August 1918), pp. 98-111.
Edward W. Forbes, The Art Museum and the Teaching of the Fine Arts, Bulletin of the College Art
Association of America, I/4 (Sept 1918), pp. 120-29.
Ralph Adams Cram, The Place of the Fine Arts in Higher Education, The Bulletin of the College
Art Association of America, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Sep., 1918), pp.129-135.
David M. Robinson, On Reproductions for the College Museum and Art Gallery, Bulletin of the
College Art Association of America, I/3 (Nov 1917), pp. 15-21.
read about Clarence Ward here:
http://www.oberlin.edu/archive/holdings/finding/RG30/SG158/biography.html
http://www.oberlin.edu/archive/holdings/finding/RG30/SG158/scope.html
http://www.oberlin.edu/archive/holdings/finding/RG9/SG3/adminhist.html
how does the Allens facade relate to the readings? consider both its inscriptions and its overall
design
how does the Allens current installation in the 1917 building relate to the readings?
how does the Allens current installation of European art testify to the influence of the early cultural
historians?
how does it undermine or ignore their influence?
Style I
1) Meyer Schapiro, "Style," from Anthropology Today: An Encyclopedic Inventory, ed. A. L.
Krober, (Chicago, 1953), rpt in Theory and Philosophy of Art, pp. 51-80.
2) Heinrich Wlfflin, Principles of Art History The Problem of the Development of Style in Later
Art, 1915, translated by M. D. Hottinger,
Introduction,
Ch. 1, Linear and Painterly, General, Drawing, Painting, pp. 1-32.
ch. 2, Plane and Recession, Painting, pp. 73-106
Wlfflin traces two major periods, the Renaissance and the Baroque. Email me a work from each

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period in the Allen that confirm his understanding of their formal differences, and also one work
from each period as contradicting his understanding.
Additional Reading: Joan Hart, Reinterpreting Wlfflin: Neo-Kantianism and Hermeneutics, Art
Journal (1982), pp. 292-300.
Svetlana Alpers, "Style Is What You Make It," in Berel Lang, ed., The Concept of Style, (Ithaca,
1987), pp. 137-62
Research Tools 3: with Barbara Prior, Art Librarian (12:30-1:15; location TBD)
Bibliographies plus/versus JSTOR plus/versus Google
you can also receive credit for this by scheduling an individual meeting with Erik or Ms. Prior
Style II: Connoisseurship
1) Bio of Morelli and Berenson in Grove
2), Bernard Berenson, Rudiments of Connoisseurship, , in Berenson, The Study and Criticism of
Italian Art, Second Series, (London, 1902), pp 111-48.
3) Bernard Berenson, Amico di Sandro, in Berenson, The Study and Criticism of Italian Art, First
Series, (London, 1930), pp. 46-69.
Additional Reading: Jeremy Melius, Connoisseurship, Painting, and Personhood, Art History,
34/2 (2011), pp. 288-309.
Style III (perspective continued)
Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, translated by Christopher S. Wood, (NY: 1997), 2772, originally published as Die Perspektive als "symbolische Form, Vortrge der Bibliothek
Warburg 1924/1925 (Leipzig & Berlin, 1927), 258-330.
The essay is divided into four parts; sum up each one in a sentence.
How does Panofskys approach to perspective, Brunelleschi and Alberti compare to Vasaris
approach to the same ?
What does Panofsky mean by mathematical space and psychophysiological space? How does he say
they differ? Why is this distinction important to understanding perspective?
Is linear perspective accurate? or just a convincing convention?
What is the significance of the use of perspective? is it significant that it was developed in the
fifteenth century, in Florence?
Additional Reading: Christopher S. Wood, Introduction, to Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic
Form, pp. 7-24.
WWII and Art History in America(Oberlin Moments, part 3)
1) Colin Eisler, Kunstgeschichte American Style: A Study of Migration in D. Fleming and B.
Bailyn, eds., The Intellectual Migration (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 544-629; especially 544-75, 582-3
(on Panofsky), 586 (on Stechow), 589-629.
2) Erwin Panofsky, Three Decades of Art History in the United States: Impressions of a
Transplanted European, College Art Journal 14/1 (Autumn 1954), also reprinted in Panofsky,
Meaning in the Visual Arts (Garden City, NY, 1955).
read about Wolfgang Stechow here:
http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/stechoww.htm
http://www.oberlin.edu/archive/holdings/finding/RG30/SG238/biography.html
http://www.oberlin.edu/archive/holdings/finding/RG30/SG238/scope.html
I will lead discussion on this topic.
BREAK
The Venturi Wing of the Allen (Oberlin Moments, part 4)
1) Robert Venturi, Plain and Fancy by Cass Gilbert at Oberlin and the Addition to the Museum by
Venturi and Rauch, Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin , 39 (1976-77), pp. 83-104.
2) Alan Colquhoun, Sign and Substance: Reflections on Complexity, Las Vegas, and Oberlin, in
K. M. Hays, ed., Oppositions Reader: Selected Readings from a Journal for Ideas and Criticism in
Architecture 1974-1984, pp. 176-87.
How does Venturis design differ from Gilberts?
How do the objects displayed in the Venturi wing differ from the type of objects for which Gilbert

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Do their design differences suggest different attitudes towards their contents?
How are the approaches weve studied so far adequate to this wing and its contents?
Iconography
1) Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance, (Oxford,
1939), "Introductory," pp. 3-32.
2) Erwin Panofsky, "Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait", The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs,
vol. 64, #372 (March 1934), pp.117127.
3) Meyer Schapiro, "'Muscipula Diaboli', The Symbolism of the Mrode Altarpiece," Art Bulletin 27
(1945), and "A Note on the Mrode Altarpiece," Art Bulletin 41 (1959), both reprinted in Schapiro,
Late Antique, Early Christian and Mediaeval Art, pp. 1-19.
4) read abstract at the beginning of Susan Koslow, The Curtain-Sack: A Newly Discovered
Incarnation Motif in Rogier van der Weydens Columba Annunciation, Artibus et historiae, nr. 13
(1986), pp. 9-34.
Prompts:
A) how does the Panofsky's Introductory relate to the same author's essay on perspective ?
B) In the first part of his "Introductory," Panofsky divides iconological analysis into 3 levels. How
do these three levels help you categorize Panofsky's interpretation of the Arnolfini portrait, and
Schapiro's interpretation of the Merode Triptych?
Additional Reading: James Marrow, "Symbol and meaning in northern European art of the late
Middle Ages and the early Renaissance," Simiolus 16 (1986), pp. 150-69.
Psychoanalytic art history
Meyer Schapiro, "Freud and Leonardo: An Art Historical Study," Renaissance Essays from the
Journal of the History of Ideas, ed. P. O. Kristeller and P. P. Weiner," (NY, 1968), rpt in Theory and
Philosophy of Art, pp. 153-92.
Meyer Schapiro, "Further Notes on Freud and Leonardo," in Theory and Philosophy of Art, pp. 19399.
Meyer Schapiro, "The Apples of Czanne: An Essay on the Meaning of Still-life," Art News Annual,
34 (1968), rpt in Modern Art, pp. 1-38.
Additional Reading: Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory An Introduction, (Minneapolis, 1983),
"Psychoanalysis," pp. 151-93
Due: 2nd Review Paper
The Crisis in the Discipline/Oberlin Moments Part 5
1) Art Bulletin 1975-1977 review the Table of Contents for one of these years and look up the brief
abstracts for three articles in the Bibliography of the History of Art (available online through OBIS)
and read their abstracts. Your goal is to see what kind of art history is being published in the journal.
Try to determine whether and how this journals articles would fit into the patterns we have talked
about so far. Does it fit into those categories nicely? Or does it indicate a departure?
2) Kurt Forster, "Critical History of Art, or Transfiguration of Values?" New Literary History, vol. 3,
no. 3 (1972), pp. 459-70.
3) About October, October ,vol.1, no. 1 (1976), pp. 3-5.
4) Introduction to the Photography Issue, October, vol. 5, summer 1978, pp. 3-5.
5) Editorials from the first two years of Art History (1978 and 1979), in packet on blackboard. Also
note who is on the editorial board.
6). John Onians, Letters to and From the Editor, Art History (1988), p.p. 149-50, 155-57.
7) Henri Zerner, The Crisis in the Discipline, Art Journal 1982, p 279.
8) Richard Spear, From the Editor, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Mar., 1986), p. 6
9) Grace Glueck, Clashing Views Reshape Art History, New York Times, December 20, 1987
and the letters which followed from it.
10) T. J. Clark, The Conditions of Artistic Creation, TLS [Times Literary Supplement] May 24,
1974.
11) Richard Brilliant, The Squeaking Wheel, or the Art Bulletin at Seventy-Eight, Art Bulletin,
Vol. 73, No. 3 (Sep., 1991), p. 358.

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12) Patricia Mathews, "What Matters in Art History," Art Journal, 54 no. 3 (Fall 1995), pp. 51-54.
How does Mathews article, published in 1995, and reflecting curricular discussions of the early 90s,
relate to the other essays assigned for today?
Semiotics:
1) Jonathan Culler, Ferdinand de Saussure, (Harmondsworth, 1976), ch. 2, "Saussure's Theory of
Language pp. 1-50.
2) Charles Sanders Peirce, Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs, in R. E. Innis, ed., Semiotics
An Introductory Anthology (Bloomington, IN, 1985), pp. 1-24.
3) Margaret Iversen, Saussure versus Peirce: Models for a Semiotics of Visual Art," in AL Rees
and Frances Borzello, eds., The New Art History, (London, 1986), pp. 82-94.
I will lead discussion on this topic.
Prompt: How does semiotics relate to iconography? What are the areas of overlap? What aspects
are distinct?
Yve-Alain Bois, "The Semiology of Cubism," in L. Zelevansky, ed., Picasso and Braque A
Symposium (New York, 1992), pp. 169-195.
Robert W. Bagley, "Meaning and Explanation," in Roderick Whitfield, ed., The Problem of Meaning
in Early Chinese Ritual Bronzes, (London: SOAS. Colloquies on Art & Archeology in Asia No. 15,
1992), pp. 34-55.
Sarah Allen, Art and Meaning, in Whitfield, Problem of Meaning in Early Chinese Ritual Bronzes,
9-33.
Due: Final Paper Topic
Language and Art History
M. Baxandall, The Language of Art History, New Literary History 10 (1979), pp. 453-65.
Michael Baxandall, The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany, ch. 6, The Period Eye, pp.
143-63.
Robert Farris Thompson, Yoruba Artistic Criticism, in Warren L. d'Azevedo, ed., The Traditional
Artist in African Societies (Bloomington, 1973), pp. 19-61.
Research Tools 4: with Barbara Prior, Art Librarian (12:30-1:15; location TBD)
Field/Period Specific research tools
you can also receive credit for this by scheduling an individual meeting with Ms. Prior
OR if Ms. Prior presents this topic to another class you are currently enrolled in.
Political Critiques: Marxism and Social Art History
1) O. K. Werckmeister, Radical Art History Art Journal 1982, pp. 284-91.
2) Nicos Hadjinicolau, Art History and Class Struggle, trans. from the French by Louise Asmal,
(London, 1977), ch. 1, "Social Classes and the Ideological Struggles between Classes," pp. 7-18.
3) Kurt Forster, "Critical History of Art, or Transfiguration of Values?" New Literary History, vol. 3,
no. 3 (1972), pp. 459-70.
4) T.J. Clark, On the Social History of Art, in Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848
Revolution, London, 1973, republished 1999, 9-20, 26-27 and pl. VI.
5) Simon Watney, Modernist Studies, The Class of 83, Art History, Mar84, Vol. 7 Issue 1, pp
102-110.
I will lead discussion on this topic.
Due: Abstract Proposal and Bibliography for Final Paper
Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, (1936),
republished in W. Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility and other
writings on media, ed. by M. Jennings, B. Doherty and T. Levin (Cambridge, MA: 2008), 19-55.
T. J. Clark, The Painter of Modern Life, (Princeton, 1984), pp. 3-78.
Political Critiques: Feminism
Linda Nochlin, "Why have there been no great women artists?" 1971, rpt in her Women, Art and
Power and Other Essays, (NY, 1988), pp. 145-78.
Mary D. Garrard. "Artemisia Gentileschi's Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting," Art Bulletin
62.1 (March 1980): 97-11

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1) Patricia Mathews, Thalia Gouma-Peterson, "The Feminist Critique of Art History," Art Bulletin 49
(1987), pp. 326-57.
2) The ensuing discussion in Art Bulletin:
On the State of Research Series, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 70, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), p. 138.
An Exchange on the Feminist Critique of Art History, Norma Broude, Mary D. Garrard, Thalia
Gouma-Peterson, Patricia Mathews, Art Bulletin, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Mar., 1989), pp. 124-127
3) Robert E. Harrist, Jr., Review of Marsha Weidner, ed., Flowering in the Shadows: Women in the
History of Chinese and Japanese Painting, Journal of Asian Studies 51 (1992), pp. 396-7.
4) Patricia Mathews, "The Politics of Feminist Art History," in Mark Cheetham, et al., The Subjects
of Art History, pp. 94-114.
Michael Brenson, Review of MoMAs Primitivism exhibition, NYTimes, 10/28/1984:
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/28/arts/gallery-view-discovering-the-heart-of-modernism.html
Holland Cotter, Thomas McEvilley obituary, NYTimes, March 30, 2013:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/arts/thomas-mcevilley-critic-and-scholar-of-non-western-artdies-at-73.html
Thomas McEvilley, Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, review of Review of MoMAs Primitivism
exhibition, originally published in Artforum 23 (October 1984), pp. 54-60, reprinted in in J. Flam,
ed., Primitivism and twentieth-century art: a documentary history (Berkeley, 2003), pp. 335-51.
Kirk Varnedoe, On the Claims and Critics of the Primitivism in Twentieth Century Art Show, Art
in America (May 1985), pp. 11-21, reprinted in J. Flam, ed., Primitivism and twentieth-century art: a
documentary history (Berkeley, 2003), pp. 369-83.
Museum Critique
Fred Wilson, Howard Halle, Mining the Museum, Grand Street 44 (1993), pp. 151-72.
Lisa Corrin, Mining the Museum, in Fred Wilson, Mining the Museum: an installation (Baltimore,
1994), reprinted in Doro Globus, Fred Wilson: a critical reader (London, 2011), pp. 45-74.
Walter Mingolo, Museums in the Colonial Horizon of Modernity: Fred Wilsons Mining the Museum
(1992), in Globus, Fred Wilson: a critical reader, 374-91.
Presentations
Presentations
Presentations
Presentations
FINAL PAPER DUE in the box outside my office

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