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http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8357.2010.01134_12.x/pdf
The Art Book
Volume 17, Issue 4, Article first published online: 22 NOV 2010
DIALOGUES IN ART HISTORY, FROM MESOPOTAMIAN TO MODERN
Elizabeth Cropper (ed.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington
424 pages 95 col illus/ 183 mono illus
ISBN: 978-0-300-12162-9
Distributed by Yale University Press
The essays published in this hard-back tome were written
after being presented at a symposium in 2005 celebrating
the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Centre for
Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Situated within the
National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Centre was
conceived as a place where scholars of the visual arts,
including art history and the allied fields of architecture and
design, cognitive studies, anthropology, film and the
environment, could research in the company of other
scholars, as well as in the vicinity of great original works of
art. In 2003 Robert Connor noted that ‘work done in
community elevates public discourse about issues,
strengthens teaching at all levels, and enhances
understanding across fields and cultures’ (p.11). The intention of the two-day symposium
upon which the book is based was to bring together speakers and audience in a cross-
fertilising diachronic debate covering a selection of the broad range of areas that reflected
the life of the Centre over its past quarter century.
The scholars represented in the book are some of the most noted in their field and include
Svetlana Alpers, Elizabeth Hill Boone, Philippe Bordes, Betsy M. Bryan, C. Jean Campbell,
Joseph Connors, Charles Dempsey, Marian H. Feldman, Finbarr Barry Flood, Hal Foster,
Marc Gotlieb, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Michael Leja, Yukio Lippit, Joanne Pillsbury, Louise
Rice, David J. Roxburgh, Jeffrey Weiss, Mariët Westermann, and Wu Hung. The essays
embrace world art of all periods, from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, preconquest Mexico and
Peru, Islam, China, Japan, Renaissance and baroque Italy, 18th- and 19th-century France,
and the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The essays are arranged to be read in pairs, focusing on an issue, a period, or a crux of
scholarship. For example, Betsy M. Bryan and Marian H. Feldman dovetail work on memory,
knowledge and the circularity of time, Bryan through Egyptian tomb painting and Feldman
with Mesopotamian monuments. Bray considers how tomb chapel paintings assisted the
deceased family member to cross the divide between this world and the afterlife and at the
same time created memories which also manipulated knowledge in pursuit of their
immortality. Feldman recognises that when people accrete around an object so that object
becomes more than its function, and together they create changed circumstances for the
other. This leads to the idea that objects contain cultural biographies endowed with an aura
of potency. Both scholars reflect on the transformative qualities of art and object. Charles
Dempsey and C.Jean Campbell both argue convincingly for a reinterpretation of the
Renaissance in terms of the visual vernacular, a sensibility that flourished from the Trecento
onwards and which was heralded by both Aby Warbug and Henry Thode in the late
nineteenth century. This re-examination of the vividness of the lived experience, particularly
in Simeon Martini’s Maestà and with the emergence of Franciscan spirituality and urban
culture, opens new ways of thinking about this period in history.
These paired papers were chosen in the community spirit of the Centre. The authors were
encouraged to share their essays prior to presentation with their dialogic companions and to
maintain the thought flow during and after the conference. A dynamic which emerged during
the conference and has found its way into this volume is the debate between Svetlana
Alpers and Mariët Westermann based on the papers they delivered. Both papers and the
debate which followed are published verbatim as delivered at the symposium. This adds a
heightened present tense feel to the work.
What emerges from this richly diverse book is the extent to which eminent art historians are
willing to challenge traditional frameworks and find fresh and invigorating ways of
approaching the many facets of art history. In her introduction Elizabeth Cropper suggests
that the twenty scholars represented in this volume, by their vigour, the complexity of their
ideas and their readiness to debate those ideas in discussion, may help the history of art
‘seek out possibilities for the future in possibilities overlooked in the present or lost in the
past’ (p.16). Inevitably some will appeal more than others. Yet there is enough diversity to
appreciate the debate and every essay offers rich thought.
Containing a plethora of exquisitely produced colour and black and white plates, there is
much in this book that will keep the academic mind engaged with new methodologies for
their own art historical research. It reflects the fruitful interaction of scholars in the visual arts
across genre which is the intention of the Centre and exhibits scholarship that is both broad-
ranging and breath-taking in its ability to challenge and give pause to rethink approaches.
This is a valuable addition to any art historian’s library.
Darrelyn Gunzburg
The University of Bristol, UK