Art History / Criticism / Phi\
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This sequel to The Pretence of Theory' stresses the continued need for self-reflective awareness in art historical writing. Offering a series of meditations on the discipline of art history in the context of contemporary critical theory, Moxey addresses such central issues as the status of the canon, the nature of aesthetic value, and the character of historical knowledge The chapters are linked by a common interest in, even fascination with, the paradoxical power of narrative and the identity of the authorial voice.
1 Anyone wanting to see why art history is intellectually exciting right now could hardly do better than to read this extremely lucid, very important book. 77re Practice of Persuasion provides a great opening for debate, starting point for the discussion of issues where the argumentation is in flux."—David Carrier, 1999-2000 Getty Scholar
'Always provocative, Keith Moxey's work seeks to press at the vulnerable center of art history, In The Practice of Persuasion, Moxey mames a historiography of art history with a suggestive approach to art history writing to create a valuable, thought-provoking, and highly original book "—Catherine M- Sbussloff, University of California at Santa Cruz
Keith Moxey is Ann Whitney OUn Professor of Art History *t Barnard College and Columbia University. He is the author of The Practice of Theory: Poitstrucutralism. Cultural Politics, ami Art Union.', also from Cornell, and Peasants, Warriors, and Writes: Popular Intagtry m the Reformation.
Cover lUurtiflticn.- Hugo van det Com <t 1420-82) Jht Uuxfr efrlu i Municipal Must urn, Bruges, Belgium Fhotcgraph >£> AJmari/Art Rcjouici, N-V.
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rather than an accumulation ol insights drat together contribute to some universal conception of knowledge.
'Phis chapter means to tesi this contention against one of the most radical challenges! to its thesis, namely, the National Socialist interlude in Ricincrtschneidcr studies. This account of nationalist scholarship serves an allegory of the dangers ni persuasion, dangerous not just because of its political message hut because ot our failure hi accept lis status as rhetoric. Once the writings ot the German nationalists can be recognized is something other than foundational claims to knowledge, we are ill a position to analyse iheir persuasive strategies for what they arc and to acknowledge that nur own interventions in the rhetoric of history must also be informed bv ethical anil political agendas. Rather than coasign Riemenschuciders historiography to oblivion, it is possible tu recall its danger in such .1 way as to inform our own historical interpretations with perspective* ihat counter the nationalist ones. Instead of attempting the impossible, instead of cleansing art history of all bias or contemporary comrnionent, instead of isolating the presentation of Ricmcnschncidcr's art in "while cube" installations ih.u me alien to their own historical horizon, it may be possible to do justice tn the complexity of cultural transactions diat once animated these works, as well as to the complexity of the intersection of our values with those of the past.
The challenge of the past to the present, therefore, might be to ask whether we have fulfilled our function as the custodians of cultural memory. Have wc brought the past to mind in such a way as to manifest the rich |k»tenual inherent in the narrative process, or him we purposively constrained and restrained our interpretations so as to lie able to aspire to a value-neutral position? Once the distinction between rhetoric and fact has been called into question and the historians implication in contemporary cultural processes acknowledged, dien it seems possihle to ask: does the significance wc attach to Rienienschneider today adequately reflect not only-die circumstances of his artistic production hut also those in which wc currently find ourselves?
UlAFITK [llRffi
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Under hisuiricsm, which entailed the historic t smdy of ancient and modem an as i new p.irji[ijfin of historical experience, jri hii-(ury handed over lock, stock, jnd birrc! iti legiuitiacY « J medium fur jesdifUi, philiwophiett], or hcmicnculic rcflettinn.
—I lua Robert Jxius, "1 lisrnry of Art jnd I'ragiiutlK1 I tlMory"
f-orfiuutcly we jre prcsenriy rather fir reunited from die period of naive seienufieiry during which suhjcvnviry was considered lo In: the domain of illusnm jnd obiccuvc knowledge to tie the *olc expression at truth. We know now ihut our suh|cctiviry is not an illusion to be overcome, bur rather rhar ir u mother part of reality, no less important than any other pjrl
—Josue Huran and David fiell, tiitrnduction to Michel SerrcTi, Hermrs I.itmtttre. Wu,.. l'Mt,„;w-,
begin widi an anecdote,1 < me day J went searching for a hook in Avery Library, the an library of (Columbia Umvcrsitv, 'litis nine, instead of looking at the shelves as mere supports for the volumes that contained the information I sought, I l>ecamc aware that what I was looking ai was the architecture (or archaeology) ot a particular field of scholarly activity, namely, the study of northern Renaissance art. I was struck, tn other words, by the physical presence of an aspect of our discipline's cultural imaginary.
Tlic organization id the volumes arranged on the shelves, I realized, was at least as important as die knowledge within die weighty tomes they supfmrted. Rather than the disturbing chaos dial characterized the stacks in Borges's rah-, "11 ie library of liabel," then hooks were organized according to an established pattern, hui just what was the system behind their organizations Where did this pattern originate: (Was it any more coinprdien>.iML than that which inspired Rorges's equally famous account of an ancient Chi-
i   For ihe (uiiennn ul Jiietdulc in historical narrative,      ciupier ft.
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nese encyclopedia—an account cited by Michel Koucauli?)-' I low tliii the category of *B#rthiera Renaissance art" come inn i being as ;) topič worthy of scholarly interest? Who or what had determined thai there should lie more bonks on certain artists rather than on oťhcršf What likes md dislikes, commitments and dismissals, do these choices betray? VVhai values went into forming the configu-ratiiin of books assembled there, and more importantly, what continues to keep those lw>oks in plate?
The answer, of course, is the canon—that most naturalized of all art historical assumptions. Certain artists and certain works ol art ih.it have received I he sanction ol rradition are umjuestioningly re-rj: dud ,1?. appropriate material toi art historical studj Goúrtí labi are still arranged around artists who ate deemed major figures, and the vast majority of publications is dedicated to a consideration of a select number of well-known "masterpieces."' The purpose and function of privileging certain artists and works in this way arc rarefy questioned. Indeed, critical analysis of the esteem in which the 4 .mon is held is not regarded as belonging to art history proper but rather to aesthetics, a branch of philosophy, or to the criticism of contemporary art. For the most part, art history's disciplmary work is carried on as if there were no need to articulate the social function it is supposed to serve. The disciplines promotion and support nl the canon arc all too often still taken for granted. It is as if a consensus had lieen arrived at sometime in die past, foreclosing further discussion. The library shelve* are the physical tiianiicsta-rions of this consensus, the embodiment of an established cultural practice.
In asking tor a discussion of the purpose of art history's dedication to the canon, I hope not to be misundcr->tm>d. Mine is not a eall for a valuation of works of art, not a plea for a more explicit ranking of canonical works, not a request that students be indoctrinated as n which artist is "better" than another. The problem, it seems to me, is dial somehow the notion of "quality," that most subjective i if judgments, is thought to be self-evident and unquev
:. Mithcl 1-iHUJult. Itfi tJrJ.1 Ihiap- -1» .-hrfu<vh& of tbt liamjn Somas (New Vork: Kjtulum \ louse. nj?U <v: " . animals are <hviJed nun: :•! Indonguig to the Empenir. b) embalmed, v) tunc d> nicking pig*, e) šreru, fl fabulous, g) stray dogs. Ill imlurtetl in rtu- prewaii ciraahVation, i) frenned, |) iwwnyntfc. k) drawn with a wry tine cainelhair brush. I) tt MM, ni I having plst broken the writer přeber, n) dial from * lonjf way olf look like flic*."
tiotiable. While some of us may dwell affectionately and plcasur-;ihh on certain predictable canonical artists and describe their works in glowing terms, there is usually no attempt tu argue (or even think alhout) why one artist should 1« considered mute worthy oi study than another, or why certain moments and places in the history of artistic production should he privileged above the rcsL As it stands now, the history of art could he described as an unacknowledged paean to tile canon, and ihe intensity of this dc voli on can. perhaps, he measured by the professorial so briery with which we accomplish this task.
The conviction underlying such attitudes which continue to be widespread, if not prevalent in art history today—is the commitment (0 tradition. The canon of artists and works discussed in art history courses are those which were once found meritorious by previous genet .ninns ot scholars responding to very different historical situations than those we currently occupy. Like Mount Everest, die works, the artists, and even the methodologies for interpreting them are simply there, and like mountain climbers, it is our liuudafi is li i I.Mi .11.ui- 11 ■ i ;.. ( n.' 111ij:i |k: .mJ um lJit-11 [sr.,I to (inure generations. In doing so. we often unwittitigb engage in the unthinking reproduction of culture: reproducing knowledge, hut not necessarily producing it. As a eouscuueiux-, the discipline has often played a conservative role in ,t rapidly changing socicty.
I he way to start speculating about how we cattle to this disciplinary moment might he to engage in a cultural history of the discipline, an canuiiinatioti of the classed, gendered, and ethnically marked values dial have shaped its development Such a bistorio-graphic survey, however, would range farther than I wish to go. Instead, what follows is a discrete, limited examination of what could be tailed tile founding moment of die canon of northern Renaissance art. the historical point at which a discursive practice first formed around works of art produced in northern Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In other words, this is not a lnst«j-riographic account of the origins atid development of the appreciation of northern Renaissance art so much is an analysis of the political, religious, and emotional sentiments that prompted that appreciation.' The analysis is meant to be representative; the
i I'ur ,i mure detailed \krtch of the appreciation of carry Ncclvcrlandith art in the ei(ftitecnrh ami nineteenth rcnniries, <cc h'ranm Haskell, knltwrrirt in ,ltr
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northern Renaissance is used here as a case study. (A similar review mighi also he undertaken for canonical artists and works of oilier times and places.)
f aim paring rhe ideas ili.it Kd to the historical study of the northern Renaissance at the end of the eighteenth century with diose that informed the way in winch die period was studied at rhe middle of the twentieth century, specifically in the work ol Erwin Panofsky, allows us to analyse the role of the practice of history in two very diffcretu historiographic moments. How has die function ot Iiistory changed in the period that separates die late eighteenth and die mid-twentieth centuries? Is diere anything we can learn from the ways in which history hits lieen conceived, something that might enable us to rethink the lunction of history writing in our own time?
Until rhe end of the eighteenth century, the discipline of art history, I..muled by Giorgio Vasari. remained focused on rhe hum i ist traditions of die Italian Renaissance as they were codified in the art academies of the seventeenth century. Not only were the styles and artistic techniques of die great masters of the Florentine and Venetian schools regarded as the models to which all artists should aspire, but the academies esulilished a hierarchy »1 genres, accord-uig to which history painting—that is, the painting of religious and secular subject matter depicting lofty themes taken from Christian lieliet and Greco-Roman m>thology and history—was ranked at the top, ami mere exercises in mimesis—such as landscape and still ]ifc—were located at the bottom. ()wing to the dominance of die humanist tradition among the European educated elite, there were few significant differences among the artistic aspirations of the schools of visual production that anise in regions that were later to iwcomc the major nation-states. Only in the eighteenth century was the dominance of the academy challenged byjohann Winckel-mann. who proposed that the true source of beauty was to be found in the art of ancient i ireccc. LaierT in the contest of the national-
Same Atprets aflluit. Fmbiim, ami CWfcrtftj in fjt^tmt 4*J Fnu;t (Irhjca: Cnnwll University Press, 1976); Surjnnc Sulltlitrfrer, Ij RebabiUunm Jn prmnift fii-mun,is. r.V.i - d .Vrs7 iflru'i'.ds Palais des .-Uddeinicii. 1 ejA■ '1, and rWihard Riddcr-\*n uvl IItink van Veen, cd»., *Om kO It -jnettn van dt auJt mnOtrs." Or Ittama Prmitirvm htratildtkkin^, xmirJemn rn smlenMk f Nijmegcrr Uirgcrerii SL'N, ■ w5>
(sin engendered by the European wars that followed the French Revolution, arguments began to he fielded regarding the aesthetic i merest of works of art produced ai times and places other than ancient GreeLL- ami Renaissance Italy.
I'he first mention of northern Renaissance paiiiriug as a location lor the discussion of artistic issues hitherto associated only with Iiaty and Greece is found in the curious and delightful writings of the short-lived young audior, IVilhelm llcinrich Wuckenroder, In his fictional Conftsstom frum the Heart of an Art-Loving Fnar (1706), Wackciiroder makes a compelling case tor the relativity of artistic appeal. In doing so, he boldly challenges the accepted canou oflus day. according 10 which Italian art of the Renaissance and the Greek art of antiquity possessed greater merit than art produced at .my other place ami time.
Stupid |K-o[ik- cannot coiiiptrhur.i! lh.11 I lie re arc antipodes 011 unr glolie and tlui they are themselves anripodcv They always conceive oi die place where they arc standing as the uravii.itinti.il center of the universe,—and their minds lack the wings to fly around the enure earth ami survey at one glance the integrated totality,
Anil, similarly, they regard their own emotion as the center ot 1 \ iT-vthinif laeautiful in art and they deliver the final lodgement concerning everything as if from the tribunal, without considering that no one has appointed them judges and that dune who are condemned by diem cnsild just a.s well .set themselves up lo the same end.
Why do you wani to condemn the American Indian, thai he npcaks Indian and not your language?
And yei you want in condemn the Middle Ages, ihat ii did n«K build lemplus such as (treet■e?■,
VV'ackenroder parades his appreciation for die an of the northern Renaissance in a chapter dedicated to die praise of Albredit Diirer. fbs melodramatic: account reveals the nationalistic and reU-gious values that underlie his urgt lo msen this artist mto the canon. Diirer is regarded as nist .is good an artist as those who constitute the canon liecause of the quality of his inner spirit, an inner spirit thar reprcsenn the essence of die German nation.
4. vV'acfcenroJer, Ginfrmam anj /wuun. trails. M. Hurst Schubert (University Pari, Fcjinsylvama. Pentt State Press, 1 «713}, ti?o-io
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VV'ben Ubrechr was wielding the paintbrush, die tA'tinan was .« that time still a unique anil an excellent character of firm constancy in tht arena of oureuntxiietil; and litis serious, upright and powerful nature of the (Irmi.in is impniiicu in his piciiirrs .noirali-ly ind clearly, not only in die facial MruiTurc and the whole external ap-(kiijikl Inn also iii the innet spirit l hU Snnl) deconnised < ,.r iii-iii. h.i; i< rrr .mil «i'rrman an i% will luve disappeared in our times. ,  and the student of art is taught how he should inutatc the express)veness of K.iphael and the tf>kirs of the Venetian School jiuJ ,1,. :i. iii-.ui n| ihe Dutch and the enchanting highlights ol < :orrej-gio, all simultaneously, and shmild in this way arrive at perfection which siiqiosses all.—O, wretched sophistry! O. blind belief nl an age that one could combine every type ot licauiy and every excellence of all the great painters of the canh and, through the scrun-mriug of all and the begging of tlieii numerous great gilts, could unite the spirit of all in unesclf and transcend them all!'
The encomium ends with ihe recounting of a dream in which rhe friar, having fallen asleep in an art gallery, has a vision in which aitisth come alive before their paintings and discuss their merits. The shades of Raphael and fJiirer appear, whom the firiar observes holding hands as they gaze in "friendly tranquility" and mutual admiration at each other's achievements. By pairing Raphael ami Diirer in this way. of course. Wackenmder explicitly claims a heightened status for German painting of ihe Renaissance.
Wackenroders argument concerning the relativity of artistic competence clearly depends upon the principle of historicisin uhii.li had been introduced into the philosophy of history by Jo-hiltd (Jottrfied von I lerdtra few years earlier* Herder hail argued that there could he no objectivity in the writing of history because
j. Ibid.. 115.
6. Set George lggcn. The (irrmiia t'mtrpttm nf Hillary: The Süihoiii'TruJiutin of HmhtmU Thought from ifmirr u> the l'rarnt (iSbddlemwn, Gmna Wcsleyon L:ni-rtrstry Pre**, ojiW), J4~l8- "The emiccpt Of hbnoncism is wUcci to a variety iif ilitrcrcnc ileliuitiuiii SVc. ti.r example, Maulicr Mjiuieibaum, History, Man. jn.t Rwm. .iStuJ* m Sitirtttnih f .tntuiy I Baltimore: .Inline 111 tpLins I tuu-r-
sity Press, 11>713. fur an intenrsung atrempl to dissolve the distlrtrtvin lietuceil hiv loneism anil history by arguing that ill hismrw» share the land 1 if system-building i[iulity usually stunliuicd lo liisiiirtein narratives, on the ground, rim iIk\ > ■ if
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the historian was himself pan of the historical process. For him, there arc no transhistorieal absolutes: all judgments are contingent iipnn the time and place in which they arc produced. Wacken-rnders artisiic relativism—in particular, his claim thai Dürer was the equal of Raphael—funis us lusts in Herders emphasis on the smgu larky of the htstoncal moment. Wackciirudcr sees diat tile unique quality of a historical peril nl, that which males iL unlike anything that precedeil or followed it. can serve a national cause. The nationalism ol the late eighteenth century, a moment when (.rennany sought to tree itself from the political j.nd nulluni domination ol France, found in the history of jrt a means by which its case might he articulated and advanced.
With Wactenmder's emphasis nn the spirituality of art ami its capacity to embody and transmit religious emotion, along with Ins conviction dun these cluiravtcrisiics were to be found it) the art of places and times that had not yet been hallowed liy tradition, Confessions from the Hvtirt of jri Ail-!jivin\> Vinn defined tile romanln altitude toward the issue of artistic quality. Much die same tone is heard in the influential criticism of the writer Pried rich Schlege). who, during a slay in Taris, was deeply affected by his experience of the Musee Napoleon. It was in the l^ouvre diät Napoleon's artistic plunder, pillaged from all over Furopc, was placed on view as an unprecedented display of imperial power." Although Schlegel shared rhe admirarion tor Italian art typical of the casre of the day, he preferred the early painters of the fourteenth century. In his eyes their work eroded u greater spirituality. It was his affinity for the religious leclingof old master paintings diat allowed him to extern! his appreciation to what he called "old German" painting of the Renaissance, k which lit meant not only trtmian hut Ncther-huidish art of this pern hI as well." Schlegels advocacy of the virtues o) old (ieniian painting soon drew rhe attention of the wealthy sons ol a Citrrnan businessman. Sulpix and Melchior tJoisstr«. who traveleil to Paris to meet him." Alter staying at his house as
-   Sil i Ijil-in Iii'l; i'i le-jruh \Megef I' Nc w V. »rl 'li*,iyne Publisher*, HJ70).
S. SehJcj<eJ's sics»s cm in arc fmiiiJ in fncilrich Schlegel, krttiuhr hmjrteb SchlegeiMiu^the, vi A. 4, Anncblen und Uten mn Jtr ,-brbtliibrn Kjinxl, ed. I lans Eich-ner (Munich: t-erdinand Schnrunit, 195^).
if. For a hktjury t*f die Boisscree bmt.licrs mil their tiillcctiuri. see E, Ftr-isiciiiih-Riihjm, /.'rr ßrüJtr Rvisirtrr Stttpiz unJ Mikbiur B-aitertt .//• Kutnts.imnt
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(laying guests, they traveled wills Schickel through northern Frame and the southern Netherlands, visiting Gothic cathedrals before returning in their native Cologne. In the account Schickel later wrote of this pilgrimage, he identified die Gorhic as the ticr-n.iii ;iU i.i i he Middle Ages, extolling its beauties as manifestations of the age of faidi.
Schlegel's views were symptomatic of a significant change of taste, one that ensured that hi* reeviduarion nt (.ientian art i>\ tlu Renaissance would he underwritten by capital so a* to eventuate in the formation of collections and museums. On their return to Cologne, the BoisseTec brothers avidly began collecting German iind Netherlandish art. Their paBSttn was sided !*y political circumstances, for the Napoleonic expropriation of the properties of the Catholic church, enforced throughout occupied Germain i> well as France, meant dial medieval and Renaissance altarpicces that had been pan of the neglected fabric of church interiors sudden Iv entered the marketplace in huge numl>ei->. The ISoisserecs soon assembled the largest and most important collection of paintings of this peril id, including some of the most admired works ol Stefan Lochner. Roger van dcr VVeyden. and Hans Memling. After hiiving iieen made available CO the Prussian crown, which was in the procey; of establishing what would eventually become the na-r i. .11.11 museum in Berlin, this collection was eventually bought by the King ot Bavaria in i7, and thus found an alternative route to the fulfillment of Schlegel's call for a national museum of old German painting.1"
Both Wackenrodcr and Schlcgel, dien, had used history as a means of realizing dicir critical appreciation of an art dial was emotionally laden with religious values, an art which could consequently be appropriated as a glorious manifestation ot the < ii-iirun national spirit. In this enterprise, they eflecrively laid the founda iip.m tor the study of what would come t<i be called northern Renaissance art. The legitimation of die history nf northern Renaissance art continues to this day. hm in radically different terms. I want to skip ahead a couple of centuries ami examine how die
Irr. fju <;.,:.-..;■ zur Gacbxbtr irr Kammak (Jcnu: Uwdenchs, lutA) anil CJbela (JoMiwrg, "The History ut die Bdboertc GiUccbotl.". I/Wii (19K:): uo-ii, 1 .. Siilriwntcr. AVAi*r/i«»wi Jrsprmiiifi fLmnmi. «7
study of northern Renaissance art has been legitimated in the second half of the twentieth century. What kinds of stories about Netherlandish painting do we tell today and what motivates them-
The analysis of the twentieth-eencury discourse on northern Renaissance art is located ui what is usually regarded as its apogee, namely, the work of F.rwin Panotsky. Ranofskys book Tbr Life ami Art ufAlirreiht Durrr appeared in 104^, whereas Earl\ Netbcriandtsb Painting was published a decade later, in 1053." Rather than using the past in the service of religious, emotional, and nationalistic goals. Pauofsky's Intoks appear to have 110 other ambition than to provide a wealth of information .il*»ut the subjects under discussion. Both <.f he. tests .ire detailed and learned lea.lm^, .it tin. available historical evidence, discussions that are, for the most pan, pursued with a relentless "objectivity"—that is. with a positivism desire to evaluate and supersede the nature and quality of the information given by earlier historians. The introduction to both volumes, however (to turn Ratiofsky's words against his own pro|-ect). "betray rather than parade" Uieir ideological agenda.,:
In liiv introduction Ui die Durer liook. Ranolskv declares that the Ccrman contribution to art history has yet to lie acknowledged. He proposes that the artistic accomplishments of Durer, whom he defines as a representative of die German national spirit, make him worthy of comparison with the great artists of the Italian Renaissance. While there isjni iiut-rtrsting continuity to be traced tn the nationalism of Wackenroder and Sehlegel and diatof Panof-sky, the historiograph ic differences in the way they advance thcir claims are more significant than their similarities. The period of 150 years or so that separates the tests of these audiors could be said to have witnessed the triumph of history writing. 'Hie historic cist principle enunciated by Herder had been developed in the course of the nineteenth century into something resembling a science. The recognition that nnie decisively affects our understand
11. t'ahubby, fht lift rfW Art a)''■■(ftmii Oiirrr. i vols. iPnmrrtiin: Princeton University Pits*, H»4>) Wld/wn/v .Vfthrimiji ftimtmg, 2 viJi. (Cumbri dp.-; Hjr-mnl University Press, 195j).
II. The phrusc u 1 riuoLUicin from i'luiufsky, ""Hie ffist<n ■. >>l u 1    .! I Iiunan i«lt: [)isci|ilinc* (1040). in Mtjtimi snJ lift lluui Am (Garden (jiy, N.V.: Onu-Mi'iI.ii, \ <:<!., i'j5"St.      It i items     (>;in <>t the dcttnilloh of ului lie culled the "iiiiii.iliiifiL-.ir method til" interpretation, the purpose ut'which vrta to uncover the cultural jrtit«<lm encmled in rhr "content" ot tlir work of art.
Tht
mg of the world transformed all aspects o| human knowledge; in addition, the influence of the success of the physical sciences during the same period pushed historical studies into an ever-increasing empiricism. The corresponding transformation in the function ot history seems to depend above all else on the eh mi nation ul the subjectivity of the historian. Whereas WackeririxleT and St'hlegcl wdlinglv admit red that their ink-test in history grew hum their religious and nationalist beliefs, in Panofeky's ease, the historian's agenda is far less explicit.
The nationalism of the introduction to the Diner book, for example,, appears lioih paradoxic^ and curious in light, of Panofsky's forced exile front Germany by die National Socialists, Inserting Diner into the Renaissance canon ol Italian artists was -a much more complicated act than an assertion of pride in national identity. As 1 have argued elsewhere. Patmfskys view ot Diirer as him between the principle* of reason and unreason—tor which he used the emblem ofl Hirers engraving. Mvittnatitt /—has mure to do with the political situation of Cermany in his own time {that is, with a defense of humanistTi in the context of National Socialism) rhan it does with the cultural conditions uf sixiL^nibHentury Nuremberg.11 Nevertheless, Panofsky's engagement with politics does not register as part of the conscious objectives of his historical biography Political and eimnional beliefs were repressed in favor uf Kantian disinterest.
The same "obfectne"* attitude i_s lound in the introduction to l^riy Ntibftiandtiii Puiming* \ [ere P.itiofsky argues that Netherlandish naturalism, the characteristic quality of this school, is actually indebted to the invention of one-pnim perspective, the supreme artistic achievement oflrnlian art of the same period. I he canonical status of Netherlamlish art is thus buttressed by its incorporation ol one ol the pictorial devices That serves t.o distiu-guish Italian art. Instead of appealing to the notion of artistic relativity on which WackcinWer and Schlegel had based their claim for die interest of old German painting, Pantifcky attempts in include Netherlandish art under the umbrella of traditional taste for
ii. Sl-c "I'-mnlsLy's MvLiim<ili.i" in mi t*-.k. I'i't 1'm.tur a) llfoiy. TastitnU Itmiiirtti, Cultural etoiArt nWv (Ithaej. Cornell Univereity Prcw, iV'>l).
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the; Julian Renaissance. Tf Italian painting is pan of the canon because il developed mimetic techniques (such as perspective) that enabled it to achieve more convincing kinds of illusion ism, thereby heighrening the naturalism for which it had been valued, then Netherlandish painting gains status by sharing these characteristics1'1 Similarly, Panofsfcys analysis of die complex symbolism of Netherlandish painting, which is discussed at length, could be said to represent an attempl to tind an equivalent for the complicated religious and secular allegories that are a feature of Italian art of this period. I bice a gat n, the artistic merit attached to early Netherlandish :irt would result neither from its pictorial autonomy nor I roin the principle of artistic relativity, but from its similarity to the southern European trad I [ion,
What led to the suppression of the authorial agenda thai seems to distinguish Panofckys trea&ucnt uf northern Renaissance art from diusc of Waekenroder and Sehlcgelr Why did the authorial voice become so much more removed and abstract? What occasioned the substitution ol a colorless objectivity for a passionately argued subjectivity: A Full answer tn these questions would necessitate a history or the idea of history in the nineteenth ;ind twentieth Centuries and would explore die institutionalization of the discipline and the protessionali/atinn of its practitioners. It is immediately apparent, however, that history served a very different function for Wackcnruderand Scblegcl than it did for Pannfsky. In the earlier case histories, the writing of history is clearly part of a Lnger cultural rhetoric; in its later incarnation, however, it seems lu be pursued as if it could Ik an end in itself.
Panofskvs reticence abuut the larger cultural Function nl liistury, his reluctance to articulate the concerns that animate his scholarly work, and his conception of history as a positivistic discipline, find their theoretical lubrication in "The History of Art as a I lum.mis-tic Discipline^ 11140), 111 tlus reflective essay, Panofsky suggests that the historian is involved in two very different types of activity. In responding to die work of art (which he defines as a "man-made ob-fect demanding to In- experienced aesthetically"), die art historian must both "re-create" die work by attempting to intuit the artistic
14- t Jnalye iln< introduction to Fjri* Setkertamiiih Hunting at chapter 4,
75
Mutn-otmg History
m
f
I r; • iiJ ;m n
"intentions" that went into lis creation. and then submit it to archaeological tnvcsdgaticin. Tlie_ relation between "aesthetic recreation" anil "archaeological investigation" is an "organic" one.
It is in it true that tite art historian rirst cotisntutrs bis object by means of re-creative synthesis and then fiesnis his archacologn jI hi vesugation—as though first buying u tu kei and then hoarding a train, (n reality the two processes do nor succeed each other, ihey interpenetrate; not only doc* the re-creative synthesis serve as a bails for tlte archaeological investigation, the archaeological invesnga-rion in turn serves as a basis for the recreative pmeevs both mutually qoallfy and rectify one another.M
[lie aesthetic re-creation of the work is deemed ni depend "not only on the natural sensitivity and visual training <>) the spectator, but alio mi his cultural equipment.""' Unlike a naive beholder, the art historian. I'anol'skt argues, is aware of his cultural predispositions; that is, he is aware of the contemporary perspective he brings to the work of interpretation as a consequence ol belonging to a culture different front that under investigation. The point of the historians recognition of his own cultural values, however, is neither in acknowledge them as part of the historical narrative that will result from his engagement with the past nor to understand that hi", response will inevitably lie filtered through the peculiar configuration of his own subjectivity. Rather, the presence of these cultural values is acknowledged only so that thev can 1« disre-l ii Jul. It is by means of his knowledge of the past that the historian is to control, if not extirpate altogether, the affective and valu-ational attitudes he brought to the enterprise in the hirst place, ' becoming as "i>bjcctive" as possible.
lie tries, therefore, to make adjustments by learning as much as he praisibly nn about die i-ircmiistanccs under which the objects of his studies were created. Not oidt, will he collect and verify all the available information as to medium, condition, age, authorship, destination, etc., but he will also compare die wort widi others of its class.
and will examine such writing as reflect the aesthetic standards of its country and age, in order to achieve a more "objective" appraisal of its quality.
., . Rui when he does all this, his aesthetic perception as such will change accordingly, and will more and mure adapt itself to tlte ongi ill. ""intention"" <jf the wiiris. Thus what die art historian, as opposed to tin- "naive" art lover. iiocv !■■ not to • reel :■ rational mi per-structure on in irrational foundation, but to develop his re-creative experiences so as to confomt with the results of his archaeological research, while Lommu.ilty checking the resnhs of his archaeological research against the evidence of bis re-creative experiences,11
Uet a use i.'fill! [hii.ii iv. ■ I unman, hi ■ it 111■ so'in i m \\ ■ ■! :\v: In--curium, Panncskys approach to interpretation has no w.iv of dealing with issues of artistic merit, litis method could, for example, lie applied to the interpretation of any work of art regardless of its i]u.ihty or its effect on the scholar. What is missing is some way of articulating why certain works matter to the interpreter and others do not.
Piinofsky was, of course, fully aware that the discipline cnuld not exist without a means of privileging some works above others. His solution was to claim that the greatness of works of art was self-evident, Artistic achievement would disclose itself to the historian in the course of his empirical investigations:
Hut when a "masterpiece" is compared and connected with as main-"less important" works of art as turn out, in the course nf the inves-ugauon, ro he comparable and eonncetahh widi it, die originality of the invention, the superiority of its com|>osiuon and technique, and whatever other lea cures make it "great," will automatically become evident—not in spite lwt because of the fact that the whole group of mate rials has been subjected to one and the same method of analysis and interpretation-1''
I'anofsky's banishment of subjectivity in favor of nositivistic objectivity—the sacrifice of cultural judgment in favor of a rc-CTeauon
77 essu
MotTVJtlHf
Hittnn
15 fcioufsky, ■The Hiwnry of An and I hmumsnc Discipline." i<S. US I'm:
17. Ibid., 17-1B.
18. il ,.| . i.s 1, . :
7«
w
j'ľľ-;/,ji:,.f|
of the artistic intentions of the past, intentions that were to he validated by archaeological investigation—proved deeply mlIuLiiii.il. Contemporary art historiography has concerned itself primarily with the evaluation arid criticism of his methodological concepts, "iconography" and "icunology," that have for so long dominated scholarly activiiv in our disciplme.'''Thc other side ol the com, ihe fact thai this subtle and effective method of historical interpretation succeeded because it. obliterated questions related to the [ht-sonal experience of the historian, deserves ro be recognized ami explored.
Pauufsky's bias against the insertion of the concerns of the present into narratives about the past would appear to be part of a historical tendency that is also manifest in literary studies. Barbara Herrnstein Smith has |ntinted out that miil-iwentieth-cenrury literary critics have also been more concerned with the development of theories of interpretation dian with articulatinc; die rarionale that occasions their deployment.
W'liile professors ni literature iuic sought to claim fol dicir jetivi-ties the ns;eij. nli|ecuvuy, eogiuuve substantiality, and progress aum-riated with science and the empirical disciplines, they have also attempted to remain faithful to die essentially conservative jihI didactic mission ol humanistic studies: to hiilinr and preserve the cultures traditionally esteemed objects—in llns i ,is<:. its canonized texts—jtul to illuminate ami transnul the traditional mltiiral values presumably embodied iu th.cin.'"
iv See Pinohky. "kouojrr.itdiy Jinl bomalugy An Ininidiicrioii lolhe Study nl Ketiaissuince Art," in Meaning in f/v ľntulArli. :6--í4. ľ'ir eonimeiil on and cno-cism of rhti mc-tfiod o) 'interpretation. »ce FJtkelurd Kaemmerlinjr,, ed„ lltonogru pi'lr unJ Ikwhtpt IhwitH. Eimi.íluH^, VrahUmt (Cologne! DuMoW, i')~i)Y. Jaeiiues Bonnet, eif, Envm nmeftky: iUttttn pour wn tempt iPam: Centre (ŕeorpes I'.mmiimIihj, i.,S... \!i i, i-l |>. nlr.. !<-<■ ' ntt.J tlnnrutm »/.f»r('Neu I laveft Vale ĽtúvenJiy Press, 1 gilt >; Michael Ann I lolly, htttofaky and tbr KmntUtmtH of An Ihi-tury (Ithaca. < jjmell Univcnity Press, 10H4) and litmogntftj r UvauUi^u (Milan-Jaca Books, njv-:): Keith Money1. "ParwŔikyV Concept of ■|ei.inolo«y' and (he Ptrihlcra of Inicrrwcrjilion ill the liialory ni \\\," V,-;: t.jtenuy ttinary 1- in>H,- H/i) .■65-74. fcbia Ferrem, Canrrrr, Vanaftky, ami HJrimtg Svmbnl, Art, anJ History. trans. Ritliard Pierce (New Ibveti: Yale University Press, natty); Georges Dicfi-11 libel-nun. Dritmt ľ tmav? (Part* Minuit, 195)0); and Btrrnlan < .av.hU, ed.. I.antnf tvpty at tbr CrmrmaJj ť Princeton: Princeton University Press, toy})
i a Barbara Heimstein Smith, "The Fjttte of E* aluatioti," in QwrtytPffa «/' {'aim: Alternator Plrnptfuva far Cniuul Tbetity <Ci>mliTidi>c: llarviril Unnersity Presj. luKH). t!i. It li Mpnilieani that the I.....t Smith idi-urnier, .is itie iiuai rvriLim
[
79
StatrLatuiQ lluttiry
Pan Misty relcgaled the i|iiesMnn of artistic excellence to file realm of the self evident, and effectively wove this evaluative judgment into the fabric of tradition. IVtan this perspective, tine can only tell wJ1.1i is. M'lf-evideiK b\ consulting what others have considered artistically exceptional in the past. It is alleged that by reading die past we can infer what is appropriate to the present, dius avoiding the necessity ol projecting contemporary opinion into the process, 'ITiu price of interpretive objectivity \p the abdication nf responsibility for finding in history a means oI articulating the cultural dilemmas of the present. The principle ol self-evidence is profoundly conservative; it is dedicated to the support of the sums ijiio and ideally suited to the task of providing in history with "sci-rindie" respectability.
Panofsky's ecjuation of canonical value with traditional value was csj'H lusci.f anil supported By Kmst Gumbrich, arguably (.he utbtr most inHuential art historian of diis century. Ln his view, it is because art historians are the custodians of this tradition that they can Ik distinguished from vocial scientists, who approach works of art as if they were part of the material of culture. In a 107,1 lecture entitled " Vrt I 11 story and the Sooal Sciences," t iombi iili luuk 11
upon himself to defend art historys preoccupation with a canon of works that hat! been recognized as "great," critiquing those who advocated the study of works of art as cid rural artifacts, lie argued thai whereas the study of historical circumstance would signifi-candy aflfect our appreciation of the art of the past, it was no sub-
• •* f.
vemnu "I dle anu ojliuiiomit xlarlie. Northrf,«p KryeVAattann tfVntkam. waH, lite Kuří SftbtrltnMyb i\imtini\, published in the Hjš,£>«. Smiths luník n cinJy une of ounwroui lotiirilmiions to \\iv ileluie mír the tanon in lnerarv snnhes. Kur mmc olher |n-npretitr» nit «br eanon, \ee Robert vun I latlberft. ed., "t jiiuins," a .|w cul ísíih- ol '.riti,\il tntjtaty in 1111H31, v,IikIi iiieladed rasavs bv Barliam I lerrn-<iein Snuth. t]harki Alfitri. Jnouu: MeCřann. Jnlin Guillory; Kichanl Ohinaim, ind i.itlii rs. Jane lottipkins, Stnuitintul /Viupu.' lift (.ulturul Work tifAmerkmi hi. -tltm. i-tjit~ia'6it (New Yorle Oxfor.t Ijnversny Press, n>S;i; Rnlieri Selioles, ".Viiiunjt a Canoti ai the Currieiiium," SutmjgumJi 72 (19KA): 101-17. and thr response* liy F„ D. Hirsch, Mariorir Perlofl, (■ Ii/jIictíi 1 ;.-m«..st. jmi uthers in tlw aimc isscír; Charlei Alnen. Omniu and Oumryumrer Rifintitmi <tn tbr hfrmt fwtr o/' Imaginárně ltienl> (f"vanston. JU.: NtirthuTstem ťntvereity Prcvs. íooul; Jan ÍJorail, Thr XUínm afibe ^ ímitrn Lamin; fienesři jnj Cruu ofa tjtrrary Mra (Al lantie Higltlmiils, N.J.: Arhlone IVcss. hjoi ); Paul Liutcr. Camnts m Cwtrxtt fNcw York: Oxford University Přen, iouiJ, Henry I.ouis (iaittijr., Lansr Ctrnvm; Nitn oitlbtlMtitrll.i.i iV-i» %iirt (Ivlonl l n i versi ty Presí. njy21; ind Jolui Guilltvy, ťulttiral I jptut. ťbt ťirj-ltm afIjiťntri Canon Formalin* tslhieatto- fnnersilv ol Chicajtu Prevs, iwi).
70
stitute lor the connoisseur's capacity to discern quality. For Gom-lirich, die canon
Offers poinu of reference, standards of excellence which we cannot level down without liwinyf direction. Which j»rticuLir peaks. Or which individual achievements W* select 1«»r rhi> rule may he a matter «>f choice, hoi we could not make such a choice if there really were n<i peak but only shifting dunes... . the values of the canon ire loo deeply embedded m the totality of our avi ligation far ihim to he discussed in isolation. .    thir altitude to the peaks of art can l»e conveyed through the way we speak alxiur them, perhaps ihroujjh our very reluctance to s|w>il the experience widi loo much talk. What we call civilization may be mierprcted as a weh of value judgements which arc implicit rather than explicit.'1
What was U thai led leading art historians "I the calilter of Panofsky and Gomhrteh to dismiss any discussion of the cultural qualities of canonical works ol art on die basis that they were self-evident? What supported their belief that artistic until was universally discernible? The unstated assuniption underlying their position would appear to he a universalis! theory of aesthetics.
According to the aesthetic theory formulated hy Immanuel Kant in die late cighteendi century, certain works of art had the capacity to provoke a rraiisliisturiruJ recognition of their extraordinary quality.'' The existence of the beautiful was thus something lo-rjtcd hi the human response to objects rather than in the objects themselves. B\ making the capacity to recognize artistic quality part of die definition of "human nature," Kant's theory offered, a basis lor the ideindication of canonical status witii die judgment of tradition, Both Panofsky and (iombrich belong to die himianist tradition of which Kants theory is a part- They share the conviction that human nature affords lit adequate episteniolngical loon-datum on which to understand tmtli the world and "[nan's" place with in it. For this reason, they can assert that the juristic quality of certain cultural artifacts is self-evident.
11. Gombnih, Art I Unary jttJ tht Aarw/ Sarrun: Tht kamma Lsaurr far 197; (Oxford: Clarettilnn Press, 1975), 54. Northrop Fryc ilsu suggested dlcnce u the m.-.m, by which a critic im^ht ululate llic ciHiallon ol the canon with tradition. Sec Smith. The Exile of Evaluation." 14,
it, Kant Crrttfwr of Aatbrw Judgement, trans Jjnics Meredith (Oxford-' Clarendon Press, kjjjI
The humanist conception of human subjectivity as something stable, continuous, autonomous, and unmodulated hy circumstances ol ume and place has itself been subject to devastating criticism in our own time Psychoanalysis, fur example, has tended to emphasis ihe contingency of hitman consciousness. According CO Jacques Lacan, subjectivity is split by the acquisition of lantmage into that which represents the desires and drives of a pre-conscious condition (the unconscious) and that which represents the codes ami conventions thai govern social life (the symbolic).1' On this account, identity is shifting and unstable, constantly under revision as the relation between the unconscious and the social is re-netrotiaied in the light of the everchanging circumstances of everyday life. Such a view of identity formation clearly militates against the concept of an inherent human nature, against the assumption that all human beings react to the same things in the same way, let alone works of an. J"hdidca of a universal human response to an has licen further undermined by cultural enncs, such as the Marxist sociologist Pierre Hourdieu. In u materialist critique of Kant's aesthetic theory, he showed thai in contemporary French Middy, the response to works ot art differed widely according to •.ihi.i1 class: while certain social groups ascribed exceptional quality to certain ■. 1.11 ■ 1 ■ I ■ ■ ---1 ■ -■ r . oihcrs denied diem am value whaiso cur.'1 Amhni|Hilogists such as Johannes Fabian and literary critics such as Edward Saul have drawn attention to the ideological agenda underlying humanist cpistomolngics, suggesting that die conception of die human subject as stable and unchanging, a self-conscious entity capable of knowing l>oth the world and itself, is a dimension of the Kurncentnsm that characterized Western culture during the colonial period of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.** The age of empire saw a fusion of the desire for knowledge with the worldwide expansion of Furopean power. The search for knowledge was backed by epistemological assumptions
jj, Lacan, "Tin.' Mimir Singe .1» Formative of the Function of the T ii Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience" and "The /sgeney of die Ijrin-r 11 tht- Uu conscious, or Kenan since Freud," in ftriJX A Stkttio», [runs. Alan Sheridan (New York Norton. 11*771, i -7 ami 140-7H.
14, Pierre Uourdieu. Datmctim: A ,S*m/ Critique itf'tte Jml^rmevi at'litae, trans. Richard Nice (Cimbridift. Harvard University Press, ipKo).
2y. Johannes Fabian, Time 4aJ li>r Dther- Haa JnlirryfrttiHr* MjJeei lu f)bfrct (New York: Columbia University Press. 198)); Edward Said. Onenintam (New York: VirLiJjfc Kixilts, Oj?i|) ,1ml I'.'nJrttrr muHmpniMism (New Yolk: Knopf, !i,vi.
Moth Mr
11
/I'm
8a
fht
of Prrnutvm
that precluded cultural differentes; moreover, in ever}- encounter with other peoples. Europe was chosen as the standard liy which to judge the rest, The result was a subordination "I other cuJtures lu A [.uropean concept ion of civilization and a reduction of the different prays of understanding the world to what we know as "science."
In one wav "r .mother, all these criticssuggesrthat the means by which individuals, classes, and cultures invest objects with social value are so varied that such processes cannot Ik- considered to Ihj-long to the same category. If this is the case, then the concept ol aesthetics, one intimately associated with the humanist conception of an unchanging human nature, is emptied of its content.-'* Rather than trying to reduce the rich variety nl human responses to an to a single kind of experience, it seems more important to articulate the grounds on which these different responses attain the status of discursive practices-
Fanofskys attempts to naturalize the concept of arttsUc quality - or. to paraphrase Gomhricb, the claim that quality is one of the implicit value judgments that make up our civilization—were never completely convincing. Among the most important (and curiously neglected) arguments recognizing the role of die present in the task of accounting lot the past is Leo Steinbergs remarkably prescient 196«; essay, "Objectivity and the Shrinking Self." By insisting that suhjectotry mattered. Steinberg rebelled against the antiseptic objectivity, the |>ositivisux empiricism, of the art history nl his day. According to him, the way in which the art historians cultural outlook is modelled by the cultural circumstances of his own lime determines the importance he ultimately iscnliersto the work of art under consideration, Mannerist ait, lor example, had long been dismissed hecausc of its negative assessment by the Italian art academies of the seventeenth century, but was rediscovered by twentieth-century Expressionist artists and critics on the basis of their own artistic preferences, In Steinbergs view, diere is no evading personal involvement. All historical interpretation is necessarily colored by the beliefs of the interpreter.
h is naive m imagine lha! you avoid the risk of projection merely by noi interpreting In desisting from interpretation, you do not cease
j6. Sei. Tony Bennett, "Really l selew Knowledge: A Political Critioue of Acs theucH." {Mrmturr jnJ Himry ij 41987). i*s7
to pn ncit Vnu merely pni|cci more unwittingly. I here is apparently no escape from oneself and IttT.le safety in closing an history off against die contcilibrary imagination.1*
It was not unril the advent of feminism, however, that the equation of die an historical canon with tradition received a lasting challenge. More than any other historian or critic, it was Linda Nochlin in her famous piece, "Why Have There Been No Cireat Women Artists?" of 1971, who placed the issue of artistic merit squarely in the foreground of the disciplines attention.-'* She demonstrated just how unsatisfactory the concept of tradition was to a definition of the canonical status of a work of art by underscoring the extent to which a putative mztfrrpiece serves to articulate and support a hierarchy of the sexes. There is nothing inherently natural about the selection of great artists and works on which art history depends, because that choice is the product of
17. Leo Steinberg, "Objectivity ami the Shrinking Self." llntiUtui 98 (summit 1069): SjA Svrtlunu Mpcrs also drew mention tn the fanponame of the present in thr mierjirnvition of the nasi: see "I x An I lino iry-" tUtdilut ino (1977): 1-11. [Jc-scrihine the work ol T.J. Oark. Michael Fried, I.e.. Sicinl>rr[>, an! Michael BaxaniUI, sin- claimed that they emphasized the w.n in winch the artistic ineru discovered by pant cnlies in win-ks of m needs to lie evaluated in the context of the present. It) doin/r so, rhi-ie aiit|i..rs itn|>lie<l rJiat the earn in inherited tram tndinon was not alnnlute and thai 11 was subject to revision at the hands of succeeding 1;. 11 eraiions.
Curiously enough, the social Irnuury of art inspired by the Mams! mlicisui uf T J. dark ha* by ami large taken the existence ol a tradim nut i am hi tor gi-anted.
< I ol. 1:11.1 0 weened ,,t ,|„. ,......... , |„„i; . t w,.r;. mil,,.,,! „,,|, histormails
lontjiigeiii jm 1.1I iiKjiiiiii; U'lnk Ins iiv,t\ interpretaonns of canonical works are dearly pohuvalU muiiviiieit, hi- rao-ly i alls jiicnoisn tohir, ,mn intellectual beliefs and sm.ial eitgagvinent in the process ul Ins encounter with iht: |um. See, 1<ir e.\-jni|vlc, im«$r nj thf Ptnpit. tiustovr f.Wtfrr *ni thr i.V'j.V KflWmmn (Princeton: Princeton University rYess, 107O and Thr faint Modern Ufr fttrn m iht An of .Wjih-i mi I hi AW/mrm (Princeton: Princeton L'tuvenuty Press. 1984). Fur criticism ot Clark't future to address tile question of die canon. M Adrian Kiflm. "Mani t Hariusm," An Ilistoty 8(1985): 488-95.
•tv Iim.Ij Nochhii. "Why llas-c There Been No Great Women Artists?" Art ASnai fto (1971): j t-j<;, 07-09. S« ilu, |jM Hekner, "Femiiusni. Art History and Seiiul Difference," GeNJen(iia*S): and \anette Salomon, Tile .Art liis-
tuncal GUKin: Sins of OmLssion" in fhi)i n-nJrnirij Ktmsitii^f: hmsniit, inj..ije/»t, ed. Juan Hart nun and illen Mciscr-lljviiluw iKnotville: Univervn uf Inntiessce Press, 1991), Mi-lb, Guniobuiiiias since dlis chapter was wrirtetl include "Re-thiiiUni; ihe Camyi," a collection of comment*- by Michael Camille. Zeynep tJclik, lohn Onuns, Adrian Killin, nwl C Jinstoplier Sterner, in Art Hutlrtw -H \ t^tjb) 108-i 17, antl (.nseliia Pollock, l)i/ittr»,m9 iht Cjhiih: Fnmmn Dritrt jmllhr H'nt-mH'l* Art's llniann (London: Rmuletli'e, 1090).
83 iSSs..
Metkurmg Hirtnty
historically determined social attitudes. The equation of artistic merit with tradition, Nochlin argued, honored the cultural achievements or men because social forces prevented women trom parncipaiing fully in the processes of artistic production. By means of a striking case study of the history of the exclusion of women from drawing «>r painting the nude in the an academies that dominated .uTistii education until tin end id tin nineteenth cenmn Nochhn suggested that social institutions, rather than an innate lack in female character, were responsible for the undcrreprescnta-tion of this gender among die "great" artists of the past.
Hopefully, by stresMng Hit Mrtittttwritil --i.e., the piililic rather dun the mdrrninal, or private, pre-conditions lor achievement or the lack "I it in the jris, we have provided ,i pji.idie.iii for the investigation of other areas in the field. By examining in some detail a simple iiistancc of deprivation or disadvantage- die unavailability of nude models to wutucn art students- we have suggested that u was indeed tmtitU!wit,iU\ nude impossible for women to achieve artistic excellence, or success, on the same fooling as men, no mattfru-t'iit die potency of their so-called talent, or genius.-""
Radier than attempt to insert historical women into .1 smi.il practice that hail lioen constructed on the basis ol their exclusion, subsequent feminist critics demanded the complete destruction of art history as a discipline, Gnselda Pollock has used semiotics and the work of Foucault to argue that art history is itself a discursive practice, a way of nuking meaning that is imbued with the atti-tudes of the dominant gender. She concludes that feminist scln il.ir ship lias no place within art history as u has traditionally been defined. Instead of addressing the canonical works around which disciplinary activity has revolved, she advocates what she calls "feminist interventions in the histories ol art."'"
Following Jacques Derrida, Adrian líifkin has drawn out the consequences of linguistic theory for the art historical canon, focusing in particular on rlic necessity to recognize thai the work of the historian—the historical text—is inevitably colored by the histo-
jij. \uchlin, "Why No < ircji U'limen Amus." t><t
}0. Groelila Pollock, "Feminisr IrirervciitHmi in the I listortc-s or" Art: An Introduction," in I inan jnJ Dtffimur: ľrmiumity, Irnumim, .tnJ the I Ittutna vf Art iLon-iliinr Rnmledge. iciSS), 1-17
rians position in histury and culture. If art history can Lie regarded as a discursive practice, then it is susceptible to the type of textual analysis known as deconstruction." Derrida has shown that language is involved in a game ot absent presence, that it serves to bestow ontologies! status on what is otherwise only an unstable and shifting system of signs which draw their meaning not from their capacity to refer to objects in the world, but rather from the cultural attitudes with which they are invested by thcLr users. In such cir-CTtmsunces, the notion of "art" is transformed: no longer referring to .i series of cultural ob|ccis distinguished by its capacity to provoke a universal response to artistic merit, "art" becomes a series of cultural objects that has Ikcii arbitrarily awarded a privileged status by authors whose interests have been served by doing so. '*' 'I ne cultural category of "art" and die discursive practice of "an history" are social constructs, not constants in the history of civilization.
In the light of these critiques, we must rethink the function of authorial subjectivity in the writing of history, as well as the nature and status of the art historical canon. First, and perhaps must startling, we must real ire that the type of appreciation expressed for northern Renaissance art in the work of VVackcnroder and Schlcgel is more relevant to the process of contemporary historical interpretation than is the work of Panofsky. Unci the concept ol tradition hxs lieen shown to be historically compromised, laden with the cultural .minutes of a particular historical moment, and once every attempt DO make textual meaning has been shown to be less about the world than about the projection of authorial bias and prejudice—as well as insight u .1 understanding -then it seems clear that art historians must address the question of why they believe the works they discuss are worth talking about. Once there is no longer anything self-evident about the status of the works 1h.11 are the focus of an historical attention, it is necessary to explain why certain works have been chosen rather than others. The sub-
}t. Adrian Rifliii. "Art* Ilismries," in ITrr S'rtrArt Horary, cd. A. L Kees and Frances Bonello (IaHulon tiamden Press, 10KA), 157-^5. Srr also <«-rard .Mer mil*. "Rhelitric and Kpntcmc Writing about 'Art' in the Wale uf Pmi StrutturaJ-lun,* ,(rt History 11 (ivfyl; 497-509.
j;. For a discussion of tlir »av m which worts ol art are "mimed," sec J aequo llcrnila. Ike Truth m Hunting li.ins I .cotf Uliiiihikioii 4111I Ian \li I r.u| ;( In cajfo University ol Qucapi Prciv, lyHy) and Paul l>urn, td.. Tbr fthttem a/ the hmim Txt^ri "H tht BounJjnri of tht Arrymk (Claau I iridic (Jajuhndjre L'nivrrsjiv Pro*, 19116»,
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jective attitudes ami cultural aspiration-- ul the art hoNUinari become just as important an aspect of the narrative as the works that are its object. This is tantamount to saying that there is no canon beyond that which we Ourselves construct. Insic.nl of using history to buttress the existence of a traditional canon, instead of making the historical imagination serve the status quo. that ist the tastes of those whose culture we have inherited, a motivated history can Ik: used to destabilize and rail into question our cultures assumptions and prejudices by insisting on their contingency and relativity.
But these conclusions have profound pedagogical implications for art history. As a discipline organized around the study of a canon of artists and works guaranteed by tradition, art history was, at least until relanvely recently, an agent in what Pierre Bourdieu has called the proress of "cultural rcproducnon." The canonical content of our syllabi, for instance, serves as a means of transmitting "cultural capital" from one generation of the elite to another." By transferring knowledge about a set of works whose merit can neilher be questioned noi discussed, art lnsnn\ is i'lit n viewed as a conservative force in contemporary culture. I low can this situation be transformed? The elimination of a canon seems to be a Utopian itream. To suggest that art history could continue as a social institution without choosing which artists and works should be taughi and which should not presupposes dial i he discipline could operate without a cultural agenda. Such manifest naivete would simply reproduce the circumstances dial promoted an unquestioning attitude toward the traditional canon in the hrst place. Ifwe assume, in the wake oi post-structuralism, thai there are no disinterested narratives, that .ill .hi historical accounts are informed by one hias or .mother, then it six-ios wiser to acknowledge that there will always Ik- some works considered to be of greater artistic merit than others. The standards that go into making such judgments change according to the attitudes and interests of different historical groups and individuals.
As I write, it is clear to me that transformations dtat accord with
])  Pierre Kourdicu and Jean-Claude PiMcnm. fieprvJihliwi •» FJmdtum. rn.      l.uiiurt. rj\jm. Richard Nice I fa ■ndon: Saijr Publications, lij.)""') for an in ilmiiitiu ol the soy in which in history serves the process of euhiiial icpnidlic-tioti. sec (juol ! > .1. i: . Teaching the Rich," in Tit AatbrtKj of'l^rctr: Ett/tyi m CnrifiiAn Hiumy (New Yurie (jinhndge University I'ress. iysit). 135"4:-
dicse arguments are actually being carried out in practice. Rather dian assume that the discipline might ever agree on what constinites "quality,"' our students more and more frequently encounter concepts of artistic merit that respond to varied political and cultural beliefs. In such circumstances, diey may lie introduced to a formalist canon, Marxist canon, feminist canon, gay and lesbian canon, post-colonial canon, ami so on. Alternatively, diey may study the tradi-oonal set of works, but be given very different reasons for considering diem extraordinary. This plethora of ideals of social value does not prett&d to coexist in egalitarian conviviality. The value of acknowledging then struggle for attention is that none can henceforth be regarded as a "master narrative," Decisions ti . subscribe to one i h another of their stjci.il agendas must lie made with a full recognition of the political and cultural implications of that choice. In view of the altcrnaaves, none of these initiatives can conceal the contingency of its assumptions behind the naturalizing mask of tradition.
Previously sanctioned narratives on which canonical stilus depended are being called into question hy narratives that no longer share their assumptions. Individual artists anil works of art—even entire periods—are being reevaluated in a way that places their continued representation in the canon in doubt, just as canonical stariis is now being sought lor artists, works, and periods hitherto unrecognized. Indeed, as David Carrier has suggested, art history would ap(>ear to he experiencing a "paradigm shift." Using Thomas Kuhn's notion of the paradigm to refer to forms of an historical interpretation that arc regarded as acceptable by the dominant institutions in the profession ,u my particular point in tune, Carrier suggests that our discipline's notion of "truth" is being transformed and that we are witnessing die development of new paradigms of what might count as acceptable forms ol intcrpreta-t on • Kuhn's ..... i.<!.»••, ,.t kn.»if. dec ivn onlj affords us insight into contemporary circumstances but also presents a means of understanding change. Despite the appeal of some of art history's leading practitioners to an unchanging, constant notion of tradition, tine that would stabilize and perpetuate a tixed concept of
14. David Carrier, "F.rwin Paiusfsiy, Leo Slcinherg, David t_iimcr I he Pnili-Icm of Ohieciivity 111 Alt Hutorual Intc-q.retauon," JournM of Aatketkt <tnd Art Cmmtm47(l9St». JJJ~>47' For Knhn's theory of"paradigms,"see TbrStrut turr jJ S.ientifii RrMlutimi,     cd ((Jiicagn Umvcrsiry of Chicago Press, irj-o)
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miahty, the i. .mi m has always lieen malleable, seemingly engaged in a process of continual change.
This chapter, however, is not a descriptive account of art his-tor\ s metamorphoses. Far from an empirical report, it is an appeal for a broader recognition of the role played by subjectivity in the .inn itlation of historical interpretations. Rather than legitimate a pre-established canon ot artists and works following die principle of objectivity, I argue that historians should pursue their own agendas and articulate their own motives for engaging in the process of finding cultural meaning 111 the jrt oi the past. Railier than regard rlie subject of an history as fixed and unchanging, scheLi s have an i>!i[H>rtuniry to define what that subject might lie. In doing so, they can display rather than conceal the cultural issues thai preoccupy them. The subject of an history tints Incomes manifestly an allegory of the historical circumstances that have shaped and empowered the subjectivity i>l tin- author.
"I his emphasis on the agency of the historian, his or her capacity to subject the values of die past to intense scrutiny and rigorous criticism, as well as to articulate the cultural aspirations of his or her own times, should not be misunderstood. Plus is not a call I'm some simplemindeil correspondence between interpretation anil interpreter, not a suggestion that one should reflect the other. The allegories of consciousness that wc call "history" must inevitably be- opaipie- Wc can never lie fully conscious of the motives that compel us to give one shape to an interpretation rather than another. The uneonsctoiis must, by dennitiim, remain beyond our comprehension, Not only is the historian's sitbiectivity partly determined by unconscious forces, hut it is also governed by the ideological traditions that are characteristic of its situation in history. Following I .ouis Althusser, we might define iJeoiogy as a social 1111-consctous.1* The historians work belongs (sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly) to a variety of ways of conceiving die relations between human beings as members of a particular culture, and of the means by which thai culture relates 10 other cultures and to the world. These Structures of understanding define his or her identity in relation to all other times and places.
I conclude, therefore, with a paradox, The cultural codes ami conventions that serve to define 1 parftculai identitj also enable it ro participate in social life. It is only because the suhjeci is both constituted by and constituting of the circumstances in which he or she exists that the active role of history in the creation and transformation of'culture can lie undcrstixid- The call for a motivated history cannot assume that the historians motives are transparently accessible. Psychological and ideological determination, however, cannot prevent an author Irom actively investing historical narratives with political persuasion that addresses the pressing cultural anil social issues of the day.
J 5. J.. AltfiLiwr, "liieulogy and iht WmtuptaJ .Srale Apparatuses," in Ltnin 4h1i Pbiiatitpfa mdOitrrr lisstryf, trans, (ten BrfvurerCNew YurL Munthly Rrview I'rrss, 1971), 116-86.