The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology (Oxford History of Art) [Paperback]

Donald Preziosi (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0192842420 | ISBN-13: 978-0192842428

The history of art has been written and rewritten since classical antiquity. Since the foundation of the modern discipline of art history in Germany in the late eighteenth century, debates about art and its histories have intensified. Historians, philosophers, psychologists, and anthropologists among others have changed our notions of what art history has been, is, and might be.
The Art of Art History is a unique guide to understanding art history through a critical reading of the field's most innovative and influential texts over the past two centuries. Each section focuses on a key issue: aesthetics, style, history as an art, iconography and semiology, gender, modernity and postmodernity, deconstruction and museology. More than thirty readings from writers as diverse as Winckelmann, Kant, Gombrich, Warburg, Panofsky, Heidegger, Lisa Tickner, Meyer Schapiro, Jacques Derrida, Mary Kelly, Michel Foucault, Rosalind Krauss, Louis Marin, Margaret Iversen, and Nestor Canclini are brought together, and Donald Preziosi's introductions to each topic provide background information, bibliographies, and critical elucidations of the issues at stake. His own concluding essay is an important and original contribution to scholarship in the field.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This masterly collection of texts interrogates the raging academic question, What is art history? Editor Preziosi, who directs ground-breaking critical studies of art history and museology, provides introductions to 35 challenging readings gathered in nine chapters. This plethora of alternatives is curiously complicated, even obfuscating. Covered here are the most current and relevant approaches to aesthetics, style, iconography and semiology, feminism, gender studies, formalism, postmodernism, deconstruction, museography, hybridity, and multiculturalism; those offering critical analysis range from Winckelmann, Kant, Wolfflin, Panofsky, Schapiro, Gombrich, and Derrida to Rosalind Krauss and Carol Duncan. Ultimately, this book is best suited to upper- and graduate-level collections and to the reference shelf of specialized art collections, as it proposes the discipline of art history itself as an art.AMary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson Univ., MD
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Definitely the best introduction to art history currently available."--Professor Norman Bryson, University of San Diego

"What makes this anthology more than an arresting assemblage is the author's critical stance towards what he has wrought."--Professor Robert S. Nelson, Yale University

"Vivid and inspiring...a flamboyant book."--Professor Johanne Lamoureux, University of Montreal

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (June 25, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192842420
• ISBN-13: 978-0192842428
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #917,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best anthology, September 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology (Oxford History of Art) (Paperback)

As an art historian, I have found this to be the best anthology of writing about art history, but it is not a picture book or entry-level history of art. The other reviewers were correct in identifying this book as a specialized volume for academics, not an introduction for the general reader. This is not a drawback unless you expect something else. Professor Preziosi is a leading expert in art history's history and is respected widely for his erudition and comprehensive knowledge of the field. I assign it to my graduate students because the selection of important writings is excellent and Preziosi's introductions are so succinct and precise.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Intelligent Anthology, July 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology (Oxford History of Art) (Paperback)

I find myself in agreement with Patrick Deegan and the reader from L.A. as to this volume's quality, but less so as to its accessibility. In fact, I believe any intelligent reader should be able to approach this volume and, using Donald Preziosi's succinct commentary as a guide to context, derive valuable knowledge and material for critical thought from it. Readers seeking a simple monolithic approach to the subject of Art History will, needless to say, be disillusioned by the breadth and depth of this volume; readers with an active mind (regardless of whether they describe themselves as academics or not) will be delighted by it. As an example of the careful selection process that has gone into this anthology, I would point out the sequence of texts anthologized in Chapter 8, where the changes over time in critical readings of Heidegger's _The Origin of the Work of Art_ are well reflected in the subsequent essays by Schapiro, Derrida, and Melville. Having any one of these essays present in the volume would be valuable; having the full set allows the reader a far greater degree of insight into the matter of Heidegger's original essay. In short, a book I would strongly recommend to anyone who wants to think independently about art, and not just be told what to think about it.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking at Art History, February 9, 2008

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Zippo "Zippo" (Mexico) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology (Oxford History of Art) (Paperback)

This is a book for anyone interested in reading excerpts from original texts (by Helgel, Kant, Derrida etc.) about specific problems encountered in the field of Art History since, approximately, the creation of the modern concept of Art. It is divided into chapters about specific themes, with a short introduction, and bibliography. I would recommend Preziosis own book "Rethinking Art History" as a companion. This is not an easy book, as some angry reviewers discovered, but - how could it be? Art is about life, and life is a very complex thing. If you have absolutely no experience with philosophy or theory, then this might not be the right place to start. If, however, Art and Art History is something you are interested in, and have some basic knowledge of, this is a very rewarding book.