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Medieval Modern: Art out of Time
Rich collisions and fresh perspectives illuminate the profound continuities of thought and practice that have marked Western art through the ages This groundbreaking study offers a radical new reading of art since the Middle Ages. Moving across the familiar period lines set out in conventional histories, Alexander Nagel explores the deep connections between modern and premodern art to reveal the underlying patterns and ideas traversing centuries of artistic practice.
In a series of episodic chapters, he reconsiders from an innovative double perspective a number of key issues in the history of art, from iconoclasm and idolatry to installation and the museum as institution. He shows how the central tenets of modernism – serial production, site-specificity, collage, the readymade, and the questioning of the nature of art and authorship – were all features of earlier times before modernity, revived by recent generations.
Nagel examines, among other things, the importance of medieval cathedrals to the 1920s Bauhaus movement, the parallels between Renaissance altarpieces and modern preoccupations with surface and structure; the relevance of Byzantine models to Minimalist artists; the affinities between ancient holy sites and early earthworks; and the similarities between the sacred relic and the modern readymade. Alongside the work of leading 20th-century medievalist writes such as Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, Leo Steinberg, and Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Smithson, and Damien Hirst.
The effect of these encounters goes in two directions at each age offers new insights into the other, deepening our understanding of both past and present, and providing a new set of reference points that reframe the history of art itself.
134 illustrations, 104 in color
In a series of episodic chapters, he reconsiders from an innovative double perspective a number of key issues in the history of art, from iconoclasm and idolatry to installation and the museum as institution. He shows how the central tenets of modernism – serial production, site-specificity, collage, the readymade, and the questioning of the nature of art and authorship – were all features of earlier times before modernity, revived by recent generations.
Nagel examines, among other things, the importance of medieval cathedrals to the 1920s Bauhaus movement, the parallels between Renaissance altarpieces and modern preoccupations with surface and structure; the relevance of Byzantine models to Minimalist artists; the affinities between ancient holy sites and early earthworks; and the similarities between the sacred relic and the modern readymade. Alongside the work of leading 20th-century medievalist writes such as Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, Leo Steinberg, and Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Smithson, and Damien Hirst.
The effect of these encounters goes in two directions at each age offers new insights into the other, deepening our understanding of both past and present, and providing a new set of reference points that reframe the history of art itself.
134 illustrations, 104 in color
312 pages, Hardcover
First published November 5, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 22, 2024
Nagel's writing is straightforward and clear. His overall thesis communicates something similar to Latour as well, while the time period we find ourselves in is marked by significant change and difference. The popukar notion of an epistemological break between the modern and premodern is a fundamentally flawed one.
Nagel draws connections that show the medievalism of the moderns in many ways. The way that the historian must, "grasp the constellation into which his own era has stepped together with a very clearly defined better one" is clearly occuring here. Culture is constructed here like the cities from which it is formed, continually taking pieces from other buildings, clearing new land, following the formations of the land and new roads etc.
Particularly good is the chapter on Smithson being one of the best explorations of his work i have read.
Overall, this book is an exciting and challenging take on art history. An art history that is easily extrapolated into a new methodology of reading medievalism across culture.
Nagel draws connections that show the medievalism of the moderns in many ways. The way that the historian must, "grasp the constellation into which his own era has stepped together with a very clearly defined better one" is clearly occuring here. Culture is constructed here like the cities from which it is formed, continually taking pieces from other buildings, clearing new land, following the formations of the land and new roads etc.
Particularly good is the chapter on Smithson being one of the best explorations of his work i have read.
Overall, this book is an exciting and challenging take on art history. An art history that is easily extrapolated into a new methodology of reading medievalism across culture.
August 10, 2016
Some pretty cool comparisons and worth a look at for any art educator.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews