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The Social History of Art #2
The Social History of Art: Volume 2: Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque
First published in 1951, Arnold Hauser's commanding work presents an account of the development and meaning of art, from its origins in the Stone Age through to the "Film Age." This new edition of a classic work explores historical and social movements and the effects these have had on the production of art-- the centrality of class and class struggle, the cultural roles of ideologies and the determining influence of modes of economic development. There are 144 illustrations within the four volumes and each volume has a new general introduction by Jonathan Harris which traces the history of Hauser's project, discusses the relevance of the work for art history today, provides a synopsis of Hauser's narrative, and offers a critical guide that highlights major themes, trends and arguments.
235 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1951
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About the author
Arnold Hauser
165 books70 followersArnold Hauser was born in Temesvar (now Timisoara, Romania), to a family of assimilated Jews. He studied history of art and literature at the universities of Budapest, Vienna, Berlin, and Paris. In Paris his teacher was Henri Bergson who influenced him deeply. To earn extra income he reported on art, literature and cultural events for the Temesvári Hírlap (Temesvár News). For a period he was a teacher at a Budapest Gymnasium.
In 1916 Hauser became a member of the Budapest Sunday Circle, which was formed around the critic and philosopher György Lukács. The group included Karl Mannheim, a sociologist, the writers Béla Balázs, and the musicians Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Mannheim, who had at first rejected the idea that sociology could be useful in the understanding of thought, soon became convinced of its utility. Also Frigyes Antal (1887-1954) applied the sociological method to art.
After World War I Hauser spent with his bride two years in Italy doing research work on the history of classical and Italian art and earned his Ph.D. in Budapest. His dissertation dealt with the problem of aesthetic systematization. In 1921 he moved to Berlin. By that time he had developed his view that the problems of art and literature are fundamentally sociological problems. Three years later, when his wife declared that she wanted to live closer to Hungary, the couple settled down in Vienna, where Hauser supported himself as a freelance writer and as publicity agent for of a film company. He also worked on an unfinished book, entitled Dramaturgie und Soziologie des Films. Later he said, that "For me this was the period of collecting data and experiences which I used much later in the course of my writing my works on the sociology of art."
Fleeing the Nazis after the Anschluss in Austria, Hauser and his wife emigrated in 1938 to Great Britain. Shortly upon their arrival, his wife died of influenza. Alone and without any regular income, Hauser then began to research for Social History of Art. It took ten years to finish the Marxist survey, his magnum opus of more than a thiusand pages, which appeared when he was 59. Still following what is going on in the film world, Hauser also wrote a number of essays about films for Life and Letters Today and Sight and Sound. From 1951 he was a lecturer on the history of art at the University of Leeds, and in the late 1950s a visiting professor at Brandeis University in the United States. In 1959 he became a teacher at Hornsey College of Art in London. He worked again in the United States in 1963-65 and then returned to London.
When Hungarian Radio aired a Budapest-London conversation between Hauser and Lukács in July 1969, Hauser confessed: "I am not an orthodox Marxist. My life is devoted to scholarship, not politics. My task, I feel, is not political." In 1977 Hauser moved to Hungary, where he became an honorary member of the Academy of Science. He died in Budapest on January 28, 1978, at the age of 86.
Hauser's last book, Soziologie der Kunst (1974, Sociology of Art), which he wrote racing against time and declining health, investigated the social and economic determinants of art. In this pessimistic work he distanced himself from Marxism and historical determinism. "The foreseeable future," he said, "lies in the shadow of the atom bomb, of political dictatorship, of unbridled violence and cynical nihilism. Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin left, as a permanent testament, a feeling of fear and apprehension which cannot be mastered." Hauser's suggestion that art does not merely reflect but interacts with society is a widely accepted premise. He also saw the art establishment and art reviewers as servers of commercial interests. As in his Social History of Art, Hauser's approach was Euro-centered and did not pay much attention to non-Western art.
Social History of Art was the result of thirty years of scholarly labour. It traced the production of art from Lascaux to the Film Age
In 1916 Hauser became a member of the Budapest Sunday Circle, which was formed around the critic and philosopher György Lukács. The group included Karl Mannheim, a sociologist, the writers Béla Balázs, and the musicians Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Mannheim, who had at first rejected the idea that sociology could be useful in the understanding of thought, soon became convinced of its utility. Also Frigyes Antal (1887-1954) applied the sociological method to art.
After World War I Hauser spent with his bride two years in Italy doing research work on the history of classical and Italian art and earned his Ph.D. in Budapest. His dissertation dealt with the problem of aesthetic systematization. In 1921 he moved to Berlin. By that time he had developed his view that the problems of art and literature are fundamentally sociological problems. Three years later, when his wife declared that she wanted to live closer to Hungary, the couple settled down in Vienna, where Hauser supported himself as a freelance writer and as publicity agent for of a film company. He also worked on an unfinished book, entitled Dramaturgie und Soziologie des Films. Later he said, that "For me this was the period of collecting data and experiences which I used much later in the course of my writing my works on the sociology of art."
Fleeing the Nazis after the Anschluss in Austria, Hauser and his wife emigrated in 1938 to Great Britain. Shortly upon their arrival, his wife died of influenza. Alone and without any regular income, Hauser then began to research for Social History of Art. It took ten years to finish the Marxist survey, his magnum opus of more than a thiusand pages, which appeared when he was 59. Still following what is going on in the film world, Hauser also wrote a number of essays about films for Life and Letters Today and Sight and Sound. From 1951 he was a lecturer on the history of art at the University of Leeds, and in the late 1950s a visiting professor at Brandeis University in the United States. In 1959 he became a teacher at Hornsey College of Art in London. He worked again in the United States in 1963-65 and then returned to London.
When Hungarian Radio aired a Budapest-London conversation between Hauser and Lukács in July 1969, Hauser confessed: "I am not an orthodox Marxist. My life is devoted to scholarship, not politics. My task, I feel, is not political." In 1977 Hauser moved to Hungary, where he became an honorary member of the Academy of Science. He died in Budapest on January 28, 1978, at the age of 86.
Hauser's last book, Soziologie der Kunst (1974, Sociology of Art), which he wrote racing against time and declining health, investigated the social and economic determinants of art. In this pessimistic work he distanced himself from Marxism and historical determinism. "The foreseeable future," he said, "lies in the shadow of the atom bomb, of political dictatorship, of unbridled violence and cynical nihilism. Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin left, as a permanent testament, a feeling of fear and apprehension which cannot be mastered." Hauser's suggestion that art does not merely reflect but interacts with society is a widely accepted premise. He also saw the art establishment and art reviewers as servers of commercial interests. As in his Social History of Art, Hauser's approach was Euro-centered and did not pay much attention to non-Western art.
Social History of Art was the result of thirty years of scholarly labour. It traced the production of art from Lascaux to the Film Age
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December 3, 2018
كتاب مذهل في موسوعيته وإتساع موضوعه الذي يشمل الحديث ببراعة وحرفية عن الفنون المختلفة والأدب والموسيقى والتاريخ والفلسفة والسياسة والإقتصاد، وإلمام مؤلفه بكل هذه التفاصيل الدقيقة عن عصور تاريخية تبدأ من ما قبل التاريخ وحتى القرن العشرين، وقدرته البارعة على رصد وتحليل الفروق الدقيقة بين كل عصر وآخر وبين الإتجاهات المختلفة المتزامنة في نفس العصر في بلاد مختلفة أو في مجتمع واحد، ونظرته الثاقبة التي تجعله واعيا بأوجه الشبه أو الإختلاف بين صفات معينة في عمل أدبي وعمل آخر موسيقي أو تشكيلي، وصلة ذلك بالخلفية الإجتماعية والإقتصادية للمجتمع وللفنان في ذلك العصر والبلد المعين.
وكما أشار د. فؤاد زكريا مترجم هذا الكتاب الضخم فإنه لا يعتبر مجرد كتاب في تاريخ الفن، إنما هو تاريخ للحضارة الإنسانية أساسا في العالم الغربي باستثناء الفصول الأولى التي يحلل فيها رسوم الكهوف التي قام بها إنسان ما قبل التاريخ وصلة ذلك بإقتصاد ذلك العصر !! ثم أحد الفصول الأولى التي يتحث فيها باستفاضة عن خصائص الفن المصري القديم وصلة ذلك بالمعتقدات الدينية والنظرة إلى الحاكم شبه المؤله. وفيما عدا ذلك فالكتاب يتتبع سير الحضارة الغربية في أوربا بكل تفاصيلها الدقيقة.
الكتاب صعب في أجزاء كثيرة، خاصة أنه يركز على الخلفية الإجتماعية والإقتصادية لكل عصر حتى أكثر مما يتحدث عن أثر ذلك على الفن والأدب، وهو يختار أمثلة للأعمال الفنية والأدبية ربما لا تكون دائما "الأشهر" وإنما يختار تلك المعبرة عن روح العصر والممثلة لكل خصائص ذلك المجتمع. ومن أجمل الأجزاء في الكتاب الفصل الذي يتحدث فيه عن شكسبير وعصره (وهو في الجزء الأول من الكتاب)، ثم حديثه عن الرومانتيكية والكلاسيكية والأطوار التي مرت بها كل منهما، وكيف انبثقت بعد ذلك المدرسة الواقعية ثم الطبيعية في الأدب الفرنسي. وقد أبدع المؤلف في وصف فكر وأدب ستندال وفلوبير وبلزاك وديكنز ولماذا كان كل منهم مختلفا عن الآخر، والموقف السياسي والإجتماعي والإقتصادي لكل منهم، وكيف أثرت هذه العوامل على شخصياتهم وأدبهم، ونوعية الجمهور الذي كان يقرأ لكل منهم وتأثير ذلك على الأسلوب الفني ونوعية كتاباتهم
يورد المؤلف مئات الأسماء لفنانين وأدباء ومفكرين وفلاسفة وشعراء وسياسيين وحكام، ومئات الإشارات إلى أحداث تاريخية ومناطق جغرافية وأساليب ومدارس فنية وفلسفية ونقدية، وكنت أتمنى لو كان المترجم توسع قليلا في هوامشه لكي يعطينا ولو نبذة سريعة عن هؤلاء الأشخاص والأحداث إذ أن المؤلف كثيرا ما يذكر هذه الأسماء بطريقة عابرة على اعتبار ان القارىء ملم بها ويعرفها معرفة وثيقة! وربما حال دون التوسع في الهوامش عدم رغبة الناشر في تضخم حجم الكتاب أكثر من ذلك إذ أنه يبلغ أكثر من 1000 صفحة في جزئين.
برغم كل ذلك فهو كتاب فذ، والترجمة الرصينة الجميلة ساعدت كثيرا في التخفيف من صعوبة النص
وأخيرا: أشعر بسعادة فائقة أني تمكنت من الإنتهاء منه، فقد قرأت الجزء الأول العام الماضي، ثم تعثرت كثيرا في هذا الجزء الثاني وظننت أني لن أستطيع أن أكمله
كتاب رائع يستحق القراءة والدراسة بتأني وعمق، ويعتبر مرجع وموسوعة في موضوعه، أتمنى لو أقتني نسخة منه لأني متأكد أني سأحتاج الرجوع إليه كثيرا
[ إضافة: تحققت الأمنية وصدر الكتاب من عدة سنوات في طبعة شعبية، فشكرا لمكتبة الأسرة وللقائمبن عليها ]
وكما أشار د. فؤاد زكريا مترجم هذا الكتاب الضخم فإنه لا يعتبر مجرد كتاب في تاريخ الفن، إنما هو تاريخ للحضارة الإنسانية أساسا في العالم الغربي باستثناء الفصول الأولى التي يحلل فيها رسوم الكهوف التي قام بها إنسان ما قبل التاريخ وصلة ذلك بإقتصاد ذلك العصر !! ثم أحد الفصول الأولى التي يتحث فيها باستفاضة عن خصائص الفن المصري القديم وصلة ذلك بالمعتقدات الدينية والنظرة إلى الحاكم شبه المؤله. وفيما عدا ذلك فالكتاب يتتبع سير الحضارة الغربية في أوربا بكل تفاصيلها الدقيقة.
الكتاب صعب في أجزاء كثيرة، خاصة أنه يركز على الخلفية الإجتماعية والإقتصادية لكل عصر حتى أكثر مما يتحدث عن أثر ذلك على الفن والأدب، وهو يختار أمثلة للأعمال الفنية والأدبية ربما لا تكون دائما "الأشهر" وإنما يختار تلك المعبرة عن روح العصر والممثلة لكل خصائص ذلك المجتمع. ومن أجمل الأجزاء في الكتاب الفصل الذي يتحدث فيه عن شكسبير وعصره (وهو في الجزء الأول من الكتاب)، ثم حديثه عن الرومانتيكية والكلاسيكية والأطوار التي مرت بها كل منهما، وكيف انبثقت بعد ذلك المدرسة الواقعية ثم الطبيعية في الأدب الفرنسي. وقد أبدع المؤلف في وصف فكر وأدب ستندال وفلوبير وبلزاك وديكنز ولماذا كان كل منهم مختلفا عن الآخر، والموقف السياسي والإجتماعي والإقتصادي لكل منهم، وكيف أثرت هذه العوامل على شخصياتهم وأدبهم، ونوعية الجمهور الذي كان يقرأ لكل منهم وتأثير ذلك على الأسلوب الفني ونوعية كتاباتهم
يورد المؤلف مئات الأسماء لفنانين وأدباء ومفكرين وفلاسفة وشعراء وسياسيين وحكام، ومئات الإشارات إلى أحداث تاريخية ومناطق جغرافية وأساليب ومدارس فنية وفلسفية ونقدية، وكنت أتمنى لو كان المترجم توسع قليلا في هوامشه لكي يعطينا ولو نبذة سريعة عن هؤلاء الأشخاص والأحداث إذ أن المؤلف كثيرا ما يذكر هذه الأسماء بطريقة عابرة على اعتبار ان القارىء ملم بها ويعرفها معرفة وثيقة! وربما حال دون التوسع في الهوامش عدم رغبة الناشر في تضخم حجم الكتاب أكثر من ذلك إذ أنه يبلغ أكثر من 1000 صفحة في جزئين.
برغم كل ذلك فهو كتاب فذ، والترجمة الرصينة الجميلة ساعدت كثيرا في التخفيف من صعوبة النص
وأخيرا: أشعر بسعادة فائقة أني تمكنت من الإنتهاء منه، فقد قرأت الجزء الأول العام الماضي، ثم تعثرت كثيرا في هذا الجزء الثاني وظننت أني لن أستطيع أن أكمله
كتاب رائع يستحق القراءة والدراسة بتأني وعمق، ويعتبر مرجع وموسوعة في موضوعه، أتمنى لو أقتني نسخة منه لأني متأكد أني سأحتاج الرجوع إليه كثيرا
[ إضافة: تحققت الأمنية وصدر الكتاب من عدة سنوات في طبعة شعبية، فشكرا لمكتبة الأسرة وللقائمبن عليها ]
June 20, 2022
This is an excellent and eye-opening book which anyone interested in art history through a sociological lense should read. It covers the period from the 13 through 1600s--from Giotto to Rembrandt in broad, deep, and concise detail. Hauser's historical materialist framework highlights the necessary connections between the contingent historical contexts and their reflection in the art and ideas of the Renaissance, Mannerism, and Baroque. Despite its short length, it manages to cover a wide array of topics while rarely sacrificing nuanced/detailed considerations of the main currents, styles, works, and masters of the relevant period. With the exception (and this is my main, or only, criticism) of the musical arts flourishing in this period. A social history of art in this time without reference to Palestrina, Monteverdi, Bach, or Vivaldi seems lacking in an important way. It is really a history of the visual and literary arts to be sure, but it is an excellent one at that. The following are summaries of the main topics covered in each chapter.
CH 1
Hauser begins by situating the Renaissance within the conventional periodization of European history, emphasizing the continuities that underly the often arbitrary distinctions between the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment. For example, he sees Gothic naturalism as anticipating the Renaissance's preoccupation with representing the empirical world as opposed to the purely metaphysical symbolism of the Romanesque. He challenges popular images of the Renaissance as the dawn of naturalism, the spirit of resistance to authority, or the freedom of conscience claiming they are the biases of later liberal enlightenment commentators which retroactively projected onto the Renaissance this stark contrast to the "dark ages of Medievalism". Likewise, he argued the same of the sensualistic conception of the period and the later Romantic commentators who wanted to see more of their own aesthetic philosophy in the works of Michaelangelo, Rafael, and da Vinci than there really was.
He does, however, conclude that something new--if not "unheralded"--did occur in the Renaissance with its style of unity, clarity, and rational form distinct from the Gothic's emphasis on juxtaposing independent elements. He ties this to the material conditions of Italian life in the 14th and 15th century as an economic revival gripped the Mediterranean. Its commercialism, competition, and monetary forms leading to rationalization of production as well as art.
CH 2
Here, Hauser's historical materialist framework becomes apparent as he attempts to explain Renaissance art in terms of the economic developments which produced two sources of market demand for the arts with their own (overlapping) tastes: old-money landed nobility and bourgeois nouveau riche. The former's tastes are rooted in romantic chivalry while the latter embodies the middle class virtuess of aquisitiveness, industry, frugality, respectability, and--above all--rationality.
Ch. 3 The Social Status of the Ren Artist
This chapter looks like it'll be about the evolution of the artist from petty bourgeois artisan to free intellectual worker. The main idea here is that there is an evolution which tracks the emancipation of the artist from the guild and this situation is due to material conditions which act on market and lift up artist. It wasn't the humanists ideas about art but the material conditions of the new social status of the artist as intellectual worker and not craftsman required alteration of old apprenticeship system and emancipation from guild monopoly.
CH. 4 - THE CLASSICISM OF THE CINQUECENTO
In this period artistic principles begin to cohere into a style recognizable in its general uniformity as "renaissance art". Along with the formal elements of spatial rationality, common vanishing points, and greater grace and fluidity of movement (thanks to scientific study of anatomy) there were cpmmonalities in the content, or subject matter, of art as well. Being dictated by the demand of art's patrons, the content naturally reflected elite values/aspirations of economy, conciseness, moderation, and permanent power in the new bourgeois status quo. This is reflected in the moderated emotions that come to rule in the portrayals of Jesus and Mary. Hauser claims excessive passion nearly dissappears by the High Renaissance and an "abundance of ripeness" reflecting a life-as-being as opposed to as-becoming attitude (he doesn't mention this but I feel Titian paradigmatically embodies this "ripeness" in his paintings).
This chapter also contains the books most explicit comment on Hauser's Theoretical Framework. It clearly borrows from Hegel the view of artistic forms struggling to be adequate to a content meant to express what society finds "universal" or "essential". But what is authorative for society is not the demands of Spirit self-consciously actualizing its freedom (as in Hegel) but what rationalizes the reigning mode of social reproduction (as in Marx). Therefore, art's development from medieval to Renaissance forms correspond to the historically contingent changes in the social relations of production between feudalism and capitalism--not the logically necessary "movement" of an immanent Hegelian dialectical.
CH. 5 THE CONCEPT OF MANNERISM
Here Hauser argues that there is a distinct style of art, emerging in the first few decades of the 16th century, that acts as a transition between Renaissance proper to the baroque. Here art becomes more self-conscious, strikes a more anxious relation to Classicism, and reacts against Renaissance conventions primarily by breaking up spatial unity. All this is rooted in the political and social tensions of the early 16th century: speculative and debt crises brought about by the expansion of commerce, France and Spain's invasion of Italy and subsequent sack of Rome, and the Reformation.
CH. 6 THE AGE OF POLITICAL REALISM
This chapter was a highlight of the book for me. Hauser focuses on the transformation from early agrarian capitalism (with many remnants of the old feudal order) to fully fledged merchant capitalism consummated in the 1500s. This means the widescale adoption of capitalist manufactures, the consolidation of state power (especially Spain), the shift from Mediterranean trade to the Oceanic western powers, and above all the iron supremacy of money as the foundation of power.
Whereas only in a few Italian and Dutch regions had the artist broken free of the craft guilds by the 1400s, the independent artist became the general paradigm in the 1500s. The manneristic style reflects the changing ideas and structures of economics and politics of the time. For example, Hauser spends some pages exploring Italian art after Spain sacked Rome in 1527 and exerted its influence in culture throughout the middle of the century while never stamping out the Indigenous Italian character in art. The decline of ecclesiastical power in the art market and the ideology of machievelian political realism are also reflected in the art of this period.
CH. 7 THE SECOND DEFEAT OF CHIVALRY
This chapter recounts how a revival in chivalrous-romantic forms in Italy and Flanders in the late 15th century and peaking in France and Spain a century after is finally defeated by bourgeois tastes in art. This story is largely told through an analysis of two figures paradigmatic of 16th century mannerist literature: Cervantes and Shakespeare. In the former, characters like Don Quixote play out the anachronistic social forms of the feudal middle ages where knight errantry had a basis in European society but no longer make sense given the context of merchant capitalist Europe. In the latter, Hauser shows how disillusionment with the Machievellian political reality of the age resulted in some of the greatest tragic drama of the era. All along he investigates the consequences of Iberian campaigns against the Muslim world, inter-class conflicts in Tudor England, and the developments in art during the Elizabethan period.
CH. 8 & 9
A short chapter on the concept of "Baroque" explains the origin of the term in 18th century turn art criticism (particularly German with Winckelmann, Lessing, and Goethe representing), provides a critical summary of Woelfflin's revaluation of the Baroque in light of Impressionism's effect on art understanding in which he applies a historical materialist analysis to attack the latter's "unsociological method", and outlines the simultaneously heterogeneous elements of the baroque while identifying its common denominator in a striving toward the infinite rooted in the new scientific worldview.
The following chapter covers the art of the Catholic courts through the output of the naturalistic Caravaggio, the emotionalist Caraccis, and the academicist French artisists of King Louis XIV's personal rule.
CH. 10 THE BAROQUE OF THE PROTESTANT BOURGEOISIE
The final chapter treats the Dutch Golden age as a result of the specific socioeconomic environment of 17th century Netherlands. Its struggles against Spanish rule, its level of productive development, and its uniquely bourgeois social structure and corresponding wealthy middle class art market are all discussed and related to the style (naturalistic) and content (mundane life) of the Dutch masters.
CH 1
Hauser begins by situating the Renaissance within the conventional periodization of European history, emphasizing the continuities that underly the often arbitrary distinctions between the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment. For example, he sees Gothic naturalism as anticipating the Renaissance's preoccupation with representing the empirical world as opposed to the purely metaphysical symbolism of the Romanesque. He challenges popular images of the Renaissance as the dawn of naturalism, the spirit of resistance to authority, or the freedom of conscience claiming they are the biases of later liberal enlightenment commentators which retroactively projected onto the Renaissance this stark contrast to the "dark ages of Medievalism". Likewise, he argued the same of the sensualistic conception of the period and the later Romantic commentators who wanted to see more of their own aesthetic philosophy in the works of Michaelangelo, Rafael, and da Vinci than there really was.
He does, however, conclude that something new--if not "unheralded"--did occur in the Renaissance with its style of unity, clarity, and rational form distinct from the Gothic's emphasis on juxtaposing independent elements. He ties this to the material conditions of Italian life in the 14th and 15th century as an economic revival gripped the Mediterranean. Its commercialism, competition, and monetary forms leading to rationalization of production as well as art.
CH 2
Here, Hauser's historical materialist framework becomes apparent as he attempts to explain Renaissance art in terms of the economic developments which produced two sources of market demand for the arts with their own (overlapping) tastes: old-money landed nobility and bourgeois nouveau riche. The former's tastes are rooted in romantic chivalry while the latter embodies the middle class virtuess of aquisitiveness, industry, frugality, respectability, and--above all--rationality.
Ch. 3 The Social Status of the Ren Artist
This chapter looks like it'll be about the evolution of the artist from petty bourgeois artisan to free intellectual worker. The main idea here is that there is an evolution which tracks the emancipation of the artist from the guild and this situation is due to material conditions which act on market and lift up artist. It wasn't the humanists ideas about art but the material conditions of the new social status of the artist as intellectual worker and not craftsman required alteration of old apprenticeship system and emancipation from guild monopoly.
CH. 4 - THE CLASSICISM OF THE CINQUECENTO
In this period artistic principles begin to cohere into a style recognizable in its general uniformity as "renaissance art". Along with the formal elements of spatial rationality, common vanishing points, and greater grace and fluidity of movement (thanks to scientific study of anatomy) there were cpmmonalities in the content, or subject matter, of art as well. Being dictated by the demand of art's patrons, the content naturally reflected elite values/aspirations of economy, conciseness, moderation, and permanent power in the new bourgeois status quo. This is reflected in the moderated emotions that come to rule in the portrayals of Jesus and Mary. Hauser claims excessive passion nearly dissappears by the High Renaissance and an "abundance of ripeness" reflecting a life-as-being as opposed to as-becoming attitude (he doesn't mention this but I feel Titian paradigmatically embodies this "ripeness" in his paintings).
This chapter also contains the books most explicit comment on Hauser's Theoretical Framework. It clearly borrows from Hegel the view of artistic forms struggling to be adequate to a content meant to express what society finds "universal" or "essential". But what is authorative for society is not the demands of Spirit self-consciously actualizing its freedom (as in Hegel) but what rationalizes the reigning mode of social reproduction (as in Marx). Therefore, art's development from medieval to Renaissance forms correspond to the historically contingent changes in the social relations of production between feudalism and capitalism--not the logically necessary "movement" of an immanent Hegelian dialectical.
CH. 5 THE CONCEPT OF MANNERISM
Here Hauser argues that there is a distinct style of art, emerging in the first few decades of the 16th century, that acts as a transition between Renaissance proper to the baroque. Here art becomes more self-conscious, strikes a more anxious relation to Classicism, and reacts against Renaissance conventions primarily by breaking up spatial unity. All this is rooted in the political and social tensions of the early 16th century: speculative and debt crises brought about by the expansion of commerce, France and Spain's invasion of Italy and subsequent sack of Rome, and the Reformation.
CH. 6 THE AGE OF POLITICAL REALISM
This chapter was a highlight of the book for me. Hauser focuses on the transformation from early agrarian capitalism (with many remnants of the old feudal order) to fully fledged merchant capitalism consummated in the 1500s. This means the widescale adoption of capitalist manufactures, the consolidation of state power (especially Spain), the shift from Mediterranean trade to the Oceanic western powers, and above all the iron supremacy of money as the foundation of power.
Whereas only in a few Italian and Dutch regions had the artist broken free of the craft guilds by the 1400s, the independent artist became the general paradigm in the 1500s. The manneristic style reflects the changing ideas and structures of economics and politics of the time. For example, Hauser spends some pages exploring Italian art after Spain sacked Rome in 1527 and exerted its influence in culture throughout the middle of the century while never stamping out the Indigenous Italian character in art. The decline of ecclesiastical power in the art market and the ideology of machievelian political realism are also reflected in the art of this period.
CH. 7 THE SECOND DEFEAT OF CHIVALRY
This chapter recounts how a revival in chivalrous-romantic forms in Italy and Flanders in the late 15th century and peaking in France and Spain a century after is finally defeated by bourgeois tastes in art. This story is largely told through an analysis of two figures paradigmatic of 16th century mannerist literature: Cervantes and Shakespeare. In the former, characters like Don Quixote play out the anachronistic social forms of the feudal middle ages where knight errantry had a basis in European society but no longer make sense given the context of merchant capitalist Europe. In the latter, Hauser shows how disillusionment with the Machievellian political reality of the age resulted in some of the greatest tragic drama of the era. All along he investigates the consequences of Iberian campaigns against the Muslim world, inter-class conflicts in Tudor England, and the developments in art during the Elizabethan period.
CH. 8 & 9
A short chapter on the concept of "Baroque" explains the origin of the term in 18th century turn art criticism (particularly German with Winckelmann, Lessing, and Goethe representing), provides a critical summary of Woelfflin's revaluation of the Baroque in light of Impressionism's effect on art understanding in which he applies a historical materialist analysis to attack the latter's "unsociological method", and outlines the simultaneously heterogeneous elements of the baroque while identifying its common denominator in a striving toward the infinite rooted in the new scientific worldview.
The following chapter covers the art of the Catholic courts through the output of the naturalistic Caravaggio, the emotionalist Caraccis, and the academicist French artisists of King Louis XIV's personal rule.
CH. 10 THE BAROQUE OF THE PROTESTANT BOURGEOISIE
The final chapter treats the Dutch Golden age as a result of the specific socioeconomic environment of 17th century Netherlands. Its struggles against Spanish rule, its level of productive development, and its uniquely bourgeois social structure and corresponding wealthy middle class art market are all discussed and related to the style (naturalistic) and content (mundane life) of the Dutch masters.
July 22, 2019
*long review and tons of quotes alert*
Hauser is fancy if he is your guy, period. I mean, if you are looking for an art history whose analysis concentrated NOT quite just on intellectual anecdotes and artistic heritage like master A learned his brush skill from master B, and master B's overall light iterative strokes is taken from master B's master's best friend master C who also writes sonnets and dates pretty boys, etc., but how those long dead and gone artists and poets were to their own age, their own history, their own society, then Hauser is one you'd like to turn to.
Here are some points impress me af in this volume:
1. I don't care but I'll just put that quote here, because it's more about art.
I totally suggest modern "progressives" or "conservatives" who really cannot understand a tiny bit of thing without naming or summoning or pressing complex phenomenon into some flat, general, arbitrary category first, cannot assert themselves without proclaiming their idea is some "general" or "historical" right choice, or right side, and believing themselves being so pioneer so new so revolutionary on insisting "diversity" or "defending classics" and it is "universally" preconditioned, should recite these below paragraphs down to their stomach every one hour, daily, with water:
2. Rationalism
Rationalism corresponds not with naturalism, when its time comes, it undermines the artistic creativity - yep, not new point, but Hauser in fact illustrates the whole line of how rationalism comes first as a creative support to art then turned, not without intermingling struggles of power and swinging of sides which imprints its mark on society and art industry, into a dictatorship of dogma in court and the anarchy art market among middle class.
What level of fancy job are we talking about here? At first, Hauser points out that, "the doctrine of spontaneous naturalism of Renaissance comes from the same source as the theory that the fight against the spirit of authority and hierarchy [...] the same spirit which makes its way in the organization of labour, in trading methods, the credit system and double-entry book keeping, in methods of government, in diplomacy and warfare." intellectual and material life was rationalized, art as well. What we are talking about the most impressive (or "progressive", by its good meaning) achievement of Renaissance art is its rationalization of beauty:
Rationalization to art is not born a monster, but a vital side-kick when Western men started to shake themselves off the "great chain" of religious senses, and the world is no longer a place human helplessly and contently sunken within, it can not only be observed but studied as well. Notwithstanding such alliance with rationalism is far from stable, especially after those artists found their soul mates among humanistic intellectuals:
The namely "healthy rationalism" poured indeed efforts on preventing the feudalism revival, in which case Hauser believed Shakespeare took his side (if there is for real any) here (I'll talk about this later). But the more "unhealthy" result happened both in high court dominated society and middle-class ruled one. In France, within the reign of Louis XIV, artists in public are supervised under the guidance of authority (eg. Le Brun, Colbert), academic theories rules the canvas, art was constrained within the palaces and inwardness, fame of King and reputation of court, lost the connection to reality but became a mere decoration of glory, whilst claiming their standard of classicist "being universal" as they are the "citizens of the world":
Yet individual freedom is neither the guarantee of artistic life. Rationalism among prevailed middle class creates a new middle class art with psychological depth and a vivid realization of own psyche limitation, the intensified concentration comes from the next-level naturalism approach that "not only to make spiritual things visible, but all visible things a spiritual experience." It happened in Dutch, but the new sense of truth in art accompanied soon the expansion of art market and middle-class tastes (which, always, conservative) and bourgeois exploits when art became an industry of coerce on talent.
3. Machiavelli.
Oh babe. I should have put Machiavelli to number 0 instead 3 because, I think, he is in fact the eye of the tiger...no, I mean the eye of the volume, the keyhole of understanding the undercurrent billowing deep down beneath the prismy life and struggle of 17'c, the explanation of how the seed of the neurotic sorrow and unsettling sprout and encircled its gnarled vine among the artistic and individual lives, wounded them, troubled them, floundering its own power by unique marks within their works.
Hauser is absolutely royal on inserting Machiavelli on the turning point of the last struggle of mannerism age towards more "modern" baroque (and seriously, I believe a deep analysis on the relationship between baroque and Raison d'Etat must be very interesting), if not explicitly asserting him to be the one who gave a finally and fatal push of the wheel. Machiavelli was merely the first to make men conscious of political realism:
And it was just a matter of time when the baroque era came "the formal perfection no longer serves as excuses for any ideological lapse."
It in fact was a long way from the scintillating unsettled mind strifes to throwing down a rock-hard solid discovery, since the dual truth is rooted so deep in the mind of Western man. Yet when every liars seems speak the language of Machiavelli, all sharp-wittedness was distrusted, we know Machiavelli is like the Freud behind the slip of tongue, the wake in the face of the truth is chaotic and painful and a total lost for it was a realization that "reality was obedient to its own stern necessity,that all mere ideas were powerless when faced with its relentless logic, and that the only alternative was submit to or be destroyed by it". Machiavelli is inevitable, Machiavelli is the wheel to a awakened world.
Thus when Michelangelo even in his work (eg. Medici Chapel) betrayed the high renaissance but adopted the twisted body and uncanny spatial structure within which the world is longer felt home to human being, that unclassic spirit is the breaking of spatial unity of Renaissance earlier tradition, like a dream world where real (by common meaning) connections are abolished.
Hauser was right about it, the whole mannerism spirit was the last desperate struggle against the stern truth of Machiavelli and what the truth has awakened, aroused, justified.
And it was painful.
Hauser is for sure a Templar. He did a decent critical approach on Machiavelli, the one and only legendary Master Assassin who might want to write a book about Ezio Auditore. LOL
4. Shakespeare.
In fact Hauser also talked about Cervantes, which is good and decent, but the Shakespeare part catches me more. Hauser made a baroque poet out of Shakespeare (which is awesome) by explaining that the passion, pathos, impetuosity, exaggeration, the wilfulness, the exuberance of Shakespeare's style can be explained by the intermingled influence of baroque trend. He is of mannerism dominantly, but baroque trending can explain a lot also, just like even Michelangelo's style is not exempted from various sources of social influence.
BUT!!!
But it doesn't mend the crappy and cunning aspect of his approach on Shakespeare (IRRITATED.gif). I mean, to constrict Shakespeare's concern of social conflict just within the rejection of heroic ideal of feudal chivalry?? Seriously?? And you sure the Richard III is a proof of his early age pro-Machiavellism? You sure? SURE??? Are you serious, Arnold??? You sure Shakespeare for Brutus just having a warm spot in heart and nothing else and you sure that's a warm spot for real?? Are you serious, Arnold???
I enjoyed most of this book, but the Shakespeare part, Hauser is too selective on his information and approach, which in one way or another, looks like using Shakespeare to round his research and ideas on the political realism and decline of chivalry tradition, which is, not an uncommon strategy but far from decent if not hardly forgivable.
What a shame.
Anyway, it's overall a very good one.
Hauser is fancy if he is your guy, period. I mean, if you are looking for an art history whose analysis concentrated NOT quite just on intellectual anecdotes and artistic heritage like master A learned his brush skill from master B, and master B's overall light iterative strokes is taken from master B's master's best friend master C who also writes sonnets and dates pretty boys, etc., but how those long dead and gone artists and poets were to their own age, their own history, their own society, then Hauser is one you'd like to turn to.
Here are some points impress me af in this volume:
1. I don't care but I'll just put that quote here, because it's more about art.
I totally suggest modern "progressives" or "conservatives" who really cannot understand a tiny bit of thing without naming or summoning or pressing complex phenomenon into some flat, general, arbitrary category first, cannot assert themselves without proclaiming their idea is some "general" or "historical" right choice, or right side, and believing themselves being so pioneer so new so revolutionary on insisting "diversity" or "defending classics" and it is "universally" preconditioned, should recite these below paragraphs down to their stomach every one hour, daily, with water:
"One ought, really, never to speak of a uniform "style of the time" dominating a whole period, since there are at any given moment as many different styles as there are artistically productive social groups. Even in epochs in which the most influential work is found on a single class, and from which only the art of this class has come down to us, it ought to be asked whether the artistic products of other groups may have been buried or lost.
[...]
They have not the slightest awareness of how restricted their idea of "universality" is and of how few they are thinking when they talk about "everybody" and "anybody". Their universalism is a fellowship of the elite - of the elite as formed by absolutism."
2. Rationalism
Rationalism corresponds not with naturalism, when its time comes, it undermines the artistic creativity - yep, not new point, but Hauser in fact illustrates the whole line of how rationalism comes first as a creative support to art then turned, not without intermingling struggles of power and swinging of sides which imprints its mark on society and art industry, into a dictatorship of dogma in court and the anarchy art market among middle class.
What level of fancy job are we talking about here? At first, Hauser points out that, "the doctrine of spontaneous naturalism of Renaissance comes from the same source as the theory that the fight against the spirit of authority and hierarchy [...] the same spirit which makes its way in the organization of labour, in trading methods, the credit system and double-entry book keeping, in methods of government, in diplomacy and warfare." intellectual and material life was rationalized, art as well. What we are talking about the most impressive (or "progressive", by its good meaning) achievement of Renaissance art is its rationalization of beauty:
"The whole development of art becomes part of the total process of rationalization. The irrational ceases to make any deeper impression. The things that are now felt as 'beautiful' are the logical conformity of the individual parts of a whole, the arithmetically definable harmony of the relationships and the calculable rhythm of a composition, the exclusion of discords in the relation of the figures to the space they occupy and in the mutual relationship of the various parts of the space itself. And just a central perspective is space seen from a mathematical standpoint, and right proportions are only equivalent to the systematic organization of the individual forms in a picture, so in the course of time call criteria of artistic quality are subjected to rational scrutiny and all the laws of art are rationalized."
Rationalization to art is not born a monster, but a vital side-kick when Western men started to shake themselves off the "great chain" of religious senses, and the world is no longer a place human helplessly and contently sunken within, it can not only be observed but studied as well. Notwithstanding such alliance with rationalism is far from stable, especially after those artists found their soul mates among humanistic intellectuals:
The latent conflict between the intellectual and the economic upper class is nowhere openly engaged as yet, least of all by the artists, who, with their less developed social consciousness, react more slowly than their humanistic masters. But the problem, even if it is un-admitted and unexpressed is present all the time and in all places, and the whole intelligenstsia, both literary and artistic, is threatened by the danger of developing either into an uprooted, "unbourgeois", and envious class of bohemians or into a conservative, passive cringing class of academics. The humanists escape from from this alternative into their ivory tower, and finally succumb to both the dangers which they had intended to avoid.
The namely "healthy rationalism" poured indeed efforts on preventing the feudalism revival, in which case Hauser believed Shakespeare took his side (if there is for real any) here (I'll talk about this later). But the more "unhealthy" result happened both in high court dominated society and middle-class ruled one. In France, within the reign of Louis XIV, artists in public are supervised under the guidance of authority (eg. Le Brun, Colbert), academic theories rules the canvas, art was constrained within the palaces and inwardness, fame of King and reputation of court, lost the connection to reality but became a mere decoration of glory, whilst claiming their standard of classicist "being universal" as they are the "citizens of the world":
"...the aesthetic of classicism of guided by the principles of absolutism - the absolute primacy of the political conception over all the other expressions of cultural life. The special characteristic of the new social and economic forms is the anti-individualistic tendency derived from the idea of the absolute state.[...] They have not the slightest awareness of how restricted their idea of "universality" is and of how few they are thinking when they talk about "everybody" and "anybody". Their universalism is a fellowship of the elite - of the elite as formed by absolutism. There is hardly a rule or a requirement of classicistic aesthetics which is not based on the ideas of this absolutism. The desire is that art should have a uniform character, like the state, should produce the effect of formal perfection, like the movement of a corps, that it should be clear and precise, like a decree, and be governed by absolute rules, like the life of every subject in the state. The artist should be no more left to his own devices than any other citizen; he should rather be guided by the law, by regulations, so as not to go astray in the wilderness of his own imagination."
Yet individual freedom is neither the guarantee of artistic life. Rationalism among prevailed middle class creates a new middle class art with psychological depth and a vivid realization of own psyche limitation, the intensified concentration comes from the next-level naturalism approach that "not only to make spiritual things visible, but all visible things a spiritual experience." It happened in Dutch, but the new sense of truth in art accompanied soon the expansion of art market and middle-class tastes (which, always, conservative) and bourgeois exploits when art became an industry of coerce on talent.
"In a conservative courtly culture an artist of his (Rembrandt's) kind would perhaps never made a name for himself at all, but, once recognized, he would probably have been able to hold his own better than in liberal middle-class Holland, where he was allowed to develop in freedom, but which broke him when he refused to submit any longer. The spiritual existence of the artist is always in danger; neither an authoritarian nor a liberal order of society is entirely free from peril for him; the one gives him less freedom, the other less security. There are artists who feel safe only when they are free, but there are also such as can breathe freely only when they are secure. The seventeenth century was, at any rate, one of the period furthest removed from the ideal of synthesis of freedom and security."
3. Machiavelli.
Oh babe. I should have put Machiavelli to number 0 instead 3 because, I think, he is in fact the eye of the tiger...no, I mean the eye of the volume, the keyhole of understanding the undercurrent billowing deep down beneath the prismy life and struggle of 17'c, the explanation of how the seed of the neurotic sorrow and unsettling sprout and encircled its gnarled vine among the artistic and individual lives, wounded them, troubled them, floundering its own power by unique marks within their works.
Hauser is absolutely royal on inserting Machiavelli on the turning point of the last struggle of mannerism age towards more "modern" baroque (and seriously, I believe a deep analysis on the relationship between baroque and Raison d'Etat must be very interesting), if not explicitly asserting him to be the one who gave a finally and fatal push of the wheel. Machiavelli was merely the first to make men conscious of political realism:
"It was not the violence of the tyrant which caused the general shock and not the panegyrics of their court poets which filled the world with indignation, but the justification of their methods by a man who allowed the gospel of gentleness to stand alongside the philosophy of force, the rights of the noble alongside those of the clever, and the morality of the "lions" alongside that of the "foxes". Ever since there existed rulers and ruled, masters and servants, exploiters and exploited, there also existed two different orders of morality, one for the powerful, the other for the powerless."
And it was just a matter of time when the baroque era came "the formal perfection no longer serves as excuses for any ideological lapse."
It in fact was a long way from the scintillating unsettled mind strifes to throwing down a rock-hard solid discovery, since the dual truth is rooted so deep in the mind of Western man. Yet when every liars seems speak the language of Machiavelli, all sharp-wittedness was distrusted, we know Machiavelli is like the Freud behind the slip of tongue, the wake in the face of the truth is chaotic and painful and a total lost for it was a realization that "reality was obedient to its own stern necessity,that all mere ideas were powerless when faced with its relentless logic, and that the only alternative was submit to or be destroyed by it". Machiavelli is inevitable, Machiavelli is the wheel to a awakened world.
Thus when Michelangelo even in his work (eg. Medici Chapel) betrayed the high renaissance but adopted the twisted body and uncanny spatial structure within which the world is longer felt home to human being, that unclassic spirit is the breaking of spatial unity of Renaissance earlier tradition, like a dream world where real (by common meaning) connections are abolished.
"The twist of body is the writhing of mind, Gothic took the first great step in the development of modern expressionism, and now mannerism takes the second by breaking up the objectivism of the Renaissance, emphasizing the personal attitude of the artist and appealing to the personal experiences of the onlooker...[...]It is impossible to understand mannerism if one does not grasp the fact that its imitation of classical models is an escape from the threatening chaos, and that the subjective over-straining of its forms is the expression of the fear that form might fail the struggle with life and art fade into soul-less beauty."
Hauser was right about it, the whole mannerism spirit was the last desperate struggle against the stern truth of Machiavelli and what the truth has awakened, aroused, justified.
And it was painful.
4. Shakespeare.
In fact Hauser also talked about Cervantes, which is good and decent, but the Shakespeare part catches me more. Hauser made a baroque poet out of Shakespeare (which is awesome) by explaining that the passion, pathos, impetuosity, exaggeration, the wilfulness, the exuberance of Shakespeare's style can be explained by the intermingled influence of baroque trend. He is of mannerism dominantly, but baroque trending can explain a lot also, just like even Michelangelo's style is not exempted from various sources of social influence.
BUT!!!
But it doesn't mend the crappy and cunning aspect of his approach on Shakespeare (IRRITATED.gif). I mean, to constrict Shakespeare's concern of social conflict just within the rejection of heroic ideal of feudal chivalry?? Seriously?? And you sure the Richard III is a proof of his early age pro-Machiavellism? You sure? SURE??? Are you serious, Arnold??? You sure Shakespeare for Brutus just having a warm spot in heart and nothing else and you sure that's a warm spot for real?? Are you serious, Arnold???
I enjoyed most of this book, but the Shakespeare part, Hauser is too selective on his information and approach, which in one way or another, looks like using Shakespeare to round his research and ideas on the political realism and decline of chivalry tradition, which is, not an uncommon strategy but far from decent if not hardly forgivable.
What a shame.
Anyway, it's overall a very good one.
Read
December 8, 2021I personally thought that volume 2 was better than volume 1, but not so good that I felt the need to continue immediately with volumes 3 or 4. Maybe someday when I have more time!
I found Hauser’s arguments about mannerism to be the most interesting presented here, since he is able to identify a broad congruence between the styles that gained prominence during the Manneristic period (ex. two poles: El Greco and Brueghel, who along with their contemporaries decomposed the delineated perspectival space that had been proper to renaissance painting) and those that became prominent in early 20C Germany, remembered as Expressionism. Hauser isn’t as interested in comparing these periods as he is in showing how the characteristic artistic tendencies associated with modernism can actually be traced back to the period immediately following the Renaissance’s zenith—and those with an interest in the historical foundations of capitalism will have plenty to debate about here. Regardless, it is still interesting to note how in both cases, political crisis (the emergence of political realism in 16C; the emergence of imperialism in the Leninist sense in early 20C) precipitates or becomes registered as a crisis in perception (or for the artists themselves, a kind of intensified spiritual crisis regarding their place in the world).
Perhaps we now stand on similar shores? Personal and aesthetic alienation still feel like the only possible escape from the totalizing embrace of our own time (contemporary art: capital), and a certain post-internet expressionism is currently in vogue—but one senses that contemporaneity is better at weathering these recurring capitalist crises better than linear perspective or French symbolism. And in any event, more of the same can only be a bad sign. I guess I won’t hold my breath for a break. But since Hauser has so clearly marked out the character of artistic crisis under (growing/moribund) capitalism, I can’t help but wonder about what kind of crisis we’ll see when a new mode of production is recognized as a matter of fact, rather than a dream—in the same way that Machiavellianism/Mannerism represented the late recognition of the fact of rising Bourgeois power. Russian constructivism seems almost too optimistic to be a precedent for this future crisis which represents something genuinely new, but who knows? By now we’re far outside the scope of a proper review.
I found Hauser’s arguments about mannerism to be the most interesting presented here, since he is able to identify a broad congruence between the styles that gained prominence during the Manneristic period (ex. two poles: El Greco and Brueghel, who along with their contemporaries decomposed the delineated perspectival space that had been proper to renaissance painting) and those that became prominent in early 20C Germany, remembered as Expressionism. Hauser isn’t as interested in comparing these periods as he is in showing how the characteristic artistic tendencies associated with modernism can actually be traced back to the period immediately following the Renaissance’s zenith—and those with an interest in the historical foundations of capitalism will have plenty to debate about here. Regardless, it is still interesting to note how in both cases, political crisis (the emergence of political realism in 16C; the emergence of imperialism in the Leninist sense in early 20C) precipitates or becomes registered as a crisis in perception (or for the artists themselves, a kind of intensified spiritual crisis regarding their place in the world).
Perhaps we now stand on similar shores? Personal and aesthetic alienation still feel like the only possible escape from the totalizing embrace of our own time (contemporary art: capital), and a certain post-internet expressionism is currently in vogue—but one senses that contemporaneity is better at weathering these recurring capitalist crises better than linear perspective or French symbolism. And in any event, more of the same can only be a bad sign. I guess I won’t hold my breath for a break. But since Hauser has so clearly marked out the character of artistic crisis under (growing/moribund) capitalism, I can’t help but wonder about what kind of crisis we’ll see when a new mode of production is recognized as a matter of fact, rather than a dream—in the same way that Machiavellianism/Mannerism represented the late recognition of the fact of rising Bourgeois power. Russian constructivism seems almost too optimistic to be a precedent for this future crisis which represents something genuinely new, but who knows? By now we’re far outside the scope of a proper review.
October 4, 2023
Παρά τα χρόνια που έχουν μεσολαβήσει και τις ιστοριογραφικές εξελίξεις που έχουν εμβαθύνει ή και ανατρέψει πολλά από τα επιχειρήματα, το βιβλίο με την κριτική και κοινωνικοιστορική του προσέγγιση αποτελεί μια ιδανική εισαγωγή στη ιστορία της (δυτικής) τέχνης. Εντυπωσιακή η ευρύτητα των γνώσεων ��ου Hauser αλλά και η έμφαση που δείχνει στις πολιτικές και ταξικές συνθήκες παραγωγής αλλά και κατανάλωσης της "υψηλής" τέχνης της πρώιμης νεωτερικότητας. Ιδανικό ως εισαγωγή στο αντικείμενο, το βιβλίο εκμηδενίζει ακόμα και τις πλέον ενημερωμένες - αλλά αναλυτικά στεγνές - μελέτες που εστιάζουν στην δήθεν "αισθητική" ανάλυση, εκτός ιστορικού περίγυρου, στον αποστειρώμενο σωλήνα της "τέχνης για την τέχνη".
August 25, 2020
حاولت أقرا الكتاب بجزئيه أكتر من مره، ولصعوبته الشديدة كنت أتركه في كل مرة. وللأسف الشديد لازال الكتاب دسم ووعر لا يستجيب بسهولة .
اكتفيت بالاطلاع علي الجزئين مع قراءة بعض فصول الجزء الأول
اكتفيت بالاطلاع علي الجزئين مع قراءة بعض فصول الجزء الأول
December 16, 2007
جلد اول به هنر دوران های ماقبل تاریخ تا قرون وسطی و اوایل دوره ی رنسانس می پردازد (بخش اول به ادبیات مصر و آشور و بابل، ادبیات چین و هند، بخش دوم شامل ادبیات یونان باستان، بخش سوم به رم باستان، بخش چهارم به ادبیات شرق در سده های میانه، به ویژه چین و در بخش آخر به ادبیات سده های میانه در آلمان، بریتانیا، فرانسه، اسپانیا و ایتالیا)، همراه با تصاویری از هنر دوران غارنشینی انسان.
جلد دوم به ادبیات ایتالیا و آلمان در دوره ی رنسانس، و سپس از هفده تا اوایل قرن بیستم می پردازد (ایتالیا، سر دمدار ادبیات پیشرو در رنسانس، فرانسه تا سده های هفده و هژده و عصر رمانتیک، و سده ی نوزده و بیست، مکاتب واقع گرایی و نمادگرایی و... بخش سوم شامل ادبیات اسپانیاست که از "دوران طلایی" (عصر دن کیخوته) آغاز می شود و تا پایان قرن نوزدهم ادامه داده)، بخش بعدی در مورد ادبیات روسیه از عصر طلایی، ابتدای قرن نوزده تا اوایل قرن بیستم است.
و جلد سوم به هنر "روکوکو"، "کلاسی سیسم" و "رمانتی سیسم" اختصاص دارد، حاوی تصاویری از هر سه مکتب دوره ی رنسانس است. (ادبیات آمریکا از دوران مهاجرنشینی و سپس انقلاب و دوران پس از پیروزی تا جنگ اول جهانی، بخش دوم شامل ادبیات انگلیس از سده های میانه، هفدهم تا سده ی بیستم).
جلد چهارم به ناتورالیسم، امپرسیونیسم و عمدتن مکاتب هنری تا ابتدای قرن بیستم می پردازد، و حتی در یک فصل، به "عصر فیلم" نیز اشاره هایی دارد. برخلاف سه جلد اول، جلد چهارم در فارسی، دارای فهرست مطالب است و در انتها بخشی هم به "اضافات" از جمله برندگان نوبل می پردازد. اهمیت پژوهش عظیم آرنولد هاوزر در مجلدات سوم و چهارم بیشتر مشهود است. آرنولد هاوزر (1978-1892)، متخصص تاریخ هنر، رمانیایی ساکن مجارستان، بر مینای تاثیرات اجتماعی بر هنر انسان در طول تاریخ، و برعکس، نوشته شده. تاریخ اجتماعی هنر برای بسیاری از پژوهشگران جامعه شناختی، منبع بسیار با ارزشی ست. همت ترجمه و انتشار چنین اثری در زبان فارسی به راستی ستودنی ست. کتاب را امین موید به فارسی برگردانده و چاپ دوم آن در1361 توسط چاپخش منتشر شده است.
When the work appeared in English in the 1950s, it stirred up great controversy because of its ideological orientation. Postmodernist art historians have rarely made references to Hauser's fundamental study. Arnold Hauser was born in Temesvar, Hungarian. In Paris his teacher was Henri Bergson who influenced him deeply. In Budapest Hauser became a member of the Budapest Sunday Circle, which was formed around the critic and philosopher György Lukács. The group included Karl Mannheim, a sociologist, the writers Béla Balázs, and the musicians Béla Bartók and
جلد دوم به ادبیات ایتالیا و آلمان در دوره ی رنسانس، و سپس از هفده تا اوایل قرن بیستم می پردازد (ایتالیا، سر دمدار ادبیات پیشرو در رنسانس، فرانسه تا سده های هفده و هژده و عصر رمانتیک، و سده ی نوزده و بیست، مکاتب واقع گرایی و نمادگرایی و... بخش سوم شامل ادبیات اسپانیاست که از "دوران طلایی" (عصر دن کیخوته) آغاز می شود و تا پایان قرن نوزدهم ادامه داده)، بخش بعدی در مورد ادبیات روسیه از عصر طلایی، ابتدای قرن نوزده تا اوایل قرن بیستم است.
و جلد سوم به هنر "روکوکو"، "کلاسی سیسم" و "رمانتی سیسم" اختصاص دارد، حاوی تصاویری از هر سه مکتب دوره ی رنسانس است. (ادبیات آمریکا از دوران مهاجرنشینی و سپس انقلاب و دوران پس از پیروزی تا جنگ اول جهانی، بخش دوم شامل ادبیات انگلیس از سده های میانه، هفدهم تا سده ی بیستم).
جلد چهارم به ناتورالیسم، امپرسیونیسم و عمدتن مکاتب هنری تا ابتدای قرن بیستم می پردازد، و حتی در یک فصل، به "عصر فیلم" نیز اشاره هایی دارد. برخلاف سه جلد اول، جلد چهارم در فارسی، دارای فهرست مطالب است و در انتها بخشی هم به "اضافات" از جمله برندگان نوبل می پردازد. اهمیت پژوهش عظیم آرنولد هاوزر در مجلدات سوم و چهارم بیشتر مشهود است. آرنولد هاوزر (1978-1892)، متخصص تاریخ هنر، رمانیایی ساکن مجارستان، بر مینای تاثیرات اجتماعی بر هنر انسان در طول تاریخ، و برعکس، نوشته شده. تاریخ اجتماعی هنر برای بسیاری از پژوهشگران جامعه شناختی، منبع بسیار با ارزشی ست. همت ترجمه و انتشار چنین اثری در زبان فارسی به راستی ستودنی ست. کتاب را امین موید به فارسی برگردانده و چاپ دوم آن در1361 توسط چاپخش منتشر شده است.
When the work appeared in English in the 1950s, it stirred up great controversy because of its ideological orientation. Postmodernist art historians have rarely made references to Hauser's fundamental study. Arnold Hauser was born in Temesvar, Hungarian. In Paris his teacher was Henri Bergson who influenced him deeply. In Budapest Hauser became a member of the Budapest Sunday Circle, which was formed around the critic and philosopher György Lukács. The group included Karl Mannheim, a sociologist, the writers Béla Balázs, and the musicians Béla Bartók and
February 26, 2018
Initially enthusiastic about the breadth of knowledge about history and art, I thought I'd love this book. Studying art is one of my favorite methods to learn about history. Sadly I had to hear it through the lens of a didactic Marxist. The Renaissance and all of its glorious art is mesmerizing. If Hauser had an affection for aesthetics, man's creative power and wonder about this fecund era, it could have been a fun read. Instead it became a grind about the conflict between the oppressors and the poor. Being hammered with Marxist rhetoric is about as fun as observing Marxist art. It's dull, dull, dull. I cared less about the 'stooges' of the oppressors, the class struggles, and the strikes of the workers because Hauser wasn't explaining it in the context of why or how an artist's evolution was affected by these economic episodes. Instead, Hauser is compelled to view all of the ecstasy and creative dynamism that had been slowly fermenting since the end of the Middle Ages as a result of the owners of the means of production and the proletariats. I know that everything is political and that the powerful control the environment. But this book completely dulled the excitement, the anticipation, and energy in descriptions of Giotto and Rubens and Greco's gorgeous creations as created within their era. There's no excuse. Art history is a Glorious Field!
April 18, 2017
علي مدار 18 يوم و 1200 صفحة قرأت الكتاب المتميز الفن والمجتمع عبر التاريخ ,وهو مرجع اجتماعي فني (انثربولجي) بيأرخ لتاريخ التأثير الاجتماعي للفن وفي الفن منذ انسان الكهوف الاول وحتي فن السينيما والقرن العشرين ..
في الفصول الاولي بيتكلم عن نشأة الفن في رسومات الكهوف والفن البدائي في عصور ما قبل التاريخ وبيحلل النص الفني وبعدين بيحلل الفنان والمجتمع , وبيستمر علي هذا المنوال حتي نهاية الكتاب ..
التحليل كان مرتبط بالمجتمع اكثر من الانسان الفنان , الحالة السياسية والاجتماعية والثقافية والاقتصادية والعسكرية والنفسية لكل عصر , ومركزش او ابتعد علي النقد الفني , هو رصد التأثير الي أثرة الفن في المجتمع , وكمان التأثير الي أثرة المجتمع في الفن , النتاج المتوسط ما بينهم هو الموضوع بتاع الكتاب ..
بيبدأ الكتاب من عصور ما قبل التاريخ وتنقسم الي عصر حجري قديم وعصر حجري جديد ثم الي الحضارات في الشرق القديم , مصر و بابل وكريت ثم اليونان القدمة فالعصر الروماني وعصر التنوير اليوناني , الهيلينستي , ثم العصور الوسطي في اوروبا ..الفن المسيحي و عصر النهضة (المانزم , الباروك ,الروكوكو, الكلاسيكي , والرومنتيكي ) عصر التنوير , عصر الثورة (القرن السابع عشر )
الرومنتيكية الالمانية ... الانطباعية...القرن التاسع عشر والعشرين
وعن طريق دة بتكون صورة شبة كاملة عن الفن في العالم
الكتاب لقطة حيث هو متوفر في مكتبة الاسرة بعشرين جنية تقريبا ودة معناة انه كنز
في الفصول الاولي بيتكلم عن نشأة الفن في رسومات الكهوف والفن البدائي في عصور ما قبل التاريخ وبيحلل النص الفني وبعدين بيحلل الفنان والمجتمع , وبيستمر علي هذا المنوال حتي نهاية الكتاب ..
التحليل كان مرتبط بالمجتمع اكثر من الانسان الفنان , الحالة السياسية والاجتماعية والثقافية والاقتصادية والعسكرية والنفسية لكل عصر , ومركزش او ابتعد علي النقد الفني , هو رصد التأثير الي أثرة الفن في المجتمع , وكمان التأثير الي أثرة المجتمع في الفن , النتاج المتوسط ما بينهم هو الموضوع بتاع الكتاب ..
بيبدأ الكتاب من عصور ما قبل التاريخ وتنقسم الي عصر حجري قديم وعصر حجري جديد ثم الي الحضارات في الشرق القديم , مصر و بابل وكريت ثم اليونان القدمة فالعصر الروماني وعصر التنوير اليوناني , الهيلينستي , ثم العصور الوسطي في اوروبا ..الفن المسيحي و عصر النهضة (المانزم , الباروك ,الروكوكو, الكلاسيكي , والرومنتيكي ) عصر التنوير , عصر الثورة (القرن السابع عشر )
الرومنتيكية الالمانية ... الانطباعية...القرن التاسع عشر والعشرين
وعن طريق دة بتكون صورة شبة كاملة عن الفن في العالم
الكتاب لقطة حيث هو متوفر في مكتبة الاسرة بعشرين جنية تقريبا ودة معناة انه كنز
August 28, 2025
Picked this up at a used book fair without noticing it was the 2nd volume in a series so OBVIOUSLY going to have to order 1, 3, and 4 now! This was such a straightforward primer with such intellectually captivating yet simple to comprehend for a layman prose that I actually felt reinvigorated the possibilities of future education in the USA for the first time in over a decade. There is a capacity for drawing connections between every aspect of life and the broader forces we find ourselves entrenched in. The absolute popping of mythology latent in this, the rejection of the deliberately crafted narrative supporting an imagined past so present in many popular conceptualizations of art history, it's all just so needed.
Living in an inherently anti-intellectual society leaves you constantly encountering the most baffling, objectively incorrect of takes usually dispensed in service of an even more heinous grander ideological battle narrative. The average American has a SIXTH GRADE reading level (that is literally proven), so many in the society are quite literally operating under puerile narratives you pick up during make-believe time in kindergarten but are assumed to eventually grow out of. The final essay on the estrangement/alienation of artists/art as a process itself following the consummated commercialization of the art trade in 17th century Holland is such an analogous situation for artistic understanding even still to this day that the fact it hasn't changed just blows me away, yet remains almost disturbingly reassuring, in a way.
Seriously when you talk to the average person in the US they only think of past artists as literal fucking gods sent down to Earth then (and only then) to enlighten mankind so anyone even trying now should just go fuck themselves and stop pretending they'll ever live up to the masters---yadda yadda, but don't the broad strokes sound familiar? This almost compulsive rejection of possibility, of creation in the current moment. There's a passive acceptance of inexistence. And it inspires such RAGE. Such ANGER at the idea that maybe, hey, these were real historical figures who were subject to the exact same contingent conditions of then that governs us in the same way now. We are all as susceptible as they were, and we are all just as potentially capable of achieving what they did. And being placated mentally in a country that tells you the exact opposite of such messaging, no wonder people lose it when confronted with alternatives. It literally isn't possible in their worlds, just as unthinkable a reality as reality itself, honestly. They're always on tense edge because they've built up the world to be that way. It's not comforting, obviously. And yet they choose that regardless. Isn't that what's most scariest?
And on the subject of deflating certain illusions, I also adore how Hauser dismisses the ideas of previous eras of widespread institutional/political support for the arts as coming from some genuine, earnest place of higher consciousness, as so often dispelled by mountebank blabbermouths. No, the periods of actual academies, elevation of artistry as a noble profession (ONLY following the Renaissance/Religious reformations, no less), the state-backed enforcement of conferences and other market-stimulating experiences... those too are all exclusively contingent on having occurred in specific times with extremely variable conditions. There are reasons it only happened then, and not before or after. Or why after can only be informed about by knowing the before. Masters do not simply materialize, do not simply be endowed with an unreachable gift from birth. They are molded, sculpted, formulated by their larger comprehensions of the world just as they from the process of their artistic expression. You cannot separate reality from artistry. The "Great Arts" are not independent of the broader forces that control and extol them. They weren't inevitable, nor miraculous. They exist within the confines of a material actuality that cannot be separated from the ineffable that is psychology. And that flies in the face of all that is expected to be conjured from the arts themselves, hence such a daunting lack of perspective previous to this.
Hauser's peels back the curtain to unveil the inescapably unspoken men working the control paneling. And that, more than anything, is what the powers that be see as the action furthest from forgiving.
Living in an inherently anti-intellectual society leaves you constantly encountering the most baffling, objectively incorrect of takes usually dispensed in service of an even more heinous grander ideological battle narrative. The average American has a SIXTH GRADE reading level (that is literally proven), so many in the society are quite literally operating under puerile narratives you pick up during make-believe time in kindergarten but are assumed to eventually grow out of. The final essay on the estrangement/alienation of artists/art as a process itself following the consummated commercialization of the art trade in 17th century Holland is such an analogous situation for artistic understanding even still to this day that the fact it hasn't changed just blows me away, yet remains almost disturbingly reassuring, in a way.
Seriously when you talk to the average person in the US they only think of past artists as literal fucking gods sent down to Earth then (and only then) to enlighten mankind so anyone even trying now should just go fuck themselves and stop pretending they'll ever live up to the masters---yadda yadda, but don't the broad strokes sound familiar? This almost compulsive rejection of possibility, of creation in the current moment. There's a passive acceptance of inexistence. And it inspires such RAGE. Such ANGER at the idea that maybe, hey, these were real historical figures who were subject to the exact same contingent conditions of then that governs us in the same way now. We are all as susceptible as they were, and we are all just as potentially capable of achieving what they did. And being placated mentally in a country that tells you the exact opposite of such messaging, no wonder people lose it when confronted with alternatives. It literally isn't possible in their worlds, just as unthinkable a reality as reality itself, honestly. They're always on tense edge because they've built up the world to be that way. It's not comforting, obviously. And yet they choose that regardless. Isn't that what's most scariest?
And on the subject of deflating certain illusions, I also adore how Hauser dismisses the ideas of previous eras of widespread institutional/political support for the arts as coming from some genuine, earnest place of higher consciousness, as so often dispelled by mountebank blabbermouths. No, the periods of actual academies, elevation of artistry as a noble profession (ONLY following the Renaissance/Religious reformations, no less), the state-backed enforcement of conferences and other market-stimulating experiences... those too are all exclusively contingent on having occurred in specific times with extremely variable conditions. There are reasons it only happened then, and not before or after. Or why after can only be informed about by knowing the before. Masters do not simply materialize, do not simply be endowed with an unreachable gift from birth. They are molded, sculpted, formulated by their larger comprehensions of the world just as they from the process of their artistic expression. You cannot separate reality from artistry. The "Great Arts" are not independent of the broader forces that control and extol them. They weren't inevitable, nor miraculous. They exist within the confines of a material actuality that cannot be separated from the ineffable that is psychology. And that flies in the face of all that is expected to be conjured from the arts themselves, hence such a daunting lack of perspective previous to this.
Hauser's peels back the curtain to unveil the inescapably unspoken men working the control paneling. And that, more than anything, is what the powers that be see as the action furthest from forgiving.
February 20, 2018
This second volume gets off to a bit of a rocky start with a complicated and erratically structured discussion of the early Renaissance, though, to be fair, the vast subject matter is hard to wrangle into an easy narrative. Soon though, Hauser finds his stride, putting a pin in the overinflated all-genius-all-the-time myth of the Renaissance and sailing on to a stirring portrait of the many competing layers of Baroque art. Being slightly less brilliant than the first volume still makes this second volume brilliant all the same.
November 17, 2024
Segundo volumen de la interesante trilogía que me propongo completar en la cual este gran historiador del arte trata de contextualizar los parámetros de los que tuvieron su epifanía las grandes obras de cada época de la historia, dentro de los movimientos sociales o económicos que tenían lugar en el mundo. Interesante punto de vista, libro casi indispensable para historiadores del arte.
May 1, 2023
Pietra miliare.
March 4, 2016
This volume covers the era from the Renaissance to the late 17th century in Holland with Rembrandt and Reubens. It describes the transition from where painting goes from a more Object oriented activity such as seen in the Renaissance to a more subjective style where the artist injects his psychology into the painting. Also, literature is discussed especially Shakespeare.
Want to read
July 17, 2007This is a multi-volume series that I look forward to reading. It has an interdisciplinary approach and sounds like a nice continuation of the SJC art tutorial.
Currently reading
December 26, 2008good, concise analysis of a difficult era to understand...
July 27, 2011
For those who believe that art - and therefore man - is a product of its time, this series is an eloquent and breathtakingly erudite necessity.
October 28, 2014
Exatamente o que disse sobre o volume 1.
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