The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology

by Donald Preziosi (Editor)

Here is a new edition of Donald Preziosi's masterful selection of the most influential and innovative writing on art history of the past two centuries. The book includes over thirty pieces by seminal thinkers and writers from Winckelmann, Kant, and Hegel to Foucault, Carol Duncan, and Mary Kelly on such subjects as aesthetics and anthropology, postmodern automatons, semiotics and iconography, performative acts, the museum as ritual, digital art, and many others. Each of the book's eight thematic sections offers an introduction providing background information, further reading, and critical commentary on the issues at stake. This edition has been updated and expanded to include sixteen new selections by key figures from Giorgio Vasari to Walter Benjamin and Satya Mohanty, a new concluding essay from Donald Preziosi on the tasks of the art historian today, and an entirely new section on Globalization and Its Discontents. For students and teachers, artists and historians, and anyone interested in the evolution and purpose of art history, this anthology offers many fascinating insights.

Genres: Art, Art History, History, Nonfiction, Academic, Reference, Textbooks

591 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 1998

Reviews

[Ciro · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good project, essential really, and one I haven't seen sourced so well or comprehensively before — a historiographic narrative of the field. The primary sources are mostly comprehensive, with a lot of essentials, and Preziosi's running commentary puts them all in a compelling framework. It would be an excellent basis for a foundational course in an AH major.

I'd like to see more in a later edition about how the traditional methods of art history are breaking down in the face of new media, but I suppose the discourse on new media would have to improve dramatically before that sort of thing would be possible.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this in my Art Criticism class this past semester, and it's definitely not a book that you can just read cover to cover. At least not in my opinion. It's more suited for using as a reference. The way it's arranged is clever, though, because each chapter contains a certain amount of articles, and they build upon each other and relate to each other depending on the topic of the chapter. I could give it a higher rating, but it wasn't really enjoyable for me. On a scholarly level, I am sure it would receive 5 stars. Certainly you should have this on your bookshelf if you're studying art history.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

You will want to read this in a class. The essays included in this anthology are what crafted the study of art since the 18th century. Preziosi accomplished the purpose of creating a somewhat chronological progression of art historical writing while simultaneously grouping essays by methodology. This means that one might find themselves comparing essays from the 18th century, turn of the 20th century, and the 1990s. Yet, it is effective at allowing the reader to see the progression of the study of art and, I would say, essential for the understanding of art and art history from a post-modern perspective.

[AskHistorians]

Great for an introduction to written art history and its many theoretical forms. Starts off with Vasari and his biographical approach, and covers ideas including formalism, connoisseurship, iconography, and postmodernism. For a much more in-depth review of the area, the Art in Theory trilogy edited by Harrison and Wood is fantastic, but Preziosi's is a more digestible text, especially if you don't have an art history background.

[Penelope · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very dense text. We read the entire book cover to cover in my Art Historical Theories and Methods class, and it would have been difficult to grasp all of the concepts without the professor's explications during lectures/discussions.
There is no discussion of psychoanalysis or marxism. Otherwise it covers quite a variety of art historical theories/methods.

[Martin Ridgway · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another reader, it's actually not a bad one and was a set book for the first year of the Open University's art history MA. As usual for a reader, there are good and bad extracts (all fairly long, there are no half-page nibbles) but overall it gives some useful background to how people have thought about a range of topics.

[Mark]

The best anthology of art history methodologies currently available.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great and comprehensive collection of texts relevant in art history. The author groups the texts by themes in chapters. Each chapter is introduced with a text by Preziosi reflecting on the choice of texts, the connections between the texts within the chapter as well as between this and other chapters, and the relevance of them in a greater art historical context. These introductions are well-written, thoughtful and a great way to provide context.
The choice of texts within a chapter often reads like a discussion of a chosen topic, and Preziosi made choices that provide different perspectives and critique of earlier texts.

A very interesting read and very useful for an art history student who wants to get a comprehensive entrance into art theory. The book can serve as a stepping stone to the original texts, which for this publication have been mostly shortened and edited.

[Kirra · Rating 3 out of 5]

70-year-old white men's take on churches, shoes, and boobs.

[Jayme Horne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great guide to help you understand art history and the avenues one can explore to investigate it more deeply.

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like the selection of essays could have been better.

[Katie Lees]

i am both a man and a woman according to Whitney Davis...

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finishing this book felt like getting to the top of a particularly difficult mountain.

[Julianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

tough to get through, but worth it in the end