Views of Difference: Different Views of Art

by Catherine King (Editor)

In a fascinating series of case studies, this book looks at the ways in which European colonizers interpreted the arts of the people they colonized, as well the ways in which they have tended to view art produced by the colonized and their descendants in post-colonial times.

In the European colonial past, the dominant view of "difference" represented the culture of the colonized as inferior and inalterable or slow to change. This book discusses perspectives on pre-colonial Indian art expressed in the mid-nineteenth century, the early twentieth century, and the present day. It also considers the effects of imperialist ways of looking even in places without direct European colonial control. European colonizers tended to see their own artistic traditions as continually progressing but the art of colonized or non-European peoples as traditional and incapable of generating its own modernity. And, the studies in the book show, colonizers and their heirs in the twentieth century have doubted that a colonial subject could appropriate European art forms or handle them independently―a view that continues to uphold the notion of modernity as a "Europeans only" enterprise.

This is the fifth volume in the series Art and its Histories, created to accompany the Open University undergraduate course by the same title.


Published in association with the Open University

272 pages, Paperback

First published August 11, 1999

About the author

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Reviews

[Bernie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tough read, since a lot of the view points would be regarded as racist today. It's the fact that these were views held by educated people with influence that makes it uncomfortable. I feel I need to read more on the art and culture of the countries that are stated and it would be great to read from authors from those cultures

[Martin Ridgway · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second read through prior to a course on Indian Art - therefore I skipped all the non-India parts. But this is more about pre-, colonial, and post-colonial ideas about art rather than anything else. So, depending on the ideas in the course coming up, probably less than useful this time.