The Intelligence of Art

by Thomas E. Crow

With this book, Thomas Crow contributes a refreshing analysis of the present state of art history, the practice of interpreting art and making it "intelligible." He aims to relocate the discussion of theory and method in art history away from models borrowed from other disciplines by presenting what he considers three of the most successful and challenging works in the literature of art Meyer Schapiro on the Romanesque portal sculpture of the abbey church of Sainte Marie in the French town of Souillac, Claude Levi-Strauss on the Native American masks of the Northwest Coast, and Michael Baxandall on the limewood sculptors of Renaissance Germany.

Sketching the history of trends in art history--from description and biography, to more recent social-historical methods, to the latest wave of postmodernist approaches--Crow sets out a course that affirms the rich and valuable tools of language and methodology developed by generations of art historians while recognizing the important contribution of recent theory in raising the interpretive stakes. The Intelligence of Art offers nothing less than a concrete new way to grasp the infinitely complex operations of human intelligence in artistic form.

Genres: Art History, Art

148 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 1999

Reviews

[Sebhj · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the visual analysis, and the images were amazing

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Invoking concrete studies by Schapiro, Levi-Strauss and Baxandall as models (against jargon-filled art history imported from France...) Thomas Crow argues for an approach to art history that illuminates the way artists create in response to particular historical opportunities and pressures, "the intelligence of art in the making" (rather than interpreting meanings after the fact). The key, according to Crow, is finding works of art in which a disruption takes place that reveals the "irresolvable contradictions of a society". Crow highlights periods of "extraordinary acceleration in the scale and intensity of artistic activity" like the Reformation, the French revolution, or the Pacific Northwest at the time of European contact. These historical periods witnessed "increasingly abstract regimes of banking and finance", "increased anxieties about social position" and "fears about correct religious observance". Crow doesn't explicitly trace a parallel with our current historical moment, but this begs the question: are we living in a similar moment and what artworks best reflect our contradictions?