Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 5 Number 1, April 2004
_______________________________________________________________
Claire
Farago and Robert Zwijnenberg,
eds. Compelling
Visuality: The Work of Art In and Out of History. Univ
of Minnesota Press, 2003. 239 pages, Paper:
$24.95 ISBN: 0816641161
Diatrope Institute, USA
At times the discursive language of art history seems to run on a parallel track to art itself. Without a doubt researchers expand our knowledge of art products when they identify, classify, describe, evaluate and interpret these objects. Yet, sometimes, the words seem more scholarly than impassioned. Nonetheless, the range in which art historians roam is impressive. Some, for example, will home in on whether sources have correctly identified an artist or a theme. Other analyses might examine an art object in relation to cultural developments or within the context of an artist's career. Other contributions compare the works of several artists in terms of their inspiration, cultural influence, collaborative themes, and cross-fertilization. Less evident to the general public is the literature that establishes ownership and the ways in which commissions and workshop practices influenced artistic styles, periods, movements, and schools of the past. Finally, many who write about art are enamored with iconography, the analysis of symbols, themes, and subject matter in the visual arts (as is particularly evident in the analysis of the meaning of religious symbolism in Christian art.) Indeed, perhaps it is because art historical scholarship balances its broad scope with both critical analysis and intuition that artists have varied reactions to the written analyses.
Admittedly, like many artists, I fall within this category. Vital, dynamic, insightful writing opens my eyes to see treasures that I failed to find on my own. On the other hand, this illuminating scholarship co-exists with discussions that remind me of the way scholastics used to debate how many angels could dance on a pinhead. The majority of the essays in Compelling Visuality fall in the former category. The value of these exceptionally well-written essays no doubt reflects the intention of the volume. The editors, Claire Farago and Robert Zwijnenberg invited the nine contributors to offer a personal response to art, requesting that they examine art that is both object and subject in an interpretation that communicates something about the interpreter and about the works of art. In inviting the authors to write about what they actually see, touch, and experience when confronted with a "historical" work of art, a sense of art's immediacy and power comes forth. Thus, while the language still reads like art history, the way in which personal experiences are interwoven adds a humanity that many books in the field fail to communicate.
Three very different articles were exceptionally powerful in conveying what is to be gained by going beyond the traditional approaches of art history. F. R. Ankersmit's "Rococo as the Dissipation of Boredom" begins with the words, "I was a sickly child", a truth that immediately captures one's attention. She then goes on to explain that she developed a fascination for flower design when coping with boredom. This led to her later involvement with rococo ornament and a lifelong sensitivity to how ornamentation relates to reality. Similarly, in Donald Preziosi's "Seeing Soane Seeing You", the author clearly creates an experience of engagement with the work discussed before bringing analysis into the picture. In this case the author moves the reader through the characteristics of the Soane Museum in London, ably conveying its kaleidoscopic effect. He begins by walking us through an interior that seems totally disordered. We learn that there are mirrors of all kinds everywhere, that the distance to the ceiling varies from room to room, and that the layout is neither chronological nor thematically arranged. To add to the problem of characterizing this confusion is that entry to each room is not a straightforward matter. Some spaces are fully accessible, some are only accessible virtually, with the mirrors throughout the museum adding a variable perspective to this hard-to-decipher layout. Images and diagrams aid in visualizing the exotic setting, leaving the reader with the desire to match impressions through an actual visit. Preziosi also convincingly explains how the museum offered a means to provide visitors with a set of techniques, derived from Masonic practice, for creatively and concretely imagining a humane modern world. In his view, the museum was critical rather than a representational artifact that allowed the visitor to envision a new world out of the detritus of the old.
"Mourning and Method" by Michael Ann Holly is equally impressive, although I did not share Holly's conclusions. She argues that the character of art history is between "the magnetism that perpetually binds subjects and objects, an exchange enacted under the pall of mourning." (p. 156). It was the way she wrote up her argument that I found compelling, definitively using the personal vantage point to advantage. Holly sets the stage through a discussion of a symposium she attended at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The event accompanied an exhibition that brought together for the first time two nearly identical images of St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata (c. 1428-1430), and provided a forum for the question of whether they are correctly attributed to Jan van Eyck. Paralleling this with critical debates on van Gogh's shoes (argued by the philosopher Heidegger and the art historian Meyer Shapiro) allows her to expand into critical theory and her valuation of it. She explains that the van Eyck dilemma led to an exquisite exhibition grounded in origins, while the debates leave us with narratives (no objects at all). While she may be correct in chalking up the search for origins as positivistic art-historical practice, I think she incorrectly devalues all that we learn about how the artist worked when actually looking at the work. I've always found that actually looking at the art, regardless of the premise that initiated the engagement, tells me a great deal more about the artist's process than when art is reduced to no objects at all. In research that employs x-rays and other conservation tools, as was the case here, the information revealed about how studio practice is informed by historical detail is of great value.
One striking omission was the failure to include articles by practicing artists. Instead the group was comprised of scholars in art history, philosophy, comparative literature, and history. A plus was the way these nine contributors represented different intellectual traditions (the United States, Switzerland, France, and the Netherlands), although the differences struck me as more nuanced than actual in our global society. Nonetheless, they were able to convey that ideas differ from culture to culture. I was also disappointed by some of the reproductions, particularly a detail from Fra Angelico's Madonna of the Shadows in Georges Did-Huberman's piece (translated by Peter Mason). While it was clear that this image had quite an impact on the author I was not able to even begin to conceptualize the power he speaks of from the black and white reproduction offered to accompany the article. Still, all in all, the book goes far in reminding us of the value and significance of a personal response to works of art.