DOI issue:
Nr. 1
DOI article:Rampley, Matthew: Visual culture: an end to the history of art?
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52804#0060
uidation of art as we háve known it. There is no way
within such a discourse for art to sustain a separate
existence.. ,’28 Such a possibility was fraught with dif-
ficulties inasmuch as it threatened to erase the ‘criti-
cal moment of aesthetic experience’ produced by Con-
temporary artists. Thomas Crow responded by means
of a snobbish analogy with the ‘mass-market bookstore’
and going to ‘what typically passes for a philosophy
section. While there might be the odd paperback of
Plato’s dialogues on the shelf, the bulk of the section
will be occupied by books on New Age healing...
mystical prophecy and past-lives expériences.’29 In other
words, it was either dismissed as being intellectually
insubstantial or ‘containeď by emphasizing its simi-
larity to earlier practices within art history.
I do not wish to engage in a detailed historical
analysis, but clearly visual studies is not merely a rép-
étition of the work of art historians such as Riegl or
Warburg. While Riegl deliberately avoided the tra-
ditional privileging of fine art, his basic frame of ref-
erence was the museum. His attention to the applied
arts, for example, was motivated less by an attempt
to challenge existing art historical hiérarchies than
by the fact that he was curator of textiles at the mu-
seum of textiles in Vienna. Likewise, although War-
burg showed interest in a variety of forms of populär
cultural expression, from tarot cards (tarocchi) to
stamps, populär prints and photographs, he saw the
populär mass as a vehicle of cultural régression —
a widespread topos amongst conservative cultural
commentators of the time - and saw the task of en-
lightenment as lying in the hands of individuals,30
Such issues aside, I would like to suggest that vis-
ual studies will not replace art history because while
28 MORSS, Buck: In: ibidem, p. 29.
29 CROW, Thomas: In: ibidem, p. 34.
30 An illuminating outline of Warburg’s relation to cultural po-
litics can be found in SCHOELL-GLASS, Charlotte: Aby War-
burg und der Antisemitismus. Frankfurt am Main 1998.
31 BREDEKAMP, Horst: ‘A Neglected Tradition? Art History as
Bildwissenschaft’. In: Critical Inquiry, 29, 2003, pp. 418-28.
32 See, for example: CLARK, Timothy. J.: Image of the People.
Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution. London 1973 and
CLARK, Timothy J.: Painting of Modern Life. Paris in the Art of
Manet and his Followers. London 1985.
there are clear points of intersection, it has a different
object domain and range of concerns. A recent arti-
cle by Horst Bredekamp will serve as a useful start-
ing point, for Bredekamp has both argued that art
history, when practiced at its most rigorous, is indis-
tinguishable from visual studies or Bildwissenschaft,
and also bemoaned the fact that key figures in the
emergence of the field such as Barbara Stafford, James
Elkins or W. J. T. Mitchell have not been recognised
as art historians.31 An important question to ask is
why they should be seen as art historians when so much
of the impetus of their work has been to explore oth-
er disciplinary frameworks. Nevertheless, Bredekamp
does point towards a basic issue, námely the fact vis-
ual studies has come increasingly to be equated with
the analysis of images. On the one hand, visual studies
has developed and deepened a tendency already ap-
parent in the radical art history of the 1970s and
1980s, in which the focus on paintings was supple-
mented by attention to other kinds of imagery. Thus
T. J. Clark’s studies of French nineteenth-century art
set the production of artists such as Courbet or Man-
et within the wider economy of populär imagery of
the time.32
In a similar fashion Elkins, for example, has ex-
amined the possibilities of historiés of non-art image-
ry, while Stafford has explored the various functions
of medical and scientific imagery in the emerging dis-
cursive formations of the Enlightenment.33 A similar
approach is adopted by the French writer Jacques
Aumont who, in L’Image, refuses to prioritise any spé-
cifie dass of images, attending equally to paintings,
drawings, diagrams, cinematic and photographie rep-
résentations.34 Aumont draws heavily on methodo-
33 Stafford has been the author of several key works including:
STAFFORD, Barbara: Body Criticism. Imaging the Unseen in
Enlightenment Art and Medicine. Cambridge (MA) 1993 and
STAFFORD, Barbara: Artful Science. Enlightenment Entertain-
ment and the Eclipse of Visual Education. Cambridge (MA) 1994.
Likewise Elkins, who has authored ELKINS, James: The Do-
main of Images. Ithaca 1999 and ELKINS, James: Visual Cultu-
re: A Skeptical Introduction. London — New York 2004; MIT-
CHELL, W. J. T.: Iconology. Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago 1986;
MITCHELL, W. J. T.: Picture Theory. London 1995 and MIT-
CHELL, W. J. T.: The Last Dinosaur. The Life and Times of
a Cultural Icon. Chicago 1998.
34 AUMONT, Jacques: L’Image. Paris 2000.
58
within such a discourse for art to sustain a separate
existence.. ,’28 Such a possibility was fraught with dif-
ficulties inasmuch as it threatened to erase the ‘criti-
cal moment of aesthetic experience’ produced by Con-
temporary artists. Thomas Crow responded by means
of a snobbish analogy with the ‘mass-market bookstore’
and going to ‘what typically passes for a philosophy
section. While there might be the odd paperback of
Plato’s dialogues on the shelf, the bulk of the section
will be occupied by books on New Age healing...
mystical prophecy and past-lives expériences.’29 In other
words, it was either dismissed as being intellectually
insubstantial or ‘containeď by emphasizing its simi-
larity to earlier practices within art history.
I do not wish to engage in a detailed historical
analysis, but clearly visual studies is not merely a rép-
étition of the work of art historians such as Riegl or
Warburg. While Riegl deliberately avoided the tra-
ditional privileging of fine art, his basic frame of ref-
erence was the museum. His attention to the applied
arts, for example, was motivated less by an attempt
to challenge existing art historical hiérarchies than
by the fact that he was curator of textiles at the mu-
seum of textiles in Vienna. Likewise, although War-
burg showed interest in a variety of forms of populär
cultural expression, from tarot cards (tarocchi) to
stamps, populär prints and photographs, he saw the
populär mass as a vehicle of cultural régression —
a widespread topos amongst conservative cultural
commentators of the time - and saw the task of en-
lightenment as lying in the hands of individuals,30
Such issues aside, I would like to suggest that vis-
ual studies will not replace art history because while
28 MORSS, Buck: In: ibidem, p. 29.
29 CROW, Thomas: In: ibidem, p. 34.
30 An illuminating outline of Warburg’s relation to cultural po-
litics can be found in SCHOELL-GLASS, Charlotte: Aby War-
burg und der Antisemitismus. Frankfurt am Main 1998.
31 BREDEKAMP, Horst: ‘A Neglected Tradition? Art History as
Bildwissenschaft’. In: Critical Inquiry, 29, 2003, pp. 418-28.
32 See, for example: CLARK, Timothy. J.: Image of the People.
Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution. London 1973 and
CLARK, Timothy J.: Painting of Modern Life. Paris in the Art of
Manet and his Followers. London 1985.
there are clear points of intersection, it has a different
object domain and range of concerns. A recent arti-
cle by Horst Bredekamp will serve as a useful start-
ing point, for Bredekamp has both argued that art
history, when practiced at its most rigorous, is indis-
tinguishable from visual studies or Bildwissenschaft,
and also bemoaned the fact that key figures in the
emergence of the field such as Barbara Stafford, James
Elkins or W. J. T. Mitchell have not been recognised
as art historians.31 An important question to ask is
why they should be seen as art historians when so much
of the impetus of their work has been to explore oth-
er disciplinary frameworks. Nevertheless, Bredekamp
does point towards a basic issue, námely the fact vis-
ual studies has come increasingly to be equated with
the analysis of images. On the one hand, visual studies
has developed and deepened a tendency already ap-
parent in the radical art history of the 1970s and
1980s, in which the focus on paintings was supple-
mented by attention to other kinds of imagery. Thus
T. J. Clark’s studies of French nineteenth-century art
set the production of artists such as Courbet or Man-
et within the wider economy of populär imagery of
the time.32
In a similar fashion Elkins, for example, has ex-
amined the possibilities of historiés of non-art image-
ry, while Stafford has explored the various functions
of medical and scientific imagery in the emerging dis-
cursive formations of the Enlightenment.33 A similar
approach is adopted by the French writer Jacques
Aumont who, in L’Image, refuses to prioritise any spé-
cifie dass of images, attending equally to paintings,
drawings, diagrams, cinematic and photographie rep-
résentations.34 Aumont draws heavily on methodo-
33 Stafford has been the author of several key works including:
STAFFORD, Barbara: Body Criticism. Imaging the Unseen in
Enlightenment Art and Medicine. Cambridge (MA) 1993 and
STAFFORD, Barbara: Artful Science. Enlightenment Entertain-
ment and the Eclipse of Visual Education. Cambridge (MA) 1994.
Likewise Elkins, who has authored ELKINS, James: The Do-
main of Images. Ithaca 1999 and ELKINS, James: Visual Cultu-
re: A Skeptical Introduction. London — New York 2004; MIT-
CHELL, W. J. T.: Iconology. Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago 1986;
MITCHELL, W. J. T.: Picture Theory. London 1995 and MIT-
CHELL, W. J. T.: The Last Dinosaur. The Life and Times of
a Cultural Icon. Chicago 1998.
34 AUMONT, Jacques: L’Image. Paris 2000.
58