DOI Heft:
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DOI Artikel:Rampley, Matthew: Visual culture: an end to the history of art?
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52804#0065
a contestation of the assumption that private owner-
ship guaranteed compétence to direct and manage
an institution such as the National Gallery. In the
wake of Giovanni Morelli’s attempts, in the late nine-
teenth Century, to establish connoisseurship as
a scientific enterprise, what was at stäke was the at-
tempt to transform taste into a matter of profession-
aï middle-class expertise, and to wrest control over
‘good taste’ away from the traditional patrons of art.
Indeed, one particularly pungent criticism was made
of the fact that in 1904 one of the candidates for the
post of the head of the Walker Art Gallery in Liver-
pool was rejected because they were a specialist art
critic. As the éditorial of that year States: ‘There is no
civilized country, at any rate in Europe, where a man
who knows or thinks too much or who has any high-
er standard than the man-in-the-street, is so general-
ly suspected and overlooked. This is one reason why
literáty and artistic criticism in this country has for
the most part degenerated into shallow and undis-
criminating adulation . ..’5()
Although the connoisseurial interest in taste was
increasingly displaced by the humanistic scholarly
concerns of German émigrés, the Investment in art
history as a means for the accumulation of cultural
and social capital has persisted. Quite remarkably,
compared with the state of affairs elsewhere in Eu-
rope, art history in Britain remained for a long time
interlinked with social dass; this was inevitably linked
to the institutional history of the subject. The Cour-
tauld Institute was the dominant institution until the
late 1960s, and it is important to note the circum-
stances of its foundation. Provided for by the bene-
faction of Samuel Courtauld, a wealthy businessman-
turned-art collecter, and supported by the initiative
of Viscount Lee of Fareham and Sir Robert Witt,
a successful lawyer and art collecter, the Courtauld
could not help but perpetuate the link between art
historical scholarship and possession of économie and
cultural capital. As Sir Robert Witt noted, in an arti-
cle on the Courtauld shortly after its opening, ‘the
opportunity of associating his name with many much
50 Editorial: ‘No Critic Need Apply’. In: The Burlington Magazi-
ne, V, 1904, p. 335.
51 Sir WITT, Robert: ‘The Courtauld Institute’. In: The Burlin-
gton Magazine, LXI, 1932, p. 231.
needed development such as the Library of Books, an
additional Lecture Fund and Travelling Research
Scholarships is open to any wealthy lover of the arts.’50 51
Indeed, the primary aim of Courtauld, Lee and Witt
was ‘to provide a training for the Professionals who
intended to enter the various branches of the art busi-
ness. They were anxious that it should be academie
in the sense of being high-powered, but what they
understood by history had little in common with the
concerns of a university history department beyond
an interest in chronology.’52 This close relation be-
tween the interests of private collectors and the Cour-
tauld continued into the 1960s; while the period dur-
ing which Sir Anthony Blunt was the director, from
1947 to 1972, is often held to be a time when the
Institute broke out of the narrow concerns of the con-
noisseur in order to engage with the apparatus of
humanistic art historical scholarship as practiced else-
where, one need only recall that Blunt was also sur-
veyor of the Queen’s pictures, undoubtedly the most
prestigious private collection of ail. Thus, while the
formation of the institutions of the history of art in
the nineteenth Century was often linked to the proc-
ess of formation of the modem political state, in Brit-
ain it remained, to a remarkable degree, linked to the
concerns and interests of private benefactors and col-
lectors.
This situation was only fundamentally challenged
in the later 1960s when there was an expansion both
in the number of universities in Britain generally, and
an expansion in the number of institutions teaching
art history. New universities, such as Sussex, Essex,
Warwick or East Anglia, were the resuit of govern-
ment initiative, and self-consciously distanced them-
selves from the culture of the older university institu-
tions. Indeed, it is possible to argue that the rise of
the so-called New Art History in the early 1970s —
i.e. with its concerns for the social, political and ideo-
logical meanings of art — was directly linked to insti-
tutional shifts in the landscape of higher éducation in
Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. The New Art Histo-
ry was associated precisely with those institutions,
52 KIDSON, Peter: ‘A Short History of the Courtauld Institu-
te’. In: http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/history.html, consulted
11/10/2004.
63
ship guaranteed compétence to direct and manage
an institution such as the National Gallery. In the
wake of Giovanni Morelli’s attempts, in the late nine-
teenth Century, to establish connoisseurship as
a scientific enterprise, what was at stäke was the at-
tempt to transform taste into a matter of profession-
aï middle-class expertise, and to wrest control over
‘good taste’ away from the traditional patrons of art.
Indeed, one particularly pungent criticism was made
of the fact that in 1904 one of the candidates for the
post of the head of the Walker Art Gallery in Liver-
pool was rejected because they were a specialist art
critic. As the éditorial of that year States: ‘There is no
civilized country, at any rate in Europe, where a man
who knows or thinks too much or who has any high-
er standard than the man-in-the-street, is so general-
ly suspected and overlooked. This is one reason why
literáty and artistic criticism in this country has for
the most part degenerated into shallow and undis-
criminating adulation . ..’5()
Although the connoisseurial interest in taste was
increasingly displaced by the humanistic scholarly
concerns of German émigrés, the Investment in art
history as a means for the accumulation of cultural
and social capital has persisted. Quite remarkably,
compared with the state of affairs elsewhere in Eu-
rope, art history in Britain remained for a long time
interlinked with social dass; this was inevitably linked
to the institutional history of the subject. The Cour-
tauld Institute was the dominant institution until the
late 1960s, and it is important to note the circum-
stances of its foundation. Provided for by the bene-
faction of Samuel Courtauld, a wealthy businessman-
turned-art collecter, and supported by the initiative
of Viscount Lee of Fareham and Sir Robert Witt,
a successful lawyer and art collecter, the Courtauld
could not help but perpetuate the link between art
historical scholarship and possession of économie and
cultural capital. As Sir Robert Witt noted, in an arti-
cle on the Courtauld shortly after its opening, ‘the
opportunity of associating his name with many much
50 Editorial: ‘No Critic Need Apply’. In: The Burlington Magazi-
ne, V, 1904, p. 335.
51 Sir WITT, Robert: ‘The Courtauld Institute’. In: The Burlin-
gton Magazine, LXI, 1932, p. 231.
needed development such as the Library of Books, an
additional Lecture Fund and Travelling Research
Scholarships is open to any wealthy lover of the arts.’50 51
Indeed, the primary aim of Courtauld, Lee and Witt
was ‘to provide a training for the Professionals who
intended to enter the various branches of the art busi-
ness. They were anxious that it should be academie
in the sense of being high-powered, but what they
understood by history had little in common with the
concerns of a university history department beyond
an interest in chronology.’52 This close relation be-
tween the interests of private collectors and the Cour-
tauld continued into the 1960s; while the period dur-
ing which Sir Anthony Blunt was the director, from
1947 to 1972, is often held to be a time when the
Institute broke out of the narrow concerns of the con-
noisseur in order to engage with the apparatus of
humanistic art historical scholarship as practiced else-
where, one need only recall that Blunt was also sur-
veyor of the Queen’s pictures, undoubtedly the most
prestigious private collection of ail. Thus, while the
formation of the institutions of the history of art in
the nineteenth Century was often linked to the proc-
ess of formation of the modem political state, in Brit-
ain it remained, to a remarkable degree, linked to the
concerns and interests of private benefactors and col-
lectors.
This situation was only fundamentally challenged
in the later 1960s when there was an expansion both
in the number of universities in Britain generally, and
an expansion in the number of institutions teaching
art history. New universities, such as Sussex, Essex,
Warwick or East Anglia, were the resuit of govern-
ment initiative, and self-consciously distanced them-
selves from the culture of the older university institu-
tions. Indeed, it is possible to argue that the rise of
the so-called New Art History in the early 1970s —
i.e. with its concerns for the social, political and ideo-
logical meanings of art — was directly linked to insti-
tutional shifts in the landscape of higher éducation in
Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. The New Art Histo-
ry was associated precisely with those institutions,
52 KIDSON, Peter: ‘A Short History of the Courtauld Institu-
te’. In: http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/history.html, consulted
11/10/2004.
63