DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68516#0038
ART-HISTORY AS AN ACADEMIC STUDY
Even if no one here holds the opinion once maintained by the great
Lord Salisbury, when he opposed spending public money on the
Victoria and Albert Museum, that Art is nothing but a trivial amuse-
ment for the idle rich, one cannot deny that the visual arts have long
lain under a shadow of disapproval in this country. That shadow is
growing less, has indeed visibly diminished since a Royal Commission
discovered that our incompetence in the arts of design was seriously
impairing our export trade. But still something is left of that nineteenth-
century attitude which regarded any attempt to think or talk seriously
about Art as ridiculous and provoked such uproarious hilarity in the
Law Courts whenever a question of artistic value was a subject of
litigation. Nevertheless, something remains of that suspicion of the
study of the visual arts, and it explains perhaps the indifference of our
Universities to that study.
For about too years German Universities have made courses in
Art-history a regular part of their curricula, and yet here, although the
study of the art of letters has always formed a large part of our Uni-
versity education, and although Music has long since had its status and
its special degrees, no opportunities for the study of the visual arts have
ever been offered by British Universities until last year, when the
Courtauld Institute opened its doors.
We are so familiar with this state of things that we scarcely appreciate
how odd it is. The mere fact that we have no convenient word by which
to designate that body of studies which the Germans call Kunstfor-
schung—a body of studies of which the actual history of Art is only a
part—is significant. I am obliged to use the awkward and inadequate
word ‘ Art-history ’ for it.
Now ‘Art-history’ is inextricably involved in a number of studies
which are regarded as eminently worthy of Academic status. It has
indeed from an Academic point of view many advantages over Music, if
only because its records go back so much further. In the study of pre-
history paintings and artefacts form our chief data. In this period and in
the study of primitive peoples Art-history is inextricably interwoven
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Even if no one here holds the opinion once maintained by the great
Lord Salisbury, when he opposed spending public money on the
Victoria and Albert Museum, that Art is nothing but a trivial amuse-
ment for the idle rich, one cannot deny that the visual arts have long
lain under a shadow of disapproval in this country. That shadow is
growing less, has indeed visibly diminished since a Royal Commission
discovered that our incompetence in the arts of design was seriously
impairing our export trade. But still something is left of that nineteenth-
century attitude which regarded any attempt to think or talk seriously
about Art as ridiculous and provoked such uproarious hilarity in the
Law Courts whenever a question of artistic value was a subject of
litigation. Nevertheless, something remains of that suspicion of the
study of the visual arts, and it explains perhaps the indifference of our
Universities to that study.
For about too years German Universities have made courses in
Art-history a regular part of their curricula, and yet here, although the
study of the art of letters has always formed a large part of our Uni-
versity education, and although Music has long since had its status and
its special degrees, no opportunities for the study of the visual arts have
ever been offered by British Universities until last year, when the
Courtauld Institute opened its doors.
We are so familiar with this state of things that we scarcely appreciate
how odd it is. The mere fact that we have no convenient word by which
to designate that body of studies which the Germans call Kunstfor-
schung—a body of studies of which the actual history of Art is only a
part—is significant. I am obliged to use the awkward and inadequate
word ‘ Art-history ’ for it.
Now ‘Art-history’ is inextricably involved in a number of studies
which are regarded as eminently worthy of Academic status. It has
indeed from an Academic point of view many advantages over Music, if
only because its records go back so much further. In the study of pre-
history paintings and artefacts form our chief data. In this period and in
the study of primitive peoples Art-history is inextricably interwoven
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