DOI Artikel:
Szczerski, Andrzej: Art history as art criticism?
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19069#0118
MODUS
Prace z historii sztuki
IV (2003)
Andrzej Szczerski
Art history as art criticism?
Whenever one tries to think about the essence of art history, inevitably the
ąuestion of judgement comes to the fore. But what kind of judgement is it?
Is it the Vasari type of rise and decline of values, the avant-garde search for
transgression or the post-modern principle of multiplicity? What is the rela-
tion between the apparent objectivity of the collection of facts and figures and
its inherent structures of evaluation? And fmally to what extent is art history
able to formulate judgements and to what extent they are conditioned on the
one hand by art criticism and on the other by contemporary art?
When writing his seminal History of Art Criticism in 1936 Lionello Venturi
set standards for the discussions on these issues. He emphasised the crucial
role of judgement in art history. For Venturi art history was overly dominated
by the neo-positivist approach, so "the historical facts, placed in series, even
if most exact, lost their significance to the human mind, except to erudite
curiosity, because interpretation of their aesthetic value was neglected"1. For
Venturi the crucial problem was, in fact, the lack of the consciousness that
judgement was necessary. As a result, he said, history of art improvised the
judgements instead of seriously and profoundly discussing them. Venturi
was also convinced that in order to achieve the judgement one has to move
between the borders of art history, art criticism and aesthetics. On the other
hand art criticism which is based only on intuition and without any knowledge
*The text was first presented at the conference "Visions of a Futurę. Art and Art History
in Changing Contexts" organised by Schweizerisches Institut fur Kunstwissenschaft in Zurich
(June 2002). Thanks are due to Professor Lech Kalinowski for his help and advice.
1 L. Yenturi, History of Art Criticism, New York 1964, p. 18.
115
Prace z historii sztuki
IV (2003)
Andrzej Szczerski
Art history as art criticism?
Whenever one tries to think about the essence of art history, inevitably the
ąuestion of judgement comes to the fore. But what kind of judgement is it?
Is it the Vasari type of rise and decline of values, the avant-garde search for
transgression or the post-modern principle of multiplicity? What is the rela-
tion between the apparent objectivity of the collection of facts and figures and
its inherent structures of evaluation? And fmally to what extent is art history
able to formulate judgements and to what extent they are conditioned on the
one hand by art criticism and on the other by contemporary art?
When writing his seminal History of Art Criticism in 1936 Lionello Venturi
set standards for the discussions on these issues. He emphasised the crucial
role of judgement in art history. For Venturi art history was overly dominated
by the neo-positivist approach, so "the historical facts, placed in series, even
if most exact, lost their significance to the human mind, except to erudite
curiosity, because interpretation of their aesthetic value was neglected"1. For
Venturi the crucial problem was, in fact, the lack of the consciousness that
judgement was necessary. As a result, he said, history of art improvised the
judgements instead of seriously and profoundly discussing them. Venturi
was also convinced that in order to achieve the judgement one has to move
between the borders of art history, art criticism and aesthetics. On the other
hand art criticism which is based only on intuition and without any knowledge
*The text was first presented at the conference "Visions of a Futurę. Art and Art History
in Changing Contexts" organised by Schweizerisches Institut fur Kunstwissenschaft in Zurich
(June 2002). Thanks are due to Professor Lech Kalinowski for his help and advice.
1 L. Yenturi, History of Art Criticism, New York 1964, p. 18.
115