The Transhistorical Image: Philosophizing Art and its History

by Paul Crowther

• ISBN13: 9780521811149
• ISBN10: 0521811147
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-06-24
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Why are visual artworks experienced as having intrinsic significance or normative depth? Why are some works of art better able to manifest this significance than others? In his latest book Paul Crowther argues that we can answer these questions only if we have a full analytic definition of visual art. Crowther's approach focuses on the pictorial image, broadly construed to include abstract work and recent conceptually-based idioms. The significance of art depends, however, essentially on the transhistorical nature of the pictorial image, the way in which its illuminative power is extended through historical transformation of the relevant artistic medium. Crowther argues against fashionable forms of cultural relativism, while at the same time showing why it is important that an appreciation of the history of art is integral to aesthetic judgment.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vii
Preface	ix
Acknowledgements	x
Introduction	1	(6)
PART I
Formalism, art history and effective historical difference	7	(15)
More than ornament: Riegl and the problem of style	22	(14)
The objective significance of perspective: Panofsky with Cassirer	36	(33)
PART II
The fundamental categories of art history	69	(74)
PART III
The abstract image: a theory of non-figurative art	143	(23)
The containment of memory: Duchamp, Fahrenholz and the box	166	(14)
Conclusion: Conceptual Art, even...(fundamental categories thereof)	180	(9)
Appendix The logical basis of pictorial representation	189	(12)
Bibliography	201	(3)
Index	204