Description
Book SynopsisWhile today we are experiencing a revival of world art and the so-called global turn of art history, encounters between art historians and anthropologists remain rare. Even after a century and a half of interactions between these epistemologies, a sceptical distance prevails with respect to the disciplinary other. This volume is a timely exploration of the roots of this complex dialogue, as it emerged worldwide in the colonial and early postcolonial periods, between 1870 and 1970. Exploring case studies from Australia, Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, and the United States, this volume addresses connections and rejections between art historians and anthropologists—often in the contested arena of “primitive art.” It presents better- and lesser-known actors, from the art historian-anthropologist Aby Warburg to the modernist Brazilian artist Tarsila do Amaral, and from curators-museum directors such as Alfred Barr and René d’Harnoncourt to the curator-impresario Leo Frobenius. Entering the current debates on decolonizing the past, this collection will prompt reflection on future relations between these two fields.
Table of ContentsIntroduction - Peter Probst The Allure of Architectural Ornament: Ethnographic Art and the “Shortcomings” of Inka Stonemasonry - Carolyn Dean Anatomy of a Chronological Hallucination: The Category of Primitive Art and Élie Faure’s L’art medieval - John Warne Monroe Ethnology at the Margins of “General Art History”: The Case of Alois Hein - Priyanka Basu What Happens When Natives Draw? Theodor Koch-Grünberg and the Beginnings of World Art History - Claudia Mattos Avolese Boas and Semper: From the Biology of Images to Primitive Art - Carlo Severi Empathy with the Unknown: Reproducing “World Art” after 1900 - Joseph Imorde Fatal Attraction: Carl Einstein’s “Ethnological” Turn - Charles W. Haxthausen Pathos and Paideuma: Aby Warburg, Leo Frobenius, and the Demons of Culture - Peter Probst Ernst Vatter: A Forgotten Pioneer of Art Ethnology - Karl-Heinz Kohl The Anthropologist as Critic: Claude Lévi-Strauss - Boris Wiseman René d’Harnoncourt, Twentieth-Century Cultural Broker: Bridging Art History and Anthropology through the Display of Indigenous Art - Nancy Lutkehaus Outside and Inside Art History: Anthropologists, Art Historians, Curators, and the Recognition of Aboriginal Art - Howard Morphy Contributors Illustration Credits Index
