Description
Book SynopsisCase studies that counter the idea of a transcendent art canon by demonstrating that the content of any and every canon is historically and culturally specific.
Trade Review“Anna Brzyski’s anthology
Partisan Canons fills a long-recognized need in the literature on the history of art. The essays in this volume approach the canon of works of art on which the discipline is built from a variety of perspectives: how did it come about, on what principles is it built, does it have universal validity? These thoughtful and probing texts promise to afford art historians and others insight into one of the most deeply naturalized values of this profession.”—
Keith Moxey, author of
The Practice of Persuasion: Paradox and Power in Art History“The subject of canons, a long-standing problem in literary studies, makes an impressive art historical debut in this authoritative collection of essays, which gathers together some of the most important critical voices in the contemporary study of the visual arts.
Partisan Canons makes an important contribution to the discussion of values, power, and the social construction of artistic traditions.”—
W. J. T. Mitchell, editor of
Critical Inquiry and author of
What Do Pictures Want?Table of ContentsIntroduction: Canons and Art History / Anna Brzyski 1
1. Measuring Canons: Reflections on Innovation and the Nineteenth-century Canon of European Art / Robert Jensen 27
2. Canon and Globalization in Art History / James Elkins 55
3. Mere Exposure, Reproduction, and the Impressionist Canon / James Cutting 79
4. Imitation and Authority: The Creation of the Academic Canon in French Art, 1648-1870 / Paul Duro 95
5. Chinese Art, the National Palace Museum, and Cold War Politics / Jane C. Ju 115
6. Masculine Reason or Feminine Spirit: Gender Battles in the Werkbund’s Canonization of National Style / Despina Stratigakos 135
7. Courbet, the Decorative, and the Canon: Rewriting and Rereading Meier-Graefe’s Modern Art / Jenny Anger 157
8. The Multiple Masculinities of Canonical Modernism: James Johnson Sweeney and Alfred H. Barr Jr. in the 1930s / Marcia Brennan 179
9. “Gardner” Variety Formalism: Helen Gardener and Art Through the Ages / Barbara Jaffee 203
10. The Rembrandt Research Project: Issues and Controversies Raised by a Canonical Oeuvre / Linda Stone-Ferrier 225
11. Making Art in the Age of Art History, or How to Become a Canonical Artist / Anna Brzyski 245
12. Kinkade and the Canon: Art History’s (Ir)Relevance / Monica Kjellman-Chapin 267
13. Canons Apart and Apartheid Canons: Interpellations beyond the Colonial in South African Art / Julie McGee 289
14. Coda: Canons and Contemporaneity / Terry Smith 309
Bibliography 327
About the Contributors 355
Index 359
