본문 바로가기
  • Home

Critical Perspectives on Svetlana L. Alpers's Concepts in Methodology

김경선 1

1창원대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The character of the history of art began to be criticized for the narrowness of its range of subject matter and concentration on individual artists whom it classified as geniuses in the late twentieth century. It useful to define this change as being from the traditional study of the history of art to the study of art history. In the history of art, the subject is ‘art’, and the study is of the patterns of caution, however now, art is being increasingly perceived as a means as well as an end, and in art history the subject is ‘history’, especially social and cultural history. Here the goal of scholarship is to achieve a more profound understanding of individuals and societies, and works of art provide tangible evidence. Art history as a discipline, its new, critical and interdisciplinary methodology of art has become an intellectual advantage in a scholarly world of an increasingly permeable border between the humanities and the social sciences ; a world of relative rather than absolute quality. At present, the two most distinctive trends in the new art history are the interest in the social aspects of art and the stress on theory. The path-breaking work of Anglo-American scholars, Svetlana Leontief Alpers brings into focus the heterogeneous nature of art. She place much value on the basic art-historical notion of representation as well as circumstances and visual culture. In addition, Alpers thinks nowhere is this 'transparent view of art' less appropriate, then she propose to view art circumstantially. Appealing to circumstances mean not only to see art as a social manifestation but also to gain access to images through a consideration of their place,role, and presence in the broader culture. In addition to circumstantial studies have tended to concentrate on the artist as the viewer of his/her art or as the maker of a work to be viewed. Much attention is paid to how paintings have been seen. The pressure is outward from the work. But there is another account which has to do less with how the viewer is served, than with the satisfactions of the maker. The pressure is inward, on the artist in the making. Alpers has served the art historical community excellently by raising the intellectual stakes of Dutch art in seventeenth century and its European context. It gives new horizons for the interpretation of art and the phenomenon of picture making itself. Shortly, Alpers's methodology is an example of the centrality of art history among current disciplines by replacing a sector of the history of art within its proper context of intellectual history.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.