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A review by aront
Art History: A Very Short Introduction by Dana Arnold
1.0
Tl;dr Another critical theory jargon book that oversimplifies, craps all over the place and just stinks. It’s also makes a fascinating subject incredibly boring. Avoid at all costs if you are truly interested in art, history or art history.
Specifically, she portrays critical theory as a dumbed down collection of isms (all but feminism created by European white men she constantly reminds us have warped humanity). Aside: Read the VSI on Critical Theory which is excellent if you want a more sophisticated view, although I still remain baffled why so many humanities academics are so enthralled by it.
She then claims this basket of isms, gives us deep and new insights into understanding art history that undermines the ideas of old white men whose paradigms of art fall into one of these baskets:
- classical art as a pinnacle from which everything declined
- history is progress from the primitive to now
- art is a work of genius European white men; women, minorities and non-European can’t create great art
- art isn’t about politics and culture but old white man values like beauty
Besides the terrible over-simplifications, straw man arguments (no straw people here), and misrepresentations of several thinkers ideas, there are also inaccuracies which always drive me nuts (e.g. ancient Babylonians collected artifacts long before the Greeks, iconoclasm only lasted 150 years so of course tons of icons existed 600 years after this controversy was settled). Come on Oxford, why aren’t your editors doing their job and fact checking?
Worst of all, you don’t come away with any coherent view of what art or art history is or should be. Plus it’s all terribly boring to read (yes I know I’ve said that already but…)
Perhaps this book grated on me so much because I recently finished the VSI on architecture, which discusses similar themes and issues in a closely related field. That book was highly interesting, enlightening, well presented, thought provoking and jargon free.
Specifically, she portrays critical theory as a dumbed down collection of isms (all but feminism created by European white men she constantly reminds us have warped humanity). Aside: Read the VSI on Critical Theory which is excellent if you want a more sophisticated view, although I still remain baffled why so many humanities academics are so enthralled by it.
She then claims this basket of isms, gives us deep and new insights into understanding art history that undermines the ideas of old white men whose paradigms of art fall into one of these baskets:
- classical art as a pinnacle from which everything declined
- history is progress from the primitive to now
- art is a work of genius European white men; women, minorities and non-European can’t create great art
- art isn’t about politics and culture but old white man values like beauty
Besides the terrible over-simplifications, straw man arguments (no straw people here), and misrepresentations of several thinkers ideas, there are also inaccuracies which always drive me nuts (e.g. ancient Babylonians collected artifacts long before the Greeks, iconoclasm only lasted 150 years so of course tons of icons existed 600 years after this controversy was settled). Come on Oxford, why aren’t your editors doing their job and fact checking?
Worst of all, you don’t come away with any coherent view of what art or art history is or should be. Plus it’s all terribly boring to read (yes I know I’ve said that already but…)
Perhaps this book grated on me so much because I recently finished the VSI on architecture, which discusses similar themes and issues in a closely related field. That book was highly interesting, enlightening, well presented, thought provoking and jargon free.