The Question of Art History

Author(s): Donald Preziosi

Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Winter, 1992), pp. 363-386
Published by: University of Chicago Press
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The Question of Art History

Donald Preziosi

"What a beautiful book could be composed, telling the life and

adventuresof a word!... Is itnot truethatmostwordsare dyed with
the idea representedby theiroutwardform?Imagine the geniusthat
has made them!... The bringingtogetherof letters,theirforms,the
figuretheygiveeach word,traceprecisely,accordingto the geniusof
each nation,unknownbeingswhose memoryis in us.... Is therenot
in the word vrai a sortof supernaturalrectitude?Is therenot in the
tersesound itdemandsa vague image of chastenudity,of the simplic-
ityof the true in everything?... Does not everyword tell the same
story?All are stampedwitha livingpowerwhichtheyderivefromthe
soul and whichtheypay back to it by the mysteriesof action and the
marvellousreactionthatexistsbetweenspeech and thought-like, as
itwere,a loverdrawingfromthe lipsof hismistressas muchlove as he
presses into them."
-HONORE DE BALZAC, Louis Lambert

1
Debates on the nature,aims,and methodsof arthistoricalpracticehave in
recentyearsgivenrise to a varietyof new approaches to the studyof the
visualarts,to the projectionof one or another"newart history," and to a
sustainedengagementwithcriticaland theoreticalissues and controver-
sies in otherhistoricaldisciplinesto a degree unimaginablenot verylong
ago. At the heartof manyof thesedebates has been an explicitand wide-
spread concern withthe questionof whatart objects maybe evidence for,

CriticalInquiry 18 (Winter 1992)

? 1992 by The Universityof Chicago. 0093-1896/92/1802-0006$01.00. All rightsreserved.

363

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364 Donald Preziosi The QuestionofArtHistory

and withthe relativemeritsof variousdisciplinarymethodsand protocols

for the elucidation of art historicalevidence.
Untilfairlyrecently,mostof theattentionof arthistoriansand others
in thesedebates has been paid to differencesamong the partisansof vari-
ous disciplinarymethodologies,or to the differentialbenefitsof one or
anotherschool of thoughtor theoreticalperspectivein otherareas of the
humanitiesand social sciencesas these mightarguablyapplyto questions
of art historicalpractice.' Yet therehas also come about among arthistori-
ans a renewedinterestin the historicaloriginsof the academic discipline
itself,and in the relationshipsof its institutionalizationin various coun-
triesto the professionalizingof other historicaland criticaldisciplinesin
the latterpartof the [Link] interestshave led increas-
inglyto widerdiscussionbyart historiansof the particularnatureof disci-
plinaryknowledge,thecircumstancesand protocolsof academic practice,
and the relationsbetween the various branchesof modern discourseon
thevisualarts:academic arthistory, artcriticism,aestheticphilosophy,the
art market,exhibitions,and museology.2What followsdoes not aim to
summarize or characterize these developmentsbut is more simplyan
attemptto delineate some of the principalcharacteristics of the discipline
as an evidentiaryinstitutionin the lightof the materialconditionsof aca-
demic practice that arose in the latterhalf of the nineteenthcenturyin
relationto the historyof [Link] brief,thisessayis con-
cerned withthe circumstancesof art history'sfoundationsas a systematic
and "scientific"practice,and its focus is limitedto a single,albeit para-
digmatic,American example.

2
In 1895, twenty-oneyears after the appointmentof Charles Eliot
Norton as Lecturer on the Historyof the Fine Arts as Connected with

1. An extended discussionof these issues maybe found in Donald Preziosi,Rethinking

ArtHistory: Meditationson a CoyScience(New Haven, Conn., 1989), pp. 80-121. See also The
NewArtHistory, ed. A. L. Rees and Frances Borzello (AtlanticHighlands,N.J., 1988).
2. One importantsign of these discussionshas been a series of "Views and Overviews"
of the disciplineappearing in TheArtBulletinin recentyears,of whichthe mostrecenthas
been perhaps the most extensive and comprehensive: Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson,
"Semiotics and Art History,"The ArtBulletin73 (June 1991): 174-208.

Donald Preziosi is professorof art historyat the Universityof Cali-

fornia, Los Angeles, and, beginningin 1992, at the Ecole des Hautes
Art
Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He is the author of Rethinking
History: on
Meditations a Coy Science(1989) and is currentlycompletinga
book on the historyof museums entitledFramingModernity.

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CriticalInquiry Winter1992 365

Literatureat Harvard, the Fogg Art Museum was founded as the first
institutionspecificallydesigned to house the entiredisciplinaryapparatus
of art historyin one space.3The organizationof the Fogg establishedpat-
ternsforthe formatting of art historicalinformation, teaching,and study
that have been canonical in America down to the present,and thathave
been replicatedthroughvarious materialand technologicaltransforma-
tions by scores of academic departmentsthroughoutthe world.4
The institutionof the Fogg provided for several distinctkinds of
spaces designed to make the historicaldevelopmentof the visual arts
clearlylegible:lectureclassroomsfittedwithfacilitiesfortheprojectionof
lantern-slidereproductionsof worksof art; a libraryof textualmaterials
on the fineartsof variousperiodsand places; an archiveof slidesand pho-
tographs of works of art organized according to historicalperiod and
genre; and space for the exhibitionof reproductionsof worksof art-
photographsprincipally, but also a fewplastercastsof sculpturesand some
architectural models. Despite its name, the Fogg initiallywas not a
museumin the commonsense of the term,and no provisionwas made for
the displayof actual worksof art, despite manypressuresto formsuch a
collection.5
The Fogg Museum was in factconceivedof as a laboratoryforstudy,
demonstration,teaching,and fortrainingin thematerialcircumstancesof
artistic production. It was intended to be a scientificestablishment
devoted to the comparisonand analysisof [Link] (potentially)all
periods and places, to the estimationof their relativeworth,and to an
understandingof their evidentialvalue with respect to the historyand
progressiveevolution of differentnations and ethnic groups.
Photographictechnologywas centralto the Fogg Museum's concep-

3. The Fogg Art Museum was foundedin memoryof WilliamHayes Fogg of New York
by his widowand servedas the home of the disciplineat Harvard forthirty-two years,until
its replacementby the present Fogg Museum in 1927. See George H. Chase, "The Fine
Arts,1874-1929," in TheDevelopment ofHarvardUniversitysincetheInaugurationofPresident
Eliot, 1869-1929, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (Cambridge, 1930), pp. 130-45. See also
Caroline A. Jones, ModernArtat Harvard: The Formationof theNineteenth- and Twentieth-
Century oftheHarvard University
Collections ArtMuseums(New York, 1985), esp. pp. 15-30.
4. See Preziosi,Rethinking ArtHistory,pp. 72-79. Useful discussionsof the art histori-
cal traditionin Germany may be found in Heinrich Dilly,Kunstgeschichte als Institution:
Studienzur Geschichte einerDisziplin(Frankfurtam Main, 1979); see also Michael Podro, The
CriticalHistoriansofArt(New Haven, Conn., 1982). Extensivediscussionsofearlyart histor-
ical programsin America willbe foundin EarlyDepartments ofArtHistoryin theUnitedStates,
ed. Craig Hugh-Smyth,Peter Lukehart,and Henry A. Millon (forthcoming).On England,
see sect. 4 below.
5. Pressureswere verystrongfromthe outsetof the planningforthe [Link] the
firstyear of itsexistence,sixteenGreek vases were loaned by an alumnus,and in 1896 two
collectionsof engravingsnumberingover thirtythousand,already bequeathed to the uni-
versity,were transferredto the building. By 1913, extensivealterationswere made to the
building to accommodate what had by then become a very large collection of original
works,sacrificingspace previouslygiven over to instruction.

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366 Donald Preziosi The QuestionofArtHistory

tionas a scientificinstitution, affordinga systematicand uniformformat-

ting of objects of [Link] diverse as buildingsand miniature
paintingswere reproduced at a common scale foranalysisand study-in
thiscase, to two complementaryformats:lanternslidesforprojectionon
walls and printedphotographsof standardsize.6 The entire systemwas
extensivelycross-indexedand referencedby means of a card catalog for
efficientaccess.
The institutionwas in effecta factoryforthe manufactureof histori-
cal, social, and, as we shall see, moral and ethicalsense: a siteforthe pro-
duction of meaningin severaldimensions:aesthetic,semantic,historical.
Out of itsconstantlyexpandingdata mass,theresearchercould composea
varietyof narrativesat variousanalyticscales:at the levelofthe individual
artwork,or throughseveralkindsof "slices"of works-for example, the
use of line or color in the worksof a singleartistor of artistsof different
timesand places. The systemmade it possible to trace the "evolution"of
manydifferent aspectsofpictorialrepresentationin a singlecivilizationor
acrossdifferent culturesand [Link] could instantaneously
chart, example,the "development"of perspectivalrenderingof three-
for
dimensionalobjects throughMesopotamia,Egypt,Greece, and Rome by
means of thejuxtapositionof imagesofpaintingsor drawings,and thestu-
dent could calibratethe relationshipsbetweenthematiccontentin medie-
val religiouspaintingsand compositionalformatas these could be shown
to change over time and place.
While the opportunityforthe fabricationof narrativesabout itemsin
the archivemightseem unlimited,in practicethiscapacitywas limitedby
the pedagogical curriculumdevised by Norton and expanded and aug-
mented by him and his colleagues over the years. By the time of the
foundation of the Fogg, Norton's curriculum included the following
sequenced elements:

Fine Arts 1: Principlesof Delineation, Color, and Chiaroscuro

Fine Arts 2: Principlesof Design in Painting,Sculpture,and
Architecture
Fine Arts 3: Ancient Art
Fine Arts 4: Roman and Mediaeval Art

6. The use of lantern-slideprojectionfora varietyof purposes is of great antiquity.A

descriptionof the process maybe found in Athanasius Kircher,Ars magna luciset umbrae
(Rome, 1646); foran excellent discussionof optical devices in the nineteenthcentury,see
JonathanCrary,Techniques oftheObserver:On Visionand Modernity in theNineteenth Century
(Cambridge, Mass., 1990). The Swiss art historianHeinrich Wi5lfflin is said to have pio-
neered double slide projection in the 1880s, whereintwo images mightbe juxtaposed for
comparison. On W61lfflin see Joan Hart, "ReinterpretingW61fflin:Neo-Kantianismand
Hermeneutics,"TheArtJournal42 (Winter 1982): 292-300. See also Preziosi, Rethinking
ArtHistory,pp. 54-72.

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CriticalInquiry Winter1992 367

Norton himselfoccasionallytaughtadvanced courses on specialized top-

ics. By the turnof the century,the Fogg curriculumincluded courses on
the historyof architecture,landscape design,Greek and Roman archaeol-
ogy,the historyof theprintedbook, Renaissanceart,Florentinepainting,
Venetian art, and the art of China and Japan. In 1912-13, the Fogg
organized the firstart historysurveycourse as we now know it, which
attemptedto cover the entire"history"of the artsof the worldin a single
year.7
Prior to Norton's appointmentin 1874 the only instructionin the
technical aspects of art making had been offeredby Charles Herbert
Moore, who was appointed in 1871 as the firstinstructorin freehand
drawing and watercolor at Harvard. He taught exclusively at the
Lawrence Scientific School on campus, where such instructionwas
deemed necessaryto the trainingof studentsin the physicaland natural
sciences. Norton engaged Moore's servicesfor his own new curriculum,
and made hisclasses(Fine Arts 1 and 2) prerequisiteto any trainingin the
historyof art on the principlethatany serious understandingof the his-
toryof art should be grounded in hands-onexperience of the technical
processes of artisticproduction-a principle at the core of what later
came to be knownas the "Fogg Method"of formalistconnoisseurship.8
Norton was an immenselypopular lecturer,and his perspectiveson
the social and ethicalimplicationsof the visualartsprofoundlyinfluenced
several generationsof Americanart [Link] trainingan expert on
medieval Italian literatureand a Dante scholar,he became a devotee of
medieval Italianart duringhis extensivetravelsin Europe afterhis gradu-

7. See Chase, "The Fine Arts, 1874-1929." The Fine Artsdivisionwas establishedat
Harvard in 1890-91; priorto that,the departmenthad semi-official [Link] university
catalog for 1874-75 listed two courses: Fine Arts 1--Principles of Design in Painting,
Sculpture, and Architecture,taught by Charles Herbert Moore, and Fine Arts 2-The
Historyof the Fine Arts,and their Relations to Literature,taught by Norton. Norton's
course became Fine Arts3 and 4 by the 1890s. See Charles Eliot Norton,"The Educational
Value of the History of the Fine Arts," The Educational Review9 (Apr. 1895): 343-48,
wherein Norton observed that "it is in the expressionof its ideals by means of the arts ...
that the position of a people in the advance of civilization is ultimatelydetermined"
(p. 346). On the relationshipof instructionin the historyof art to departmentsof classical
languages, see RobertJ. Goldwater,"The Teaching of Art in the Colleges of the United
States," CollegeArtJournal 2 (May 1943): 3-31 (supp.).
8. On the Fogg (or Harvard) method, see Denman W. Ross, A TheoryofPure Design:
Harmony,Balance, Rhythm (Boston, 1907). The method aimed at developing sensitivityto
the grammarof an art object and at elaboratinga "scientificlanguage" of art intended to
"define,classify,and explain the phenomena of Design" withoutregard to the personality
of the artist(p. vi). This was in contrastto the perspectivesof Bernard Berenson,a follower
of Norton and graduate of the method,who laid greateststresson the analysisof the struc-
tural properties of an image as an expression of [Link] Fogg method strictly
avoided the theorizingabout the historicalcontextsof artworksemphasized in contempo-
rary German [Link] the historyof connoisseurship,see Preziosi, Rethinking Art
History,pp. 90-95.

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368 Donald Preziosi The QuestionofArtHistory

ation from Harvard in 1854. An intense anglophile as well, Norton

attended John Ruskin's lectures on Italian art at Oxford prior to his
appointmentat Harvard-an appointmentencouraged by Ruskin him-
self, who became over the years a close personal friend,model, and
mentor.9
The creationof the Fogg Museum threeyearsbeforeNorton retired
in 1898 was the directembodimentof the theoriesof art and of the meth-
odologies of historicalanalysisespoused by his teachingand inspiredby
Ruskinianideals regardingthe ethical and social importof artisticprac-
tice. In a verydirectsense, the foundingof the Fogg accomplishedwhat
Ruskinhimselfwas unable to bringabout, institutionally,at Oxford-the
pragmaticsynthesisof previouslydisparatecomponentsof art historical
and criticalpracticein a common,scientific,"laboratory"environment.'0
The institutionwas organized according to

the principlethatthe historyof the fineartsshould alwaysbe related

to the historyof civilization;thatmonumentsshould be interpreted
as expressionsof the peculiar genius of the people who produced
them;thatfundamentalprinciplesof designshould be emphasizedas
a basis foraestheticjudgments;and thatopportunitiesfortrainingin
drawingand paintingshould be provided forall serious studentsof
the subject."

3
The overridingbusinessof the Fogg was the collectionof evidence
for the demonstrationof the aforementionedprinciples,especiallythe
principlethatthereis an essentialrelationshipbetweentheaestheticchar-
acter of a people's worksof visualart and thatnation'ssocial, moral,and
ethical [Link] art,then,provide documentaryevidence for

9. On Ruskin's immense influence on art historical and aesthetic thought in the

United States,see Roger B. Stein,JohnRuskinand Aesthetic Thoughtin America,1840-1900
(Cambridge, Mass., 1967), and Solomon Fishman,TheInterpretation ofArt:Essayson theArt
Criticism ofJohnRuskin, Walter Clive
Pater, Bell, RogerFry,and Herbert Read (Berkeley,1963).
At the timeof his appointmentin 1874, Norton wroteto Ruskinoutlininghis plans to take
groups of studentsto Venice and Athensin order to "showthe similarity and the difference
in the principlesof the twoRepublics,"in order to demonstratethat"therecannot be good
poetry,or good painting,or good sculptureor architectureunless men have somethingto
express whichis the resultof long trainingof soul and sense in the waysof high livingand
true thought"(Norton, letterto Ruskin, 10 Feb. 1874, TheLettersofCharlesEliotNorton,2
vols. [Boston, 1913], 2:34).
10. See John Summerson,"What Is a Professorof Fine Art?"(Hull, England, 1961),
p. 7; hereafterabbreviated "WP."
11. Chase, "The Fine Arts, 1874-1929," p. 133. Moore was appointed directorof the
institutionin 1896 and serveduntil 1908. Chase himselfservedas dean of Harvard College
after succeeding Moore as chairman of the Department of the Fine Arts.

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CriticalInquiry Winter1992 369

that character,and that evidence is assumed to be homologous to that

whichmaybe evincedfromthatpeople's otherarts-in particularitsliter-
ature. 2 At the heartof the institutionwas itscentraldata bank,in princi-
ple an indefinitelyexpandable archiveof uniformlyformattedslide and
photographicprintitems organized geographicallyand chronologically
and, withinthosedivisions,by knownand unknownartist,by style(where
thatwas not coterminouswithhistoricaland geographicaldivisions),and
by medium. Furtherdivisionsin the collectionwere made according to
major arts(painting,sculpture,architecture)and minorarts(book illumi-
nation,luxurydomesticand ceremonialobjects,jewelry,and so on). The
systemis stillreplicatedwithessentiallyminorvariationsin most art his-
torical collectionstoday.
In principleeveryobject in the archivebears the traceof others,and
its meaningis a functionof the system'sjuxtapositionsand separationsas
determinedby the physicalarrangementof the cabinets in which items
are stored.'" Each informationalunit is thus in an anaphoricposition,
cueing absent others,suggestingresonances withrelated objects, refer-
ring both metonymicallyand metaphoricallyto other portions of the
archivalmass. In short,the meaningof an itemis a functionofitsplace, its
"address" in the system.'4
The systemis genealogicalat base, and thearchivepermitsthearticu-
lation of a varietyof kinshipsamong itemsin the collection,whetherfor-
mal or morphological,thematicor [Link] is equally teleological
in thateach itemis assumed to bear the stampof itshistoricallocus in an
evolutionarydevelopmentof artisticpractice,on severalpossiblelevels-
those of technique,individualor ethnicor nationalevolution,and so on:
the archiveis nevernot [Link] Fogg methodof formalistconnois-
seurship,like othertechniquesof connoisseurshipdeveloped in the latter
halfof thenineteenthcentury,stressedtheabilityofthe trainedarthistor-
ical eye to assign a specificand unique address to any artworkencoun-
tered; at the same time,the methodwas attachedto an abilityto assessthe
aesthetic-and consequentlythe moral-value of a [Link] thisregard,
the work is seen as having a certainphysiognomicor characterological
quality or value, an indexical and iconic relationshipto mentality.'5

12. A significantnumber of instructorsin the Harvard art historyprogram were

recruited fromdepartmentsof literature,most notablyclassics. This was a patternto be
found at a numberof other American universitiesin the late nineteenthcentury-such as
Johns Hopkins, Princeton,Cornell, and Case Western Reserve-as noted by Goldwater,
"The Teaching of Art in the Colleges of the United States," p: 26ff.
13. See Preziosi, RethinkingArtHistory,pp. 75-79.
14. A classic example of thispractice is Gisela M. A. Richter,TheSculptureand Sculp-
torsof theGreeks(New Haven, Conn., 1929). On the modes of reasoning implicitin such
analysesand theirhistoricalbackground,see TimothyJ. Reiss, TheDiscourseofModernism
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1982), esp. pp. 21-54, 351-85.
15. See Preziosi, RethinkingArtHistory,pp. 21-40, 90-110.

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370 Donald Preziosi The QuestionofArtHistory

The systemis also organized in what maybe termedan anamorphic

manner,such thatrelationshipsamong unitsin thearchiveare visible(that
is, legible) onlyfromcertainprefabricatedstances,positions,or attitudes
toward the [Link] effect,the user is invariablycued towardcertain
positionsfromwhichportionsof the archivalmassachieve coherenceand
sense. These "windows"are variousand have changed in the modern his-
tory of the [Link] the most persistentanamorphicpoints is
thatof the period or period style,consistingof the postulationthatall the
principalor major worksof a timeand place willexhibita certainuniform
[Link],thisis morphologicalin character,but mayalso involve
certain consistentuses of materials,compositionalmethods,routinesof
productionand consumption,perceptualhabits,as wellas a consistencyof
attentionto certaingenres, subject matters,formatsof display,and the
like.16
The pedagogical requirementsof the systeminvolveaccessing the
archivalmass in such a wayas to fabricateconsistentand internallycoher-
ent narrativesof development, filiation,evolution, descent, progress,
regress:in short,a particular"history"ofartisticpracticein thelightofthat
narrative'srelationshipto othersactuallyand potentiallyembedded in the
archival system.A particularhistoricalnarrative(the evolutionof Sung
painting;the developmentof Manet's sense of color composition;the his-
toryand fateof women paintersin Renaissance Italy; the relationshipof
Anselm Kiefer'soeuvre to contemporaryGerman society;the evolution
of naturalismin Greek sculpture,and so on) is in one sensealreadywritten
withinthe archiveand is a productof itsorganizationallogic. Everyslide
is, so to speak, a still in a historicistmovie:

New art is observed as historythe verymomentit is seen to possess

the quality of uniqueness (look at the bibliographieson Picasso or
Henry Moore) and this gives the impressionthat art is constantly
recedingfrommodern life-is neverpossessedby it. It is receding,it
seems,into a giganticlandscape-the landscape of ART-which we
watch as if from the observationcar of a train.... in a few years
[somethingnew] is simplya grotesque or charmingincidentin the
whole-that whole whichwe see throughthe windowof the observa-
tioncar,whichis so likethevitrineof a [Link] behindglass-
the historyglass. ["WP," p. 17]

When SirJohnSummersonspoke these wordson the occasion of his

inaugurationas the firstFerensProfessorof Fine Art in the Universityof

16. See Michael Baxandall, Paintingand Experiencein Fifteenth-Century

Italy(London,
1972).

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CriticalInquiry Winter1992 371

Hull in 1960, he was in the midstof a double [Link] the firstplace, he

was at pains to informhisaudience about the historicalcircumstancessur-
rounding the tardinessof England in establishingacademic university
departmentsof art historyin comparison,most notably,withGermany,
where the firstart historyprofessorshiphad been establishedfor G. F.
Waagen in Berlinin 1844.17 Indeed, it was not until1933 thatart history
became an independentacademic institutionin England withthe found-
ing of the Courtauld Instituteat the Universityof London-itself, at the
time, considered by not a few as a fancifulinnovation,as Summerson
recorded.
Summerson's inaugural lecture at Hull was entitled,significantly,
"What Is a Professorof Fine Art?"and he clearlyconveyedhis regretat a
seriesof missedopportunitiesforthe establishmentof the academic disci-
pline in England during the [Link] the same year that
Waagen was appointed at Berlin, the Reverend Richard Greswell of
Oxford,founderof theOxford Museum,publisheda monographarguing
for the establishmentof three professorshipsin England (at Oxford,
Cambridge,and London). Greswell'splan came to fruitiononlyin 1870,
withthe bequest of collectorFelix Slade. None of theseled to thedevelop-
ment of a departmentof art historyin England, a factprofoundly(and
vociferously)regrettedby Ruskinand Roger Fryduringtheirincumben-
cies as Slade Professorsat Oxford.'8
The second and deeper lament runningthroughSummerson'slec-
ture is a regretthatwe in the modern worldhave to deal withthe history
of art at all-a situationthathe sees arisingfromthe problematicnature
ofart in the [Link] characterizestheoriginsofarthistory
in a particular"moment"when

modern paintingbegan to turnitsback on the public and to become

deliberatelyand arrogantlyincomprehensible(to put it succinctly,
Burckhardtand Courbet were of the same generation);and it can be
shown that the rise of Art-Historyand the rise of modern painting
are accountable to the same historicalpressures.["WP," p. 15]

He goes on to note thatthischange had "nothingto do withthesocial and

mechanical revolutionsof [that]century;it was an affairentirelyof the

17. See "WP," p. 5. Waagen played an influentialrole in the life of English collector
Felix Slade (himselfdestined to influence the course of art historyin England by his
bequest of 1870) and is knownto have spenttimein England withhimin the late 1850s.
18. Summerson's lecture conspicuously fails to mention developments in America,
where ironicallyRuskin'sdream forOxford was realized at Harvard throughthe agencyof
Norton, who mightbe said to have founded English art historyon the wrong side of the
Atlantic,across fromthat countryhe regarded as his true home. See "WP," pp. 7-11. On
connections between Ruskin and Eliot, see n. 9 above and a forthcomingessay by Sybil
Kantor in Early Departments ofArtHistoryin theUnitedStates.

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372 Donald Preziosi The QuestionofArtHistory

perspectiveof thepast,of thewayhistoryhad been explored,mapped and

thengeneralized"("WP,"p. 16)-which led himto suggestthatthe schol-
arlymind came to imaginethe presentationof and accountingfora new
"totality"of art: "a social-historicalphenomenonco-extensivewiththe his-
tory and geographyof man." For the nineteenth-century artist,a new
"broodingimmensity of past [artistic]performance"had the effectof for-
ever condemningthe modern artistto a struggletowardever new and
independent relationshipswith the "overwhelmingmass" of past art
("WP," p. 16).19 The result,Summerson says,was that "Art has been a
'problem' ever since":
It is thisfeelingforart as a 'problem' whichnot onlytiesso much of
modernartto artof the remoterpastand detachesitat thesame time
fromthe currencyof modern lifebut whichlinksit withan activity
whichis itsopposite-the analyticprocessesof the art-historian.
Thus,
modern art and Art-Historyare the inevitableoutcome of the same
cumulativepressureexertedbythe topplingachievementsof the cen-
turies. ["WP," pp. 16-17; emphasis added]

Because art has come to be "behindglass-the historyglass,"it therefore

"has to be peered at, distinguished,[Link] so we have Profes-
sors of Fine Art" ("WP," p. 17).
Summerson'sthesisregardingthe motivationsforthe rise of the dis-
ciplineof art historyin the nineteenthcenturyrestson the historicalcon-
vergence he discernsbetween the withdrawalof modern paintingfrom
more public life,the awarenessof the "overwhelmingmass" and "brood-
ing immensity"of past artisticachievement,and the rise of whathe terms
in his lectureas "totalitarian"arthistory("WP,"p. 16).2o At the same time,
he argues thatthe riseof modernartand ofarthistoryweretheresultofa
new conceptionof historyin the nineteenthcentury,whichhe suggests
owed nothingto the "social and mechanical"revolutionsof thatcentury.
The new disciplineofarthistorywasmade possiblebya new conceptionof
art as a universalhuman phenomenon,a "social-historical phenomenon
co-extensivewith"human historyand geography,whose emblemwas the
new "totalitarian"museum-the museum whose missionwas to collect,
classify,and systematically displaya universalhistoryof art.
While Summerson'shistoryis rathersweepinglyimpressionistic, and
ifthe factorshe adduces forthe historicalrise of art historywere forthe
most part already in play a centuryearlier,his scenario nonethelessis a
tellingone in thatit sketchesthe outlinesof a certaincommonplacewis-

19. On crises in the representationof historyin the nineteenthcentury,see Richard

Terdiman, "DeconstructingMemory:On Representingthe Pastand Theorizing Culture in
France since the Revolution,"Diacritics15 (Winter 1985): 13-36.
20. SummersonreferstoJacob Burckhardt'smentorFranz Kugler as the first"'totali-
tarian' art-historian"in that he dealt equally with "painting,sculptureand architecture
over all time" ("WP," p. 16).

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CriticalInquiry Winter1992 373

dom in the disciplineof art historywithregard to the field'sorigins,mis-

sions,and motivations-factorsalreadyinscribedin theprotocolsof mod-
ern disciplinarypractice.21In hisassertionthatarthistoryis theoppositeof
art making, that it comprises an analytic activity of "peering, dis-
tinguishing,and demonstrating,"we can see the outlines of the kind of
laboratory technologies orchestrated and formalized by the Fogg
Museum and other art historicalinstitutionsin the late nineteenthand
early twentiethcenturiesin America and Europe. For Summerson,the
museum's vitrine-"the historyglass" so like the windowof the railway
observationcar movingawayfromthe past-is directlyanalogous to the
microscope slide of the scientistin the laboratoryand to its locus in an
increasinglyexpanding and refinedtaxonomic order of specimens.
As the laboratoryscientistdissects,analyzes, and "peers at" speci-
mens,breakingtheminto theircomponentpartsand distinctivefeatures,
so too would Summerson'sarthistorianendeavorto read in thespecimens
the signs and indices of time, place, ethnicity,biography,mentality,or
nationalor individualmorality-in short,to read in artworksevidence of
theirpositionwithinan ever-expandingmassofwork"co-
theirhistoricity:
extensivewith the historyand geographyof man."

5
As an evidentiaryinstitution,the moderndisciplineofart historyhas
taken the problem of causalityas its particularconcern. While in this
regard art historyhas been identicalto otherareas of disciplinaryknowl-
edge, certainaspects of its most common perspectiveson evidence and
causalitydistinguishit fromother criticaland [Link] pres-
ent sectionexaminesfeaturesbyand large sharedbyarthistoryand other
disciplines;featurespeculiarto thedisciplineare discussedsubsequently.
Withinart history'sdomain of analyticattention,the object or image
invariablyhas been held to be evidentialin nature such thatthe artwork
and itspartsare seen as effect,trace,result,medium,or [Link]-
cal practicehas been principallydevoted to the restorationof the circum-
stancesthatsurrounded(and thereforeare presumedto have led in some
however extended and indirect sense to) the work's production. An
importantjustificationfordisciplinarypractice-as maybe adduced from
Summerson's lecture no less than from the institutionof the Fogg
Museum and its progeny-has been that a historicalaccountingfor the
circumstantialfactorsin the productionof an object renders the visual
artifactmore cogentlylegible to a wider audience. In this regard, art

21. See also Hayden White, "The Fictions of Factual Representation,"TropicsofDis-

course:Essaysin Cultural Criticism(Baltimore, 1978), pp. 121-34, regarding the modern
discipline of history.

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374 Donald Preziosi The QuestionofArtHistory

historicalpractice is typicallyexegetical and cryptographic,and the art

historianand the public are led to understandthat one may discern in
works the traces of their particularorigins,the unique and specifiable
positionsin a universaldevelopmentalhistoryor [Link] short,
the artworkis construed invariablyas being reflectiveof its origins in
some determinateand determinablefashion,and the disciplinehas been
organized,throughoutitscenturyand a halfof academic professionaliza-
tion,to respondto the questionof whatit is thatworksof art mightbe evi-
dence of and for.
The disciplineof art historyhas evolveda numberof oftenquite dis-
parate perspectives on what might constitutea proper or adequate
accountingforthe originsor "truth"of worksof art,includinga familyof
methodologiesrespondingto differentnotionsof explanatoryadequacy.
At thesame time,thedisciplinehas been heirto an immensephilosophical
traditionofspeculationon thenature,functions,and qualitiesofart,some
of it of considerableantiquity,and mostof it fairlyremotefrommodern
disciplinarypracticeand institutional organization.22Althoughall art his-
torianswould likelyagree that a fullyadequate explanationof a work's
originsrequiresan accountingof as manyconceivablefactorsas mightbe
adduced fora givenproduct,in actual practice(evidence invariablybeing
fragmentaryat best) this remainsan ideal explanatoryhorizon.
It has been the case throughoutthe historyof the disciplinethatcer-
tainmodes of explanationare privilegedover others,and certainformsof
evidence have been deployed as dominantor [Link] some art
historiansan adequate explanationof theoriginsofa workis to be located
in the internalor individualconditionsof production:the mentality, so to
speak, of an artistor studio. For others,externalor contextual conditions
of productionare [Link] lattermaybe as disparate
as the generic mentality,spirit,or aestheticclimateof an age, place, or
race; the political,economic, cultural,social, religious,or philosophical
environmentsin whichthe workappears (itssynchronicmilieux);or in the
sometimesmore,sometimesless inexorablesystemiclogicof thetemporal
evolutionof formsand genres(itsdiachronicmilieux).23Arthistoricaland
criticalattentionhas been devoted to the articulationof all of thesecausal
factorsforseveralcenturies,and mostifnot all remainin playin contem-
porarypractice.24It has been the partisandebate on the adequacy of one

22. See Preziosi, Rethinking ArtHistory,pp. 81-121.

23. See ibid., pp. 159-68 on the "social history"of art. On "form"and its"laws"of dis-
persal over time,see David Summers,"'Form,' Nineteenth-CenturyMetaphysics,and the
Problem of Art Historical Description,"CriticalInquiry15 (Winter 1989): 372-406; and
compare Walter Benjamin's critique of W61lfflin in his "Rigorous Study of Art," trans.
Thomas Y. Levin, October,no. 47 (Winter 1988): 84-90.
24. See Preziosi, RethinkingArtHistory,pp. 159-68 for an assessmentof the recent
"methodological" controversiesin the discipline,and also The NewArtHistoryfor British
perspectiveson recent debates.

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CriticalInquiry Winter1992 375

or anotherof these explanatoryhorizonsthathas constitutedthe greater

bulk of theoreticaland methodologicalwritingin thedisciplinein modern
times.25
Characteristicmost generallyof the disciplinarydiscursivefield in
modern timeshas been an investmentsharedbymostart historiansin fix-
ing and locatingtheparticularand unique truthabout an [Link] situ-
ating the object in a specifiable relationshipto aspects of its original
materialand/or mentalenvironment,thatenvironmentmaythenbe seen
to existin a causal relationshipto the [Link] such a frame-
work,the object has evidentialstatuswithrespect to other factorsin a
nexus of causal relationships:in the dynamicprocessesof artisticexpres-
sion and communication.
The mostcommontheoryof the artobject in theacademic discipline
has undoubtedlybeen the conceptionof the artworkas a mediumof com-
municationand/or expression;26a vehicleby means of which the inten-
tions,values,attitudes,messages,emotions,or agendas of a maker(or,by
extension,of hisor her timeand place) are conveyed(bydesignor chance)
to (targettedor circumstantial) beholdersor observers.A correlativesup-
position is that synchronicor diachronic changes in form will signal
changesin whattheformconveysto [Link] suppositionis com-
monlyconnectedto an assumptionthatchangesin formexistso as to pro-
duce or effect changes in an audience's understandingof what was
formerlyconveyedprior to such changes. That is, changes in an artistic
practiceor traditionare assumed to be an index of variationsin an evolv-
ingsystemof thought,belief,or politicalor social [Link] thisregard,
the object or image, or indeed potentiallyany detail of the materialcul-
ture of a people, is treated as evidence of variationsin a milieu.27
The object of art historicalanalysisis thus in an importantsense a
specimenof data insofaras it can be situatedin an interrogativefield,in an
environmentalready predisposed to consider data pertinentonly to the

25. An exemplary instance may be found in The PoliticsofInterpretation, ed. W. J. T.

Mitchell(Chicago, 1983), pp. 203-48, where T. J. Clark and Michael Fried stage a critical
exchange on the subject of modernismin art history(to littleprofit).See also the Discus-
sions in ContemporaryCulture series sponsored by the Dia Art Foundation,in particular
Visionand Visuality,ed. Hal Foster (Seattle, 1988), and RemakingHistory,ed. Barbara
Kruger and Phil Mariani (Seattle, 1989).
26. See Preziosi,Rethinking ArtHistory,pp. 44-53, 95-121, regardingthe logocentric
bias of art historicaldiscourse in modern times,and Jacques Derrida, TheTruthin Painting,
[Link] Ian MacLeod (Chicago, 1987), esp. parts 1-3 of "Parergon,"
pp. 15-82.
27. A useful discussion of the metaphorical foundationsof these processes may be
foundin Baxandall, "The Language of Art History,"NewLiteraryHistory10 (Spring 1979):
453-65. See also W6lfflin,PrinciplesofArtHistory:TheProblemoftheDevelopment ofStylein
Later Art,trans. M. D. Hottinger (New York, 1932). A paradigmaticarticulationof these
processes is thatof HippolyteTaine, whose 1867 essay "De l'ideal dans 1'art,"Philosophiede
l'art, 2d ed., 2 vols. (Paris, 1880) developed the concept of valeurcharacteristicof a given

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376 Donald Preziosi The QuestionofArtHistory

extentthattheycan be shownto be relevantto a particularfamilyofques-

[Link] determinesthe "arthistoricity" of an artifactmightbe said to
be itspertinenceto a givenfieldof questions,themselvesdeterminedby
certain assumptions about the significanceor pertinence of material
objects.
Such interrogativefieldshave been various in the historyof art his-
[Link] sections2 and 3 above we consideredone such fieldcentralto the
institutionalization of the disciplinein America and distinguishedearly
modernarthistoryin thiscountryfromdevelopmentselsewhere-that is,
theorganizationof thediscursivefieldand itsanamorphicarchivein quite
specificresponseto Norton's Ruskiniannotionsregardingthe workof art
as inescapablyevidential with respect to the moral, ethical, and social
characterofan individualor a people. In Norton'sview,the mostessential
and mostdeeply enduringcharacteristics of a people were to be foundin
its visual art and literature; other, more "material" phenomena of a
society-its economic or political institutions-were secondaryor mar-
ginal to its morality.28
In thisregard,the institution of the Fogg Museum wasa scientificlab-
in
[Link], short, became factsor data in the Fogg systeminsofar
as they could be correlated with (and therebybecome evidencefor and
answersto) an [Link] the Fogg, and forall the interre-
lated activitiesthat it housed, the generic question would have been: in
whatwayis thismonumentan expressionof thepeculiargeniusof thepeo-
ple who produced it?The inflectionof thequestionparticularto the Fogg
and itsmethodconcernedthe ethicaldimensionof thatpeculiargenius.
Underlyingthe entire evidentiarysystemof the disciplineand its
object-domainare three fundamentalassumptions:first,thateverything
about the artworkis significantin someway;second, thatnot everything
about the artworkis significantin the sameway;and third,thatnot every-
thingabout the artworkcan be significantin everyway.
The firstof thesespecifiesthattherewillbe no semanticallyor semi-
oticallynull, empty,or insignificantcomponentsof a work; that every-

epoch in the historyof art, intrinsicallyand systematicallyconnected to all facetsof an

evolvingculturalsystem;see also Hans Aarsleff,FromLocketoSaussure:Essayson theStudyof
Language and IntellectualHistory(Minneapolis, 1982), pp. 360-61; Preziosi,RethinkingArt
History,pp. 87-90; and White, "Historicism,History,and the FigurativeImagination,"
TropicsofDiscourse,pp. 101-20.
28. Norton was especially deprecatoryof German scholarshipin the historyof art,
which he regarded as so abstractlyremovedfromthe actual artworkas to be largelyuseless
for systematicand scientificunderstandingof artisticpractice. By contrast,the develop-
ment of art historyat Princeton Universityin the latteryears of the nineteenthcentury
took contemporaryGerman scholarshipas itsmodel. On Norton's attitudetowardGerman
art history,see Kantor's forthcomingarticlein EarlyDepartments ofArtHistoryin theUnited
States.

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CriticalInquiry Winter1992 377

thingin itsfinestdetail willcontributeto the overall meaningfulness and

value of the object. The second specifiesthat the contributionsof the
parts of a work to the whole-line, color, texture,materials,composi-
tional framework,contextualsitingand situation,and so on-are varied
and disparate; each detail of the work contributesdifferentially to the
work'soverall organizationand [Link] thirdassumptionspecifies
thatthe signification of a workis determinateand not arbitraryor subject
to promiscuousreading. In other words,partsof an object cannot mean
anythingor everythingbut exist where and how theydo as the resultof
some determinedintelligence:everythingshould be understoodas having
a reason for being there, which the professionalpractitionerwill have
become adept at articulating.
These conditionsand assumptionsarticulatea certaindeterminacy
with respect to the analytic domain of art history,criticism,and
museology,workingto definetheirdisciplinarity as systematic,"scientific"
fields of inquiry and exegesis. Form is assumed to have discoverable
"laws," which may exist on individual,local, geographic,temporal,and
universallevels.29
In thisregard,art historymightbe seen as fundamentally similarin
its pursuitof scientificity as certain other modern academic disciplines
institutionalizedin the nineteenthcentury-for example, literarystudies
and history.30Yet in a number of respects, there are aspects of the
evidentiarynatureof art historicalpracticeas it has evolved over the past
centuryand a half that find no easy parallel with other fields.

6
In the firstplace, the art historicalobject of studyhas what may be
termed a compound existentialstatus. It is simultaneouslymaterialand
simulacral,tactile and photographic,unique and reproducible. It may
appear at firstglance thatitis inescapablymaterial,and yetthe individual,
unique, palpable artifactsmade, collected, and displayedconstitutethe

29. See "WP" on the problemof form;on the problemof "style;"the fundamentaltext
remainsMeyerSchapiro, "Style,"in Anthropology Today,ed. A. L. Kroeber (Chicago, 1953),
pp. 287-312; see also the importantrecent volume The Uses of Stylein Archaeology, ed.
Margaret W. Conkey and ChristineA. Hastorf(Cambridge, 1990), esp. Conkey,"Experi-
mentingwith Style in Archaeology: Some Historical and Theoretical Issues" (pp. 5-17)
and Ian Hodder, "Style as Historical Quality,"(pp. 44-51).
30. The best discussions of these issues with regard to the discipline of historyare
White, "Historicism,History,and the Figurative Imagination," pp. 101-20, and Meta-
history:The HistoricalImaginationin Nineteenth-CenturyEurope (Baltimore, 1973); Maurice
Mandelbaum, History,Man and Reason: Studyin Nineteenth-Century Thought(Baltimore,
1971), esp. p. 42ff.; and R. G. Collingwood, The Idea ofHistory(Oxford, 1946). See also
Reiss, The DiscourseofModernism,pp. 351-85.

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378 Donald Preziosi The QuestionofArtHistory

occasionforart historicalpracticeratherthan,strictlyspeaking,the sub-

ject matterof art history,whichis in facthistoryitself:thatis, the history
and developmentof individuals,groups, and societies.
Nor does the materialart object existsimplyas data forthe art histo-
rian, as raw materialout of which historiesare [Link] is an
importantsense in whichthe art object existsas art onlyinsofaras it may
be simulated,replicated,modelled,or representedin historicaland criti-
cal narratives:thatis, insofaras it maybe adduced as evidence in the writ-
ing of social history.
A certaindisciplinaryparallel maybe drawnhere betweenthe study
of art and the studyof [Link] both cases, professionalconcernwith
the originalobject is ancillaryto thebusinessof thediscipline,whichis his-
torical,theoretical,and criticalin nature, concerned withthe construc-
tion of narrative texts of an exegetical nature in the light of their
importance to the understandingof sociohistoricaldevelopmentsin a
broad sense. In thisregard,the disciplinarity of art historyis fundamen-
tallybound up with a dialogicconcern with the human past; worksof art
are of interestto the disciplineinsofaras theirquidditycan be argued as
having evidential value with respect to particularquestions about the
past's relationto the [Link] of the primaryfunctionsofart history,
fromthe timeof its foundingas an academic discipline,has been thatof
the restorationof the past into the presentso thatthe past can itselffunc-
tionand do workin and on thepresent;so thatthepresentmaybe framed
as itselfthe product of the past; and so thatthe past maybe seen as that
fromwhich,forone particularreason or another,we are descended and
therebyaccounted for.31
Art historyis thus a mode of writingaddressed to the present;
addressed, one mightsay,to the fabricationand maintenanceof moder-
[Link] a social and epistemologicaltechnologyfor framingmodernity,
the disciplinehas servedas one of modernity'scentraland definitiveinsti-
tutions and instances. Its goals have been fundamentallyhistoricist-
which is to say teleological.
Yet at the same timethatthe art object maybear a relationshipto art
historyhomologous to the relationshipof an originalmanuscriptto liter-
aryhistoryand theory,thereis an importantsense in whichtheydiffer, for
the materialartworkhas a statuswithinthe discourse on art as a whole
thathas no parallel. For one thing,artworksparticipatein an immensely
articulated network of material relationshipscomplementaryto and
partlyintersectingwiththe evidentiaryelementsin art historicalpractice.
In otherwords,art historyhas existedin tandemwithanotherinstitution
whose subject matterwould seem to be artworks:the museum.

31. See White,The ContentoftheForm:NarrativeDiscourseand HistoricalRepresentation

(Baltimore, 1987), esp. pp. 104-41.

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CriticalInquiry Winter1992 379

7
Since theiroriginsin familiarformsome twocenturiesago, museums
of arthave functionedas evidentiaryinstitutions in a mannersimilarto art
history [Link] the most general sense, the museologyof art has been
devoted to thejudicious assemblageof objectsand imagesdeemed partic-
ularlyevocativeof time,place, personality, mentality,and the artisanryor
genius of individuals, groups,races, and nations.32 At the same timethat
the museum is a repositoryof evidence for the seeminglyinexhaustible
varietyof human artisticexpression,it has also functionedin the modern
worldas an institutionforthe stagingof historicaland aestheticdevelop-
mentand evolution-that is, for the simulationof historicalchange and
transformation of and throughartwork,or, more generally,materialcul-
ture. In thisrespect,the museumof art has had distinctlydramaturgical
functionsin modern life, circulatingindividualsthroughspaces articu-
lated and punctuated by sequential arrangementsof historicalrelics.
Objects and images are choreographedtogetherwiththe (motile)bodies
of beholders.
Museological space is therebycorrelativeto art historicalspace and
its anamorphic archival stagecraft.A museological tableau is for all
intentsand purposes intenselygeomanticin thatitsproper and judicious
siting(sighting)-the mise-en-sequenceof objects-works to guarantee
the preservationof the spiritof the departed or absent person or group.
What is guaranteed above all is the spiritof artisanryand of human crea-
tivityas such, the existence of such a phenomenon as art beneath what
are staged as its myriad manifestationsor exemplars. In spatially
formattingexamples of characteristicformsof expression of an artist,
movement, nation, or period, the visitor or user of the museum is
afforded the opportunityto see for himself the evidence of what is
quintessentiallyand properlyhuman in all its [Link] absences of
the past are peopled withpalpably materialrelics,synechdochalremind-
ers thatthe presentis the product of a certainhistoricalevolutionof val-
ues, tastes,and manners-or a certain moral sensibility-summarized
by and inscribed in museological space.

32. Substantialbibliographiespertainingto the originsand developmentof museums

of art may be found in The OriginsofMuseums:The Cabinetof Curiositiesin Sixteenth- and
Seventeenth-Century Europe,ed. Oliver Impey and ArthurMacGregor (Oxford, 1985), pp.
281-312, and in Adalgisa Lugli, Naturalia et mirabilia:Il collezionismo nelle
enciclopedico
Wunderkammern d'Europa (Milan, 1983), pp. 243-58. See also Louis Marin, "Fragments
d'histoires de musees," Cahiers du Musee national d'art moderne17-18 (1986): 17-36;
Hubert Damisch, "The Museum Device: Notes on InstitutionalChanges," LotusInterna-
tional,no. 35 (1982): 4-11; Stephen Bann, TheClothingofClio:A StudyoftheRepresentation
of
Historyin Nineteenth-Century Britainand France (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 76-92; and Paul
Holdengraiber,"'A Visible Historyof Art': The Forms and Preoccupations of the Early
Museum," Studiesin Eighteenth CenturyCulture,no. 17 (1987): 107-17.

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380 Donald Preziosi The QuestionofArtHistory

And yetwhilethe apparatusof art historyand the dramaturgyof the

museumare similarto the extentthattheyboth are addressed to the task
of fabricatingand sustainingthe presentas the productof the past,there
is a dimensionof museologicalstagecraftonlyinferentially presentin art
history,namely, itsaddress to the selfas an object of ethicalattentionand
inwardworkthroughthe heightenedconfrontationof beholder and the
museological "man-and/as-hiswork."33More about this shortly.
Since the late eighteenthcenturyand the beginningof the transfor-
mation of the old curio closetsof early collectorsinto what Summerson
termed"totalitarian"museumsdevoted to the encyclopedic"histories"of
art, two principalparadigmsfor the organizationof museologicalspace
have dominatedthe practiceof the modern museum.34The firstof these
involvedthe decorationof a givenspace-a room,gallery,or ensembleof
rooms-in such a way as to simulatethe period ambience of a work or
works by the inclusionof objects fromthe historicalcontextsin which
such workswould have been originallyseen, displayed,or used. Variations
on this theme include the exact replicationof an artist'sstudio,or of a
space in whichsuch workswere originallydisplayed,suggestivearrange-
mentsof period pieces around objects or images,or arraysof relicsand
mementosof the artistin [Link] formatmaybe as minimallyartic-
ulated as in the case of the Museum of Modern Art in New York,where
the modernityof the architectureitselfprovidesa fittingcomplementto
the artisticmodernismof twentieth-century artworksdeployed therein,
or as maximalas thereplicationof an entireRoman villaforthedisplayof
ancientGreekand Roman artin [Link] GettyMuseumin Malibu. This
model has obvious parallels withthe familarpanoramas of museumsof
naturalhistoryand ethnography,whereinplants,animals,or human effi-
gies may be set up withintypically"natural"settings.35
The second paradigm of museologicaldisplaycommon to museums
of art involvesthe delimitationof designedor appropriatedspace accord-
ing to timeperiods,styles,or schoolsof art (or ofa particularartist).Typi-
callysuch spaces are more or less coterminouswithcenturies,the span of
politicalregimes,or national,ethnic,or [Link] mode of
museologicalstagecraftis correlativeto the archivalspace of arthistorical
practice,as well as to the formatof the art historicalsurveytextwherein

ArtHistory,pp. 21-33.
33. See Preziosi, Rethinking
34. See Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach,"The UniversalSurveyMuseum,"ArtHistory
3 (Dec. 1980): 447-69, and Ignasi de Sola-Morales, "Toward a Modern Museum: From
Riegl to Giedion," Oppositions25 (Fall 1982): 68-77.
35. See Bann, The Clothingof Clio, pp. 77-85. This model corresponds to that of
Alexandre du Sommerard's Musee de Cluny; see also Ann Reynolds, "Reproducing
Nature: The Museum of Natural Historyas Nonsite,"October, no. 45 (Summer 1988): 109-
27, and Ivan Karp and Corinne Kratz, "The Fate of Tipoo's Tiger: A CriticalAccount of
Ethnographic Display,"typescript.

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CriticalInquiry Winter1992 381

portionsof thearchiveor textcorrespondto episodes in the historicaland

genealogicaldevelopmentof styles,genres,schools,or artisticcareers.36
Both dramaturgicaldevices are addressed to the displayof evidence
forthe "truth"of [Link] firstmodel affordsthe possibilitythatthe
significanceof a workwillbe construedas a complex functionof the mul-
tiple relationshipsamong all elementsof its contextualenvironment,of
the specificitiesof the object's historyand [Link] second model
foregroundsthe work'ssignificanceon a diachronicaxis, and the workis
staged as one of a linkedseriesof "solutions"to some aestheticor icono-
graphic "problem"-for example, the problem of naturalisticrendering
of the human formin twodimensionsas mightbe stagedbythesequential
arrayof black-and red-figureGreek vases in a gallery,or the problems
facingmoderndesignersof furniture, teapots,or politicalbroadsheets.
While it mightappear that these two modes of museologicalstage-
craftcorrespondspecificallyto art historicalparadigmsof explanation-
the first,that is, similarto modes of sociohistoricalexplanation in art
historicalargumentation,with the second paralleling more formalistic
argumentation-in factin both modes of practicethe significance,truth,
or pertinenceof a workis formattedas a functionof contextualrelation-
ships: in the firstcase more or less synchronic;in the second instance
diachronic.
In the firstor panoramicmode of evidentiarydisplay,the object pur-
portsto be in some waya distinctand fittingproductof itstimeand place,
a "reflection"(in a varietyof senses) of a wider milieuof productionand
[Link] of stagecraftis the assumptionof a
certainhomogeneityin thatoriginalenvironment,a certainuniformity of
style,mentality, or moral or aesthetic The
sensibility. inference is thatthe
observermayfindtracesor symptomsof thatspecificity in manyor all of
the materialproducts of that spatiotemporalframe.
In the second mode, theartwork'spertinenceor truthis stagedincre-
mentallyor differentially as a momentin the evolution(commonlystaged
as progressive)of a tradition,style,school,genre,or problemin morphol-
ogy or iconography,or of an individualcareer (Monet at Giverny,Monet
in old age, or Picasso afterGuernica, for example).
Common to both is the establishmentof predicativeor interrogative
frameworks forthe viewer:enframingsof workswhose materialtopologies
simulateor performthe associationsneeded to fixand localize meaning.
The institutionof the museum functionsin a mannernot unlikethatof
the visual, diagrammaticlogic of scientificdemonstrationwherein the
actual deploymentof evidence-like so many charts, tables, lists,and

36. See Bann, TheClothingofClio,pp. 77-85; the second model correspondsto thatof
Alexandre Lenoir's installationsin the Convent of the Petits-Augustins
in Paris in the first
decades of the [Link] distributedobjects according to centuriesover
several rooms of the museum.

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382 Donald Preziosi The QuestionofArtHistory

diagrams-itself constructsand legitimizesthe "truth"of what is in-

tended: conclusions regarding origins, descent, influence, affiliation,
progress,historicaldirection,or the makeupofthe mentalitiesand morals
of an age or place. In thisregard,museologicaland art historicalpractice
maybe seen as correlative:the object's positionin the archivaland mne-
monic systemacquires its cogency in response to (more or less) explicit
questions: What time is this place?
Arthistoryand museumsof artconsequentlyestablishcertaincondi-
tionsof readingobjectsand imagesin sucha wayas to foregroundthe rhe-
torical economies of metaphoricaland metonymicrelationships."7Both
situate their users (operators) in anamorphic positionsfrom which the
"history"of art may be seen as unfolding,almost magically,beforetheir
eyes. Regardless of the fragmentaryor partial nature of a particular
museumcollectionor of a givenart historicalarchiveor curriculum,both
functionas exemplary or emblematicinstancesof an imaginary,ideal
plenitude. Objects known and unknown will have their "place," their
proper and fixed locus in that encyclopedicand universalhistoryof art
projected onto the horizon of the future. Both art historical and
museologicalpractice,to paraphraseWalterBenjamin,deal in allegorical
figuresthatexpressa certain"willto symbolictotality"and thatcontinu-
ally stare out at us as incompleteand imperfect.38At the same time,the
narrativestagingsof thesetwomechanismsof our modernity, in theirevi-
dential and implicationalpalpabilities,hold out the promisethat all will
eventuallymake [Link] short,art historyand museologyconstitutethe
promise that whatevermightoccur could one day be made meaningful.
As evidentiaryinstitutions,both have been grounded in that irony so
poignantlyarticulatedby Lacan:

What is realized in [my]historyis not the past definiteof what was,

since it is no more, or even the presentperfectof what has been in
whatI am, but the futureanteriorof whatI shallhavebeen forwhatI
am in the process of becoming.39

Since Hegel and Winckelmann,thisironyhas deeply informedwhat art

historyhas taken on itselfto afford.

37. In Bann's suggestiveanalysisof the museums of du Sommerard and Lenoir, the

formerrelies on relationshipsof synechdochein the associationsof objects, the latteron
metonymy.A critiqueof Bann's analyseswillbe foundin Preziosi,"ArtHistory,Museology,
and the Stagingof Modernity,"Parallel Visions,ed. Chris Keledjian (forthcoming).See also
White, "Foucault's Discourse: The Historiographyof Anti-Humanism,"The Contentofthe
Form,pp. 124-25, and Reiss,TheDiscourseofModernism, pp. 9-54. The fundamentaltextis
Roman Jakobson, "Closing Statement: Linguisticsand Poetics," in Stylein Language, ed.
Thomas A. Sebeok (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), pp. 350-77.
38. Benjamin, The Originof theGermanTragicDrama, [Link] Osborne (London,
1977), p. 186.
[Link] Lacan, Ecrits(Paris, 1966), p. 300; my translation.

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CriticalInquiry Winter1992 383

8
Art historyand museologyboth work to legitimizetheir truthsas
original, preconceived, and only recovered from the past. Both have
aimed at the dissolutionof troublingambiguitiesabout the past by fixing
meaning,locatingitssource in the artist,the historicalmoment,the men-
talityor moralityof an age, place, people, race, gender,or class, and by
arrangingor formattingthe past into rationalizedgenealogy: a clearly
ramifiedancestryfor the present,for the presencethat constitutesour
[Link] narrativedurationof the "historyof art" becomes at the
same time the representationof and [Link] reality
effecthas constitutedthe historicistagenda on whichart historyas a mode
of writingaddressed to the presenthas been erectedand to whichmuseo-
logical theatrealludes.40
Both are practicesof power whereinthe desire forconstructingthe
presentis displaced and staged as a desire forknowledgeof the past such
thatthe presentitselfmaycome to be picturedas ordered and orientedas
the effectand productof progressiveand [Link] is clearlythe
case, forexample, that the discourse on art has been deeply concerned,
implicitly and explicitly,withthe promotionand validationof the idea of
the modern nation-stateas an entityideallydistinctand homogeneouson
ethnic,racial,linguistic,and [Link] art in particu-
lar have served,since theiroriginsin the late eighteenthcentury,to legiti-
mize the nation-stateor the Volk as having a distinct,unique, and
self-identical persona,style,and aestheticsensibility.
At the same time,art
historyand the museumhave workedto promotethe idea of the historical
period as itselfunifiedand homogeneous, or dominated by a singular
familyof values and attitudes.41
It will be clear thatthe underlyingand controllingmetaphorin this
historicistlabor is a certainvisionof an ideal human selfhood-a persona
witha styleof itsown,and withan exteriordirectlyexpressiveof an inner
spiritor essence. In thisregard the labors of art historyand museology
have traditionallybeen carried forwardalong the linesof personification
and characterization:whatstampsNetherlandishart of a certainage or of
all ages will ideallybe reflectedin the paintingof a seventeenth-century
masteras wellas in thedesignof contemporarybateaux-mouches plyingthe
canals of Amsterdamin the twentiethcentury;and the stampof Picasso's

40. See White,"The Fictionsof Factual Representation,"TropicsofDiscourse,pp. 121-

34, in connection with the "realityeffect"of historicalnarration.
41. See Preziosi, RethinkingArtHistory,pp. 11-16, and FredricJameson,ThePolitical
Unconscious:Narrativeas a SociallySymbolicAct(Ithaca, N.Y., 198 1), p. 27, on the question of
periodicity.A series of essayson the subject by art historiansmaybe foundin NewLiterary
History1 (Winter 1970): 113-44, with discussionsby Schapiro, Ernst Gombrich, H. W.
Janson, and George Kubler.

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384 Donald Preziosi The QuestionofArtHistory

persona willbe adduced as much fromhis signatureas fromhis ceramics,

glasswork,and painting.
It may not be hyperbolicto suggestthatart historyand museology
have been conventionallyguided by a more deeply set metaphor-
namely,thatin some sense art is to man (and it is necessaryto stressthe
markednessof thisgendering)as the worldis to God-that human crea-
tivityin all of its varietyis itselfa shadow of divine creativity, its mortal
echo. It is in thisrespectthatthe confrontationof viewerand artworkin
the landscape of the museumembodies one aspect of art historicalprac-
tice thatfindsno easy parallel in other historicaland criticaldisciplines.
This has to do less withthe unique and palpable quiddityof the original
artworkas such,and more to do withitscompoundsitingin thatlandscape
as an evidentialspecimen.
The functionof the museologicalspecimenas an evidentiaryartifact
as sketchedout above-wherein museologicaland art historicalpractice
can be seen as correlative-in fact exists in a multipleepistemological
space. Insofaras the museumand art historyframetheartworkor itspho-
tographicsimulacrumin an archivalmass such as thatpioneered by the
Fogg, or in teleologicallymotivatedtableaux in space, the object or image
acquires evidentialstatuswhen construedmetonymically, synecdochally,
or indexically.A certain mode of reading the object is specified and
afforded by the art historicalarchive or by museological dramaturgy
whereintheobject's significanceis historical,genealogical,or differential.
At the same time,however,the museologicalartifactis staged as an
object of contemplationparadoxicallyboth inside and outside of "his-
tory":as an occasionfor the imaginativereconstitutionof a world,a per-
son, or an age, or ofa universeof (aestheticand/or ethical)sensibility with
whichthe viewedobject is materiallycongruent in all of [Link]
short,the artworkis an occasion for individualmeditationand for the
alignmentof the individualviewingsubjectwiththatwhichappears to be
cued by the viewed object. According to David Finn,

thereis no rightor wrongwayto visita [Link] mostimportant

rule you should keep in mind as you go throughthe frontdoor is to
followyour own [Link] prepared to findwhat excites you, to
enjoy what delightsyour heart and mind, perhaps to have esthetic
experiencesyou will never [Link] have a feastin store foryou
and you should make the mostof it. Stayas long or as shorta timeas
you will, but do your best at all timesto let the work of art speak
directlyto you with a minimumof interferenceor distraction.42

42. David Finn, How to Visita Museum(New York, 1985), p. 10. On the fictionof the
work "speaking" to the beholder, see Douglas Crimp, "On the Museum's Ruins," October,
no. 13 (Summer 1980): 41-58.

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CriticalInquiry Winter1992 385

It may be argued that the massiveart historicaland museological

attentionto the concretespecificity and uniquenessof the workof art,to
its particularityand unreplicativemateriality, to itsauratic quiddity,rep-
resentsnot only a dimensionof disciplinarity peculiar to art historyand
museology, but in one sense more interestinglythe perpetuationof a
particular mode of epistemologicalpracticeantecedentto the historicist
the
scientism, "analytico-referentiality" characteristicof modern discipli-
nary practice.43
Two modes of knowingmightthus be seen to be embodied in the
workof the museum,two kindsof propositionalor interrogativeframe-
works:one whichrelieson a metonymicencodingof phenomena,and one
deeply imbued witha metaphoricorientationon the thingsof thisworld,
grounded in analogical [Link] former,facticity and evidence
are formattedsyntactically, metonymically, differentially;and the order
of the systemconstructsand legitimizesquestions that mightbe put to
sympatheticdata. With the latter,form and content are construed as
being deeply and essentiallycongruent,and the formof the workis the
figureof its truth.44
It is here thatwe maybegin to understandthe foundationaldilemma
that would have confrontedthe formationof a disciplinesuch as art his-
tory: how to fabricatea science of objects simultaneouslyconstruedas
unique and irreducibleand as specimensofa classof [Link]
solutionto thisdilemmahas been the modern discourseon art,a fieldof
dispersionwhereina seriesof intersectinginstitutions-academicart his-
tory,art criticism,museology,the art market,connoisseurship-maintain
in play contrastingsystemsof evidence and proof, demonstrationand
explication, analysis and contemplation,with respect to objects both
semanticallycomplete and differential.
In modern disciplinarypractice, there are seldom entirelypure
examples of these contrastiveepistemologicaltechnologies,suggesting
thatart historyis no simplescience,no uniformmode of culturalpractice,
but an evidentiaryinstitutionhousingmultipleorientationson an object
of studyat once semioticand eucharistic.45 If theFogg Museumappears as
a paradigmaticinstanceof scientificlabor in theestablishment ofa histori-

43. See Reiss, TheDiscourseofModernism, pp. 9-54, and Preziosi,Rethinking ArtHistory,

pp. 55-56.
44. In effect,this double epistemologicalframeworkfor the art of art historyand of
museology corresponds to the contrastivedomains of knowledge examined by Michel
Foucault, The OrderofThings:An Archeology oftheHuman Sciences,[Link]. (New York,
1970). The suggestionhere is that art historyand museologypreserve,in theirobject of
study,an older analogic order of the same withinthe play of differenceand change.
45. On the subject of a "eucharistic"semiology,see Preziosi,Rethinking ArtHistory,pp.
102-6; Marin, Le Portraitdu roi (Paris, 1981); and Milad Doueihi, reviewof Le Portraitdu
roi,by Marin,and Money,Language,and Thought, by Marc Shell, Diacritics14 (Spring 1984):
66-77.

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386 Donald Preziosi The QuestionofArtHistory

cal disciplinemodelled on the protocolsof historicaland literaryinquiry,

thatlabor at the same timewas,as Norton and his associatesmade abun-
dantlyclear,in the serviceof the demonstrationofan ethicalpracticeofthe
selfand itsworks.46The articulationof a "historyof art" was not intended
to be an end in itselfbut was ratherantecedentto the formationof moral
characteron thepartof thosewho wouldsubmitto [Link]'s
museums,then,bore a more directrelationshipto the memorytheatreof
Giulio Camillo of the Renaissance,47or to the ethical cosmos of his
beloved Dante, thanto the "totalitarian"museumsso exasperatingtoJohn
Summerson.

46. For a suggestiveparallel, see David Saunders and Ian Hunter,"Lessons fromthe
'Literatory': How to HistoriciseAuthorship,"CriticalInquiry17 (Spring 1991): 479-509,
in connection withthe rise of the modern novel, seen as comprisingthe occasion for the
modern practice of the self.
47. See Frances A. Yates, The Art ofMemory(Chicago, 1966), pp.

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