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Critical Terms for Art History

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"Art" has always been contested terrain, whether the object in question is a medieval tapestry or Duchamp's Fountain . But questions about the categories of "art" and "art history" acquired increased urgency during the 1970s, when new developments in critical theory and other intellectual projects dramatically transformed the discipline. The first edition of Critical Terms for Art History both mapped and contributed to those transformations, offering a spirited reassessment of the field's methods and terminology.

Art history as a field has kept pace with debates over globalization and other social and political issues in recent years, making a second edition of this book not just timely, but crucial. Like its predecessor, this new edition consists of essays that cover a wide variety of "loaded" terms in the history of art, from sign to meaning , ritual to commodity . Each essay explains and comments on a single term, discussing the issues the term raises and putting the term into practice as an interpretive framework for a specific work of art. For example, Richard Shiff discusses "Originality" in Vija Celmins's To Fix the Image in Memory , a work made of eleven pairs of stones, each consisting of one "original" stone and one painted bronze replica.

In addition to the twenty-two original essays, this edition includes nine new ones— performance , style , memory/monument , body , beauty , ugliness , identity , visual culture/visual studies , and social history of art —as well as new introductory material. All help expand the book's scope while retaining its central goal of stimulating discussion of theoretical issues in art history and making that discussion accessible to both beginning students and senior scholars.

Mark Antliff, Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Stephen Bann, Homi K. Bhabha, Suzanne Preston Blier, Michael Camille, David Carrier, Craig Clunas, Whitney Davis, Jas Elsner, Ivan Gaskell, Ann Gibson, Charles Harrison, James D. Herbert, Amelia Jones, Wolfgang Kemp, Joseph Leo Koerner, Patricia Leighten, Paul Mattick Jr., Richard Meyer, W. J. T. Mitchell, Robert S. Nelson, Margaret Olin, William Pietz, Alex Potts, Donald Preziosi, Lisbet Rausing, Richard Shiff, Terry Smith, Kristine Stiles, David Summers, Paul Wood, James E. Young

536 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

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Robert S. Nelson

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
Profile Image for Syd Amir.
131 reviews51 followers
July 11, 2016
کتاب حاصل نوشته های جمعی از افراد صاحب نام در حوزه ی تاریخ هنر است. نویسندگان سعی دارند تا مفاهیمی را شرح دهند که به درک و تحلیل هنر و تاریخ هنر معاصر کمک کند
در این طرح مفاهیم نو اتفاقا بدیل های دیگری نیز برای تاریخ هنر آنگونه که تا کنون نوشته شده طرح میشود .

مقالات بیش از این که یک مرور بر ادبیات موضوع باشند تحلیلی از شرایط موجود تاریخ هنر در آن حوزه را ارائه می کنند. گاهی پیش بینی هایی و گاهی هم پیشنهاد هایی برای مطالعات بیشتر.

اینطور به نظر میرسد که خواندن این کتاب برای کسانی که میخواهند از جریانات معاصر تاریخ هنر، موضوعاتف چالش ها و گرایش های اخیر مطلع باشند مفید باشد.

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بازنمایی - تصویر و متن - نشانه - وانموده و ... بود
120 reviews1 follower
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September 20, 2024
I fear I will be logging many textbooks/ journals in the coming months. But I need my goodread friends to know I haven’t stopped reading. Could you imagine?!!
Profile Image for Srđan.
Author 10 books20 followers
April 4, 2020
Prvo, ovo nije knjiga za čitanje odjednom, zbog kompleksnosti i prisustva 33 autora, bez ujednačenog stila pisanja. Meni je bilo značajno da čitam o određenim kritičkim terminima koji su mi trebali tokom i posle studija i savetujem svima da termine tako i koriste, prema potrebi.

Neujednačenost doprinosi tome da su neki termini obrađeni skoro pa školski, a drugi bez zadržavanja na uvodu, pa upadamo često u neke profesionalne diskusije koje mogu biti više ili manje upotrebljive. Ne ulazeći u raspravu zašto su se ovi termini našli u knjizi a neki drugi ne, neki eseji mislim da uopšte nisu upotrebljivi, ne zbog teme, nego zbog autora koji nisu komunikativni (odnosno njihov stil pisanja). Bolji eseji odišu informisanošću, vođenjem čitaoca kroz relevantne diskusije, uz konstantnu vezu sa umetnošću, i novim saznanjima.

Knjiga nije uvod, već pregled, koji je vezan za određeno vreme - prvo izdanje 1996, drugo 2003. - i geografiju - ogromna većina autora su iz SAD, a umetnička dela i teorije vezane za umetnost zapadne tradicije. Danas bi, verujem, ponovno izdanje pretrpelo dosta promena, oslikavajući stanje struke današnjice, što nije ništa loše (štaviše, voleo bih da pročitam to novo za sada imaginarno izdanje). Svakako, termini su relevantni, bilo tradicionalni ili noviji, uz zadršku vremena nastanka knjige.

Ukratko, čitati po potrebi, uz istraživanje referenci.
Profile Image for Sasha.
129 reviews7 followers
July 7, 2015
I didn't find all the articles equally informative and some seemed redundant. Some are, however, a really good, precise and short introduction to important terms that will always appear within the field of art history. Definitely worth a read for anyone studying art history.
Profile Image for Martin Ridgway.
184 reviews1 follower
August 19, 2018
This can be quite unhelpful. The editors have commissioned some essays to illustrate their "critical terms". But some of them illustrate the term by using it rather than defining it clearly - so you have to fight through some dense essays to work out what they're trying to illustrate / define. Some are good and successful; some just fail.
Profile Image for Andy Dávila.
85 reviews
August 27, 2024
I thought this book would help explain many of the terms I come across often in art history and in general, but many times I was actually left more confused, even after having studied art history for five years

many times, I had to spend an hour looking up a different term used in an essay, and figuring out the history of the school of philosophy that produced this term, only to kind of begin to grasp the term. and this was’nt even the term the essay was about

is this what academia is(?)

Although you will be able to pick out some helpful passages for future research, I think doing some online research on these terms may be more fruitful
Profile Image for Laura Motush.
13 reviews4 followers
May 23, 2008
Although this is not a book I would have students read as a whole, chapters, as applicable, can be assigned readings that dig deeper into art terms and history. It is a good reference for how these terms have evolved, but I would only used this in a more advanced art class or as a reference for myself for my teachings.
Profile Image for Becky.
38 reviews26 followers
March 23, 2010
Difficult read, however, thought provoking.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews

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