A Companion to Art Theory

The Companion provides an accessible critical survey of Western visual art theory from sources in Classical, Medieval and Renaissance thought through to contemporary writings.

Auteur

Paul Smith is Chair of the History of Art department at the
University of Warwick. His previous publications include
Impressionism: Beneath the Surface (1995), Interpreting
Cézanne (1996) and Seurat and the Avant-Garde (1997).

Carolyn Wilde is now retired and was formerly Senior
Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bristol. Her
publications include articles on philosophical aesthetics, the most
recent of which is 'Style and Value in the Art of Painting' in
Richard Wollheim on the Art of Painting, edited by Rob van
Gerwen, 2001.

Texte du rabat
This survey of art theory in the context of Western visual art consists of 41 original essays written by experts in the field. Following an extensive introduction on the formation of modern art theory, the Companion is organized chronologically so that readers can trace developments of visual art theory, from classical and medieval sources and modern conceptions of art as they have been theorized since the Renaissance, through to some current theoretical preoccupations.

In addition to outlining and describing various theoretical positions, the book's chapters articulate some assumptions that underpin them and raise more general questions about the nature of theorizing about art. In this way the Companion provides both an introduction to main themes of Western art theory and a source for critical enquiry into the purposes, possibilities and limitations of theory in the context of artistic practice.

The work can also be used alongside the three Art in Theory anthologies published by Blackwell, as a further art theory resource.

Contenu

Plates ix

Notes on Contributors x

Preface xvi

Part I: Tradition and the Academy 1

Introduction: Alberti and the Formation of Modern Art Theory
3

Carolyn Wilde

1 The Classical Concept of Mimesis 19

Göran Sörbom

2 Medieval Art Theory 29

Hugh Bredin

3 Neoplatonist Aesthetics 40

Suzanne Stern-Gillet

4 Renaissance Art Theories 49

François Quiviger

5 Touch, Tactility, and the Reception of Sculpture in Early
Modern Italy 61

Geraldine A. Johnson

6 The Spiritual Exercises of Leonardo da Vinci 75

Robert Williams

7 Academic Theory 1550-1800 88

Paul Duro

8 Rhetorical Categories in the Academy 104

Caroline van Eck

9 The Picturesque and its Development 116

Andrew Ballantyne

Part II: Around Modernism 125

10 The Aesthetics of Kant and Hegel 127

Jason Gaiger

11 E. H. Gombrich and the Tradition of Hegel 139

David Summers

12 German Romanticism and French Aesthetic Theory 150

Wendy S. Mercer

13 Expression: Natural, Personal, Pictorial 159

Richard Shiff

14 Reading Artists' Words 173

Richard Hobbs

15 Nietzsche and the Artist 183

Michael White

16 Wittgenstein, Description, and Adrian Stokes (on Cezanne)
196

Paul Smith

17 Modernism and the Idea of the Avant-Garde 215

Paul Wood

18 On the Intention of Modern(ist) Art 229

Fred Orton

19 Anti-Art and the Concept of Art 244

Paul N. Humble

20 Marcel Duchamp's Readymades and Anti-Aesthetic Reflex
253

David Hopkins

Part III: Critical Theory and Postmodernism 265

21 Marxism and Critical Art History 267

David Craven

22 Walter Benjamin and Art Theory 286

Howard Caygill

23 Bakhtin and the Visual Arts 292

Deborah J. Haynes

24 Peirce's Visuality and the Semiotics of Art 303

Michael Leja

25 Conceptual Art 317

Charles Harrison

26 Barthes on Art 327

Margaret Iversen

27 Foucault and Art 337

Roy Boyne

28 Derrida and the Parergon 349

Robin Marriner

29 What Consciousness Forgets: Lyotard's Concept of the
Sublime 360

Renée van de Vall

30 Deleuze on Francis Bacon 370

Ian Heywood

31 Feminisms and Art Theory 380

Marsha Meskimmon

32 Psycho-Phallus (Qu'est-ce que c'est?) 397

Mignon Nixon

Part IV: Interpretation and the Institution of Art
409

33 The Rules of Representation 411

John Willats

34 Gombrich and Psychology 426

Richard Woodfield

35 Hermeneutics and Art Theory 436

Nicholas Davey

36 Reciprocity and Reception Theory 448

Michael Ann Holly

37 The Paradox of Creative Interpretation in Art 458

Carl Hausman

38 Interdisciplinarity and Visual Culture 467

Charlotte Klonk

39 Against Curatorial Imperialism: Merleau-Ponty and the
Historicity of Art 477

Paul Crowther

40 The Institutional Theory of Art: Theory and Antitheory
487

Garry L. Hagberg

Index 505