Preface

Podro, Michael

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Preface

Michael Podro

The Critical Historians of Art

TWO INTERESTS prompted the writing of this book: firstly, the attraction of a literature which made a serious attempt to say things about the visual arts that would register the energy and complexity of the arts themselves; secondly, the sense that this literature continued to exert an influence largely through shadowy reminiscence, the texts themselves having slipped from view. …

Author

Michael Podro

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00131.001

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-13957

Preface

Two interests prompted the writing of this book: firstly, the attraction of a literature which made a serious attempt to say things about the visual arts that would register the energy and complexity of the arts themselves; secondly, the sense that this literature continued to exert an influence largely through shadowy reminiscence, the texts themselves having slipped from view.

This material was the subject of lectures and seminars given at the University of Essex between 1970 and 1980. I should like to thank all those in the Department of Art who, during that period, argued over its problems. I am particularly indebted to Robert Bernasconi, Valerie Fraser, Michael Holly, Margaret Iversen, Jules Lubbock, Annie Richardson, Anna Tietze and Peter Vergo, and to Maureen Reid for keeping up with, and making adjustments to, continual revisions of the typescript. The comments of John Nash and Alex Potts on the main arguments of the book have been, for me, particularly helpful.

To E. H. Gombrich I owe the debt of anyone working in the field, and more, for many years of conversation. I owe a similar debt to Richard Wollheim, whose Art and its Objects gave focus to many of the issues involved here. Throughout the period of writing, I have discussed the work with Michael Baxandall and Thomas Puttfarken, and they read and criticised drafts with immense generosity of time and thought. Without the library of Warburg Institute, writing the book would, for me, have been inconceivable, and I am very grateful to its librarians for their constant help. Finally, I should like to thank John Nicoll for his encouragement over a long period and Stephanie Hallin for her care in preparing the book for the press.

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Book details

BOOKThe Critical Historians of Art

Michael Podro

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00131

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-13956

The major transformations in the philosophy of history and in aesthetics in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Germany played an important part in the development of the subsequent historiography of art. In this important book, Michael Podro provides the first extensive critical account of the work of the figures of that era who made the fundamental contributions to the field. He discusses and analyzes the work of Semper, Riegel, Wolfflin, Warburg, and Panofsky, linking their concerns to the basic philosophical problems of art and aesthetics formulated by Kant, Schiller, and Hegel.

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Author

Michael Podro

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date September 1982 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300032406

EISBN 9780300160970

Illustrations 75

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

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