Premium
Reading the Virtual Museum of General Art History
Author(s) -
Karlholm Dan
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
art history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8365
pISSN - 0141-6790
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8365.00281
Subject(s) - art , reading (process) , art history , contemporary art , postmodernism , argument (complex analysis) , history of art , visual arts , representation (politics) , literature , performance art , philosophy , architecture , linguistics , biochemistry , chemistry , politics , political science , law
The representation of general art history in the nineteenth century is the centre of attention of this essay. It examines, in particular, the structural characteristics from 1845 to 1856 of Denkmäler der Kunst ( Monuments of Art ), a collection of engravings which constitutes the visual supplement to the first text of general art history, Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte (1841‐‐42) by Franz Kugler. The impact of this largely neglected pictorial ‘atlas’, early on metaphorized as a ‘museum’, is connected to comparable visual regimes of a later date, especially Malraux’s photographic ‘museum without walls’, but also Warburg’s Memory Atlas, the open‐ended possibilities of post‐photographic practices and the web. Intersected is an argument with Danto’s Hegelian ‘end of art’ thesis, ushering in a more closely contextualized reading of the ‘end’ of art history from a contemporary, media‐saturated viewpoint. It all begins, and ends, with Warhol’s postmodern version of Raphael’s vision: the Sistine Madonna .