Art History & Visual Studies

Before starting this course, I questioned what visual studies had to do with actually interpreting and analyzing an actual art object. But now, as dicussed by MAH, I realize that art history must contain an analysis of aesthetic in relation to historical inquiries into art lead to different interpretations. These interpretations, through time, lead to rejuventation and new knowledge associated with the history of art. However, it seems important to note, according to MC, that these new choices of how to talk about art history and visual studies is the result of an institutional conditioning and education that art historians, critics, and curators have received.

Although critical theories provide new meaning or knowledge to art from different time periods, I think the conclusion by MAH hits the nail on the head. What causes us to write about art? Why do we want to become historians? Why does this matter? For me, it is an aesthetic response that initially gets me excited to know more about an artist, group of artists, etc. Although aesthetics and the associated pleasure and satisfaction received is universal, it is a driving force that triggers an initial response which then leads to a critical response through the incorporation of critical and cultural theories. We cannot escape the universality of Kant because I believe his writings from the Critique and the Power of Judgment contain the origins from which we choose to enter the industry known as art history.

However, as discussed by KM, the field of visual studies allows us to pull back the layers of art in order clearly see the discriminations we make based on aesthetics and look at art as just visual artifacts. As students and historians, I believe that art cannot provide a conclusive definition based solely on aesthetic autonomy but that historians bring to light the claims of these autonomies. In a postmodern world, it may appear that we are lost but it seems the discourse created through postmodernism makes us aware of the knowledge that has been in the shadows for a long time.

In bringing to light the claims of these aesthetic autonomies, it is vital that historians are aware of the historicities of the past in order to make the connection to the present (mentioned by MC). However, the western knowledge that has been associated with Modernism is in confilict with the analysis and interpretation of non-western art. Postcolonialism and globalization are important theories in order to make educated and valuable analyses of non-western art. This brings to light the conversation we had last week at Stanford as to how historians are cornered into being specialists in genres that related to our own social conditions.

I think I have a lot more to learn about theory and I am definitely learning in my research paper how difficult it is to understand one Foucault theory. I did not choose to be an art historian because I love Foucault, Freud, Marx, or the other nutjobs who decided to write these complicated books. It really boils down to aesthetics for me..If the work does not move me visually, I have a hard time making a connection with it. But hopefully, through many sleepless nights in the future, critical theory will help to broaden my appreciation of art without my subjective hegemony of aesthetics.