The Books that Shaped Art History: From Gombrich and Greenberg to Alpers and Krauss

The Books That Shaped Art History provides an invaluable roadmap of the field by reassessing the impact of the most important texts of art history published during the 20th century. Each of the sixteen incisive chapters, focusing on a single book, is written by a leading art historian, curator or one of the promising scholars of today. In bringing these cross-generational contributions together, the book presents a varied and invaluable overview of the history of art, told through its most enduring literature. Each essay – with writers including John Elderfield, Boris Groys, Susie Nash and Richard Verdi – analyses a single major work, mapping the intellectual development of its author, setting out the premises and argument of the book, discussing its position within the field of art history, and looking at its significance in the context both of its initial reception and its legacy. Enlivening debates and questioning the very status of art history itself, this is a concise and brilliant study of the discipline and an invaluable resource for anyone interested in visual culture and its histories.

Table of Contents

Preface • Introduction • ‘Émile Mâle, L’art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France, 1898’ by Alexandra Gajewski • ‘Bernard Berenson, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, 1903’ by Carmen C. Bambach • ‘Heinrich Wölfflin, Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe, 1915’ by David Summers • ‘Roger Fry, Cézanne: A Study of His Development, 1927’ by Richard Verdi • ‘Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of the Modern Movement, 1936’ by Colin Amery • ‘Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Matisse: His Art and His Public, 1951’ by John Elderfield • ‘Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character, 1953’ by Susie Nash • ‘Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art, 1956’ by John-Paul Stonard • ‘E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, 1960’ by Christopher S. Wood • ‘Clement Greenberg, Art and Culture, 1961’ by Boris Groys • ‘Francis Haskell, A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque, 1963’ by Louise Rice • ‘Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy, 1972’ by Paul Hills • ‘T. J. Clark, Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution, 1973’ by Alastair Wright • ‘Svetlana Alpers, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century, 1983’ by Mariët Westermann • ‘Rosalind Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, 1985’ by Anna Lovatt • ‘Hans Belting, Bild und Kult, 1990’ by Jeffrey Hamburger • Notes • Bibliographical essays • Author Biographies