Dana Arnold Art History Summary

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Art history might be better defined by what it is not, rather than what it is. The beginning to Dana Arnold’s introduction of Art History: A Very Short Introduction works on exactly that basis. Art history is not art appreciation; it is not pure connoisseurship. But what art history truly is, art historians have yet to determine. In art history a few features hold certain; art history has its own methodology, its own history, and its own purpose.
When practicing art history, a few things will always take place: analysis, interpretation, understanding, and discussion. First, the analysis of the artwork begins in the visual. An art historian obligated to examine the matter, form, content, and context of the art. A painting necessitates being seen not only as a collection of brush strokes done with skill, but also a product of its time portraying the class norms, societal roles, and beyond in a single object. Historians interpret artwork in the current time frame and in the context in which it was made. All of the previous actions, of course, come from attempting to understand the work and the time frame of its origin. Over the course of the study of an artwork a few questions must be answered. How did the …show more content…

The origin of art history consisted of people simply talking about art in a historical way, and, over time, that transformed into studying the culture or the psychology of the artist. Every art historian, to a degree, sets out to transform what art history is. Their work moves the study in different directions by focusing on a different purpose or area than the scholars before them. Art historians such as Arnold, Banandall, Fernie, and Panofsky all played their role in writing texts that influence the way art is studied and the purpose behind doing so. The history of art history shows that it has and will

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