2. Writing art history

Abstract

‘Writing art history’ looks at how histories of art have been written in Europe and North America and the effect that this has had on the object itself and on the subjects of art history. Discussing the work of influential art historians Pliny the Elder, Giorgio Vasari, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Jacob Burckhardt, Ernst Gombrich, and Clement Greenberg, it introduces the expectations we have of art history as a chronological story about great Western male artists. Complementary to this gender bias is the impact of the writing of women art historians such as Griselda Pollock and Linda Nochlin. They have mapped out a different way of seeing and understanding cultural production and the social relationships expressed therein.