The Shaping of Art History: Meditations on a Discipline

By Patricia A. Emison

Book Overview

In this provocative book, Patricia Emison invites the reader to consider and reconsider how past thinkers--from Pliny and Alberti to Freud and Fried--have conceptualized the history of Western art. What a book review attempts to be for a book, this extended essay attempts to be for several hundred years' worth of books in a field: an indicator of problems with the old attempts and hopes for the new ones. It is a defense of art history for those outside the field who question its reliability or even its importance; it is a critique of art history for those in the field who may have been preoccupied with looking at trees but who might be interested in trying to see the forest.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0271033053
• ISBN13: 9780271033051
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Length: 120 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.3" x 6.0"