What Is the Difference Between Art History and Art Criticism
In this newspaper, the human relationship betwixt art criticism and art history is considered. The cynicism with which early scholars and writers looked at criticism, generally may take been responsible for the lack of prominence or depth of this subject area in the fine art programmes of many institutions in post colonial Africa. This is peculiarly prominent when compared with the provision for art history.
Dr. Abel Mac Diakparomre, Delta Land Academy, Abraka-Nigeria"Criticism is to art what history is to action and philosophy to wisdom."
Northrop Frye (1912 – 1991)[i] (1957)
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The paper interrogates the ambits of art criticism and art history and comes to the decision that they are mutually related through the apply of art historical linguistic communication in art criticism.
Introduction
Fine art criticism does not occupy a position of significance in the art training processes that were bequeathed many conventional art institutions in Africa past colonial administrations that introduced western modes of art training to the colonized territories. Greater emphasis was placed on fine art-making. This state of affairs has remained more or less the same some fifty years later all the countries gained political independence.
The "Canonical Minimum Academic Standards" of the National Universities Committee (NUC) of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for art preparation at the undergraduate level of academic study, for instance, bear eloquent testimony to the place of art criticism in the scheme.[ii]
Conversely, art history; mostly understood as the bookish study of objects of art in their historical evolution and context; is taught at every level of written report through undergraduate programme. The reason for this is not distant from the fact that art criticism is usually perceived a much lower risk activity than art-making.
This perception of art criticism may take informed the comment by the Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter – Tom Stoppard (1937 – ) – which ridicules art critics when he said that he doubts if "art needed Ruskin whatever more than a moving train needs one of its passengers to shove it."[iii]
The same perception of art criticism may have also informed the opinion of the British prime minister and writer, Benjamin Disraeli (1804 – 1881), when he said that art critics are "men who have failed in literature and art." Disreali'south perception of critics was given another vent in the British House of Commons when he said that "it is much easier to be disquisitional that to exist correct."[four]
Just, art criticism is probably the real reason for art-making because it stimulates the artistic instinct, drives innovation considering of the queries it generates, and as a consequence, enhances art appreciation because of explanations that it offers.
A piece of work of art is usually perceived by many as a mystic creation whose essence lies at an indiscernible trajectory, and therefore, requires paranormal capabilities to comprehend. The creator of the piece of work of art is also usually trapped in a web of transcendentalist tendency in his thinking and the products of those thoughts. All of these misapprehensions require a demystification and deconstruction.
Philosophy has assigned to fine art criticism the responsibility for this demystification and deconstruction through the apply of art historical language. However, the symbiotic nature of these two instruments of art decoding – art criticism and art history – seems to be oblivious to many art makers and connoisseurs hence the antagonism usually faced by art critics.
The attempt hither is an endeavor to interrogate the relationship between 'art criticism' and 'art history' and to highlight their linkages. Attempt is also made at identifying the convergence of the two terms, and showing how both art criticism and art history reinforce each other in their effort towards making the artist's statement more than comprehendible. This is be washed by explicating the term – art criticism, pointing out its differentiation from aesthetics and art philosophy, and cartoon attention to the significance of art historical linguistic communication equally the vehicle for art criticism.
Art Criticism and Art Historical Language
Art criticism is usually the word or evaluation of visual art. Co-ordinate to Arthur Danto (1924 – ),[v] it involves analyzing structures, meanings and bug of particular works of fine art by comparison them with other works, and then, evaluating them. This process is commonly to ensure that a rational basis is created for the appreciation of works of art. Ragans' recommends a iv-step systematic approach for the realization of this 'rational appreciation'.[vi]
Though it is not known when fine art criticism began, it is believed to have its origin in the origins of art itself. Fine art criticism as a genre, and in its modern sense, notwithstanding has its origin in the 18thursday century. The earliest individual to attain reputation as an fine art critic in 18th century was La Font de Saint-Yenne who wrote near "The Salon of 1737" and "The Salon of 1747."[seven] It is Denis Diderot that is, however, usually credited with the invention of the mod medium of art criticism – the capture of fine art in words – in "The Salon of 1765".
According to art historian Thomas E. Crow, Diderot followed on the footsteps of the first generation of professional writers "who made it their concern to offer descriptions and judgments of gimmicky painting and sculpture. The need for such commentary was a product of the similarly novel establishment of regular, free, public exhibitions of the latest fine art" (1995: ten).
The term "art criticism" is commonly applied to judgment of human-made objects from the aesthetic point of view. Information technology is said to be concerned with establishing a relative artistic value upon private works with respect to other comparable styles or sanctioning an entire mode or movement. This was probably why Assunto (1959) divers art criticism as the procedure that leads to a qualitative judgment on works of art.
But art criticism is not aesthetics. Information technology is distinct from aesthetics which is concerned with the nature of fine art including investigating and determining the essence of beauty. This stardom lies essentially in the fact that whereas the purpose of art criticism is to guess single work or group of works, aesthetics is directed towards the evaluation of art in full general. Art criticism is too singled-out from the philosophy of art. This is because the latter aims at interpreting works, rather than assessing their quality, and discovering the nature, significance, and symbology of art in general.
The distinctive grapheme of art criticism does not, withal, imply any incompatibility or conflict with aesthetics or philosophy of fine art. Every aesthetic theory presupposes a trunk of criticism, and is expected to be applied practically in criticism, merely as doing and so, reinvigorates and modifies information technology. Criticism, according to Assunto, is always a practical manifestation of aesthetics; fifty-fifty every bit artful is the theory of criticism.
There is, therefore, reciprocity, though of different type, in the relation between art criticism and aesthetics or philosophy of art. Every estimation of a work of art implies a qualitative judgment which is formulated past criticism. The interpretation paves the way to other judgment. Also, every evaluation of the quality of work of art is e'er an implicit or explicit estimation of the meaning and value of such a piece of work. Whatever evaluation is carried, information technology has to exist expressed through an intelligible and advisable medium.
The vehicle for art criticism is a kind of specialized linguistic communication which captures the essence of the object existence described, analyzed, interpreted and judged. This linguistic communication utilizes certain constituents in its clarification, assay, interpretation, and judgment of particular work of fine art or group of works of art. These constituents include fine art elements, principles of design, and right terminologies. In these constituents inhere historical attributes which brand art criticism and fine art history more or less mutually in-exclusive.
Over the years, "art history", has emerged equally a specialized subject area which addresses the need of chronicling developments and sequences in fine art-making. The written report of the history of fine art works develops in people the professional habit of tracing the forms and imagery of works to their influences and sources besides every bit establishing the value of the works. In doing this, fine art history seems to have evolved a language that facilitates agreement the historical surrounding of the creation of a work of art.
This historical linguistic communication makes it possible to laissez passer qualitative judgment and opens the vistas for acquiring the ability to read the visual languages of the past as well as carrying these in historical manner.
Gombrich's perception of this relationship between art criticism and art history is instructive. According to Gombrich, "the field of art history (is) much like Ceaser's Gual, divided in iii parts inhabited by iii different, though not necessarily hostile tribes [1] the connoisseur, [2] the critic, and [the academic fine art historian]." The point being made hither is that irrespective of the individual distinctiveness of art criticism and art history, at that place is a kind of symbiosis.
The Symbiosis
Fine art criticism, aesthetics, and the philosophy of art tend to form a unified body as it is often very hard to observe art criticism or aesthetics or philosophy of art exist in isolation. An investigation of art criticism, for instance, volition require a constant reference to the allied fields of aesthetics and philosophy of fine art; both of which implicate art history. These centrolineal fields complete the framework of art criticism.
This relationship between art criticism and fine art history is explicated in, for case, the human action of a sculptor who begins a creative process with a mass of clay which may somewhen results in the production of a work of art. Out of the soft yielding material with which the sculptor started, a slice of sculpture develops; shapelessness turns into ordered forms and spaces; and chaos into significant.
This ordered and purposive act of the sculptor is not strange because rarely does the sculptor build a work of art as a kid would build a tower of blocks.
In producing a work of art, the sculptor would dispense his material(s) in a procedure that yields selected number of parts arranged in specific gild that is satisfying to the person organizing them. Every sculptor begins with the basic elements of his medium, and applies the principles of design. The final country of the work is usually dependent upon the nature of these elements and the style in which the principles have been applied. All of these acts of the sculptor which involve material, technique and mode and ends in a form are aimed at communicating with an observer in a language that illuminates the observer'southward perception through the tying of the present to the past.
No subject in the visual arts is a improve purveyor of the creative person's message than art criticism, which responsibility it is to unroll the creation of the form created by the artists as an intellectual event in fourth dimension (its historicity), while keeping an eye on information technology as a visual object.
Another illustration of the symbiotic human relationship between art criticism and art history is conveyed in Nathan Knobler's allegory of a discussion between two persons of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. According to Knobler, "communication betwixt persons of wholly dissimilar background tin occur only on an elementary level; separated by the barriers of language and past the absence of mutual customs and attitudes, the participants in the dialogue may notice that their only basis for communication exists in their common experience of the immediate concrete world" (1966). Even between individuals who share a common heritage, the exchange of ideas, information, and feelings is often difficult.
Often, the inadequacy of communication is the result of a express ability to employ the appropriate language. For the piece of work of fine art to communicate, information technology needs both a vehicle and a medium. In this example, the art critic is the vehicle and art historical language is the medium. Art historical language deploys appropriate vocabularies from art elements, principles of pattern, and right terminology.
Just equally the writer combines parts of a written language to produce his method of communication, so does the art critic combine his knowledge of the history surrounding the art work to laissez passer qualitative judgment. Therefore, art criticism requires knowledge of the history – the time, place, and person – of the art work because the work of art is an object equally well a historical event.
When discussing a sculpture piece, for case, the art critic reports on the human action which falls within the previous acts of the sculptor; that is a previous work by the sculptor; and upon an event within the continuity of the work. The sculptor'southward act could not have taken place without preceding acts of creation performed by him and past others. In estimating the value of the piece of work, the critic likewise considers what it has brought to the history of art.
This cognition of what has been derived from whom and in what manner and caste that is brought to the fore through art criticism sheds low-cal on the artist'southward process of creation, his motives and the shape of his imagination. By so doing, art criticism likewise provides the continuity between the arts of the past and those of the present solar day. If what an art object means is to be understood and qualitative judgment is to be passed, the meaning communicated by the work of fine art must be understood. In all of these, a historical essence is implicated and a historical language is inevitable.
Conclusion
Attempt has been made in the foregoing to testify that art criticism and art history are in-exclusive of each other. In fine art-making, the creative person commonly produces a visual statement which in plow becomes the subject-matter for a response or reaction from the observer. In this sense, a piece of work of fine art may be considered a language.
It has been shown as well that in the visual arts; as in other languages; there is a source of communication, which in this case is the artist; there is a medium that carries the information originating from the source – the work of art; and finally there is a receiver – the observer. Effort has been made hither to prove that the observer must recognize and decipher the symbols and pattern of symbols before agreement can occur, and that art criticism plays a significant role in achieving this.
The paper has also drawn attending to the fact that the use of specialized language (art historical language) in art criticism imbues information technology with the capability of guiding the observer to an understanding of works of art of the by and the present.
Abel Mac Diakparomre, formerly an ethnographer with the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), currently holds a Readership position at the Delta State Academy in Nigeria and has a Masters degree in Sculpture and a doctorate in Art History. ————– [i] Herman Norrie Northrop Frye, (July xiv, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist. [2] The National Universities Committee (NUC) is the regulatory organ of the Federal Government of Nigeria for monitoring academic curricula and adequacy of staff and facilities in Nigerian Universities. In the approved modules for the visual arts, art criticism is subsumed nether art history and appreciation, and in many of the institutions, this is simply provided for in the fist or start and 2nd years of written report. This does not only limit the capacity of the students to acquire but too inhibits the realization of the significance of art criticism to art appreciation. [iii] John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) was an English art critic and social thinker. He is most known for his support for the work of J. Thou. West. Turner and his defence of naturalism in art. [iv] A perception similar to Benjamin Disreali's is conveyed in Phillipe V. Destouches' comment that "criticism is easy, art is difficult". Glorieux (II, five). [v] Arthur Coleman Danto is an American art critic and professor of philosophy. He is best known for critiques in the Nation and for his piece of work in philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of history. [six] Rosalind Ragans' four-step approach to rational fine art appreciation involves providing answers to bones questions such equally "what do I see?" (Description), "how is the work organized?" (Analysis), "what is happening?" and "what is the artist trying to say?" (Interpretation), and "what exercise I call back of the work?" (Judgment). [vii] La Font de Saint-Yenne was a French critic whose review of the 1747 salon was considered even more noteworthy than paintings that were displayed in the exhibition.Source: https://startjournal.org/2011/02/art-criticism-and-art-history-a-symbiotic-relationship/
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