Current Writing in Art History

ARTHI 5005

James Elkins
jelkins@artic.edu

Syllabus
Revised Friday, September 3, 2004
Original location of this syllabus:
http://www.jameselkins.com/syllabi.html

This is a seminar on art historical methodology, intended to provide a grounding in

current theoretical questions.

Philosophy of the course

It is meant to complement other courses by providing currently viable methodologies;
the other courses are intended as historical and historiographic inquiries into the
discipline—i.e. methodologies that can no longer be implemented.

The textbook, Our Beautiful, Dry, and Distant Texts, argues that it is not sufficient just to
study a series of methodologies (psychoanalysis, feminisms, semiotics, etc.) because
that leaves unsaid how a scholar knows when to choose a given method, or which one
is most important, or which is most apposite to the art historical material at hand.
Much art historical writing moves from one method to another without justifying the
transitions or choices (“now I will present some concepts from Lacan… and here it is
interesting to consider the concept of the liminal…”). Our Beautiful, Dry, and Distant
Texts is an attempt to step back and consider the desire for theories and the ways of
thinking about the relation between theories and art historical material.

Ideally, Our Beautiful, Dry, and Distant Texts would be an “advanced” historiography
course, after the course that introduces psychoanalysis, semiotics, etc. In this course,
the student presentations serve to introduce the methodologies, and the textbooks
serve to question how those theories are usually taught and applied.
CUR R ENT A R T H IS TOR Y - 2 - S Y L L A BU S

Format of the course

The class will be conducted at a high level; most of the time we will critiquing texts
rather than expositing them. A basic understanding of the texts will be assumed at the
beginning of each class. You should read the assignments in advance of class, and take
notes on them; in class we’ll read through them and stop at problem points.

Class requirements
(a) Participation, and preparation of critical notes on the texts. These should be 1 or 2
pages long, and should consist of your critiques and questions regarding particular
points in the texts. Use them in class to guide your questions; I will collect them after
each class. (40 % of the grade)

(b) Presentation of a paper on an individual historian. (40% of the grade.) The paper
consists of three parts:
i. A bibliography of the historian, as thorough as you can manage. (Between one
and 10,000 pages.)
ii. An introduction to the historian’s work (5 pp.)
iii. A critical essay on a single chapter or essay (10 pp.)
iv. A critical analysis of the historian’s work. Can you use the historian’s
methods and approach? What are the historian’s strengths and limitations?
(5 pp.)

(c) Revision of the paper, due at the end of the semester. (20% of the grade.)

Papers need to be finished a week in advance; you should copy them for everyone, and
hand them out so everyone can read them before the following week’s class. You
should also include illustrations or URLs for the relevant artwork. Reading other
students’ papers before class is also required. On weeks when students are
presenting, you are responsible for reading their papers exactly as if they were
required readings: you still need to prepare 1-2 pages of notes, to be handed in after
class.

The presentations should be about 20 minutes; we’ll follow them with discussion.
Presenters should not read from their papers, but outline the possibilities for further
research. Be sure to prepare lecture notes in advance, so you have 20 minutes of
material that is not in your paper. Two or three students may collaborate in one
presentation; in that case, the paper should be in separate sections with the authors
identified.
CUR R ENT A R T H IS TOR Y - 3 - S Y L L A BU S

Textbooks:
1. My book, Our Beautiful, Dry, and Distant Texts: Art History as Writing,, which available
online.
Chapters of this book are identified by name in the readings (for instance
“Elkins, ‘On Half-Consciousness’”)

2. My book, Stories of Art, also available online.

If you buy these two books online, buy through my webpage--

http://www.jameselkins.com
--because then I get a commission!

3. Leo Steinberg, Leonardo’s Incessant Last Supper

4. Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting

We will only read the final chapter, “Restitutions,” so you can share the
purchase of this book and Xerox the chapter if you want.

5. Other readings will be “on reserve” in the mail room on the 6th floor, beyond the
Art History office.
That is an honor system: borrow the copy, Xerox it, return the original. (Like
Flaxman reserve, but without the hassle.) Some readings may also be posted on
the website.

Research:
Research should be thorough. I will expect everyone to have gone through the full list
on the MA Research page in the Department’s web pages
:
http://www.artic.edu/webspaces/arthi/Research.html

Research is very important: if I find sources on one of the databases listed on that page,
and you haven’t found them, your paper may be lowered by one grade. Plan on spending
several days searching for bibliographic information. Texts in languages you don’t read
should still be listed.
CUR R ENT A R T H IS TOR Y - 4 - S Y L L A BU S

Schedule of classes:
These are the dates of the classes, and the topics for each class. Be sure to do the
reading before the class (except the first week).

Read this schedule carefully: days I will be out of town are rescheduled for Fridays and
Saturdays.

1 September 2 room 716, 6 PM Topic 1 (Introduction)

2 September 9 room 716, 6 PM Topic 2; all presentations scheduled
3 September 16 room 716, 6 PM Topic 3
4 September 23 room 716, 6 PM Topic 5
5 September 30 room 716, 6 PM Topic 6
6 October 7 room 716, 6 PM Topic 7
7 October 8 (Fri.) room 617, 5 PM Presentations 1: Krauss
Jaime Degroot
Kelly Woods
8 October 28 room 716, 6 PM Presentations 2: De Duve
Jason Foumberg
John Kennerk
9 November 4 room 716, 6 PM Presentations 3: Reception history
Lesley Martin on Michael Holly
Jessica Moss on Michael Baxandall
10 November 18 room 716, 6 PM Presentations 4: International a.h.
Ferris [ ]: Italian a.h.
Young Su Lee: Korean a.h.
11 November 19 (Fri.) room 617, 5 PM Class may be cancelled
12 December 2 room 716, 6 PM Presentations 5
Christina Maybaum on Thomas Crow
Victoria Pass on Michael Fried
13 December 3 (Fri.) room 617, 5 PM Class may be cancelled
14 December 16 room 716, 6 PM Presentations 6
John Walsh on Didi-Huberman (?)
CUR R ENT A R T H IS TOR Y - 5 - S Y L L A BU S

Class topics & readings

1: Introduction
We’ll read through the syllabus, and I will suggest possible books and subjects
for your presentations.

2: Iconography and iconology

We consider this as a “prehistory” of current methodologies: it is still the
preëminent model for much of the discipline, and many current approaches are
openly or covertly variants of iconography.
Panofsky, Studies in Iconology, preface, selected pages
Elkins, “On Half–Consciousness,” “Dialogue with A Saturnian”
(Note: these first two chapters will be emailed;
you will need the book for subsequent classes.)
Recommended:
Panofsky, “Who is Van Eyck’s ‘Tymotheos’?”

3: How art history is arranged

A look at the various schemes for putting chapters, libraries, and monographs in
order, and for saying which cultures, moments, periods, styles, and artists are
essential.
Required reading:
Elkins, Stories of Art
Start reading the Steinberg book for next week.

4: Limits of semiotic art history [not given in 2004]

An assessment and critique of a prominent recent methodology, intended partly
as a model for students’ presentations.
Mieke Bal, Reading “Rembrandt”:
Beyond the Word-Image Opposition, Introduction
Mieke Bal and Norman Bryson, “Semiotics and Art History,”
The Art Bulletin 73 no. 2 (June 1991): 174-208
Elkins, “Marks, Traces, …,” Critical Inquiry 21 (1995): 822-60
Bal, “Semiotic Elements in Academic Practices,” Critical Inquiry
22 (1996): 573-89
Elkins, “What do We Want Pictures to Be?”
Critical Inquiry 22 (1996): 590-602.

5: Art history and logical argument

How well argued is art history? What place does purely logical argument have,
and
what place is reserved for appreciation and “non-linear” writing?
CUR R ENT A R T H IS TOR Y - 6 - S Y L L A BU S

Elkins, “Art History and the Theory of Meandering”

Leo Steinberg, “Leonardo’s Last Supper”

6: Art history and the possession of truth

Why write art history? What desire drives art historical scholarship?
Derrida, “Restitutions” from The Truth in Painting
Elkins, “The Avaricious Snap of Rhetoric” (except last section on
Fried)

7: Art history, expressive writing, and poetry

How close is art history to poetry?
Elkins, “The Brancacci Chapel and Spider Webs”
Michael Fried, Courbet’s Realism, chapter on
Courbet’s Burial at Ornans— “The Structure of Beholding”
Elkins, “The Avaricious Snap of Rhetoric” (last section on Fried)

8: Art history and deconstruction

Jonathan Culler, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford,
1997)
Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism After Structuralism
(Ithaca, 1982)
Paul De Man, Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of
Contemporary Criticism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1983)
A bibliography of Paul De Man is at:
http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/Wellek/deman/

9: Feminisms
Toril Moi, What is a Woman? (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999)
Hélène Cixous, “Coming to Writing” And Other Essays (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1991)
Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (New
York: Routledge, 1993)
New Feminist Art Criticism: Critical Srategies, edited by Katie Deepwell
(New York: Manchester University Press, 1995), selections to
be announced.
A bibliography of Hélène Cixous is at:
http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/Wellek/cixous/index.html
A bibliography of Judith Butler is at:
http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/Wellek/butler/
CUR R ENT A R T H IS TOR Y - 7 - S Y L L A BU S

10: Semiotics
“Problems with Peirce,” essay on the website
http://www.jameselkins.com/worksinprogress.html
Alex Potts, “Sign,” in Critical Terms for Art History, edited by Rob
Nelson and Richard Shiff (Chicago, 1996), 17-30
CUR R ENT A R T H IS TOR Y - 8 - S Y L L A BU S

Choices for papers

Papers should be chosen from the books on this list. Texts in the first section will be
assigned, or you can pick them on a first-come, first-served basis. The second section
gives more choices.

If you read French, Italian, or German, I may assign books in those languages.

* = books I reviewed on http://www.caareviews.org

It’s a good idea to search their website for other new art history books. (If
you’re going on the job market anytime soon, or you’re going on in art history,
you should become a member)

T. J. Clark, Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
Best chapters for reports: the ones on Picasso, Pollock, and Hoffman

Thierry de Duve, Look, 100 Years of Contemporary Art, translated by

Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods (Ghent-Amstersam: Ludion, 2001).

Georges Didi-Huberman, L’Image survivante: Histoire de l’art et temps des

fantômes selon Aby Warburg (Paris: Minuit, 2002).

Rosalind Krauss and Yve-Alain Bois, Formless: A User’s Guide

(Cambridge, MA: Zone Books, 1997). ISBN 0-942299-43-4

Hans Belting, Art History After Modernism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2002).
-- or --
Hans Belting, The Invisible Masterpiece, translated by Helen Atkins (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2001).
Reviewed unfavorably by Charles Harrison in Bookforum 8 no. 4 (2002): 38.
-- or --
* Hans Belting, The Germans and Their Art: A Troublesome Relationship, translated by
Scott Kleager (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).

Michael Ann Holly, Past Looking (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1999[?]).

Jonathan Crary, Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture

(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997 [sic: January 2000]). ISBN 0-262-03265-
1
CUR R ENT A R T H IS TOR Y - 9 - S Y L L A BU S

Louis Marin, Sublime Poussin, translated by Catherine Porter (Stanford: Stanford

University Press, 1999). $18.95

Mieke Bal, Quoting Caravagio: Contemporary Art, Preposterous History (Chicago:

University of Chicago Pess, 1999). $45.00

Svetlana Alpers and Michael Baxandall, Tiepolo and the Pictorial Intelligence (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994).

Whitney Davis, Replications: Art History, Archaeology, Psychoanalysis (University

Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1996).

Udo Kultermann, “Histoire de l’art et identité nationale” (I have an offprint)

Oskar Bätschmann, Einführung in die kunstgeschichtliche Hermeneutik, third edition

(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1988).

Hubert Damisch, Traité du trait: Tractatus Tractus (Paris: Reunion des Musées
Nationaux, 1995)

Julia Kristeva, Visions capitales (Paris: Reunion des musées nationaux, 1998)

* Thomas Crow, The Intelligence of Art (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press, 1999).

* Rosalind Krauss, Bachelors (a new essay on Claude Cahun,

and several reprinted essays).

Benjamin Buchloh, Neo-Avantgarde and Culture Industry

(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999).
ISBN 0-262-2454-3

Jacques Derrida and Paule Thévenin, The Secret Art of Antonin Artaud
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998). ISBN 0-262-04165-0

Books in languages other than Western European languages:

Shigemi Inaga, The Orient of Painting [in Japanese]

(This is if you read Japanese; I have only read the English summary, but
Inaga is a very interesting scholar.)

Ján Bakos, Styri trasy metodologie dejin umenia (Bratislava: Veda, 2000).
(This is if you read Slovakian.)

Texts relevant to art historical problems, but not quite in art history:
CUR R ENT A R T H IS TOR Y - 10 - S Y L L A BU S

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Look, Listen, Read, translated by Brian Singer (New York:
Basic Book, 1997).

Whitney Davis, Drawing the Dream of the Wolves (Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press, 1995).
-- or --
Whitney Davis, Replications: Archaeology, Art History, Psychoanalysis (University Park
PA: Penn State Press, 1996).

Joseph Kerman, Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology (Cambridge MA:

Harvard University Press, 1985).
Could be read alongside texts such as:
Fred Maus, “Masculine Discourse in Music Theory,” Perspectives of New
Music 31 no. 2 (summer 1993): 264-93
Marion Guck, “Varèse Bound,” Perspectives of New Music 30 no. 2
(summer 1992): 244-73

l’Image, textes choisis et presentés par Laurent Lavaud (Paris: Gallimard, 1995).

Sites of Vision: The Discursive Construction of Sight in the History of Philosophy, edited by
David Levin (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997). ISBN 0-262-62129-0

Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend, For and Against Method, edited and with an
introduction by Matteo Motterlini (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1999). $34.00

Carlo Ginzburg, History, Rhetoric, and Proof: The Menahem Stern Jerusalem Lectures
(Brandeis University Press/Historical Society of Israel/Published by the
University Press of New England, 1999). $14.95
CUR R ENT A R T H IS TOR Y - 11 - S Y L L A BU S

These are recent anthologies from which you may pick essays for your paper. I
recommend these as a last resort, because it takes an extra week to find the book and
choose the essay:

The Subjects of Art History, edited by Michael Ann Holly, Keith Moxey, and Mark
Cheetham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)

Critical Terms for Art History, edited by Robert Nelson and Richard Shiff (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1996)

Kunstgeschichte: Eine Einführung edited by Heinrich Dilly, Wolfgang Kemp,

Willibald Sauerländer, and Martin Warnke (Berlin: Dietrich Riemer)
ISBN 3-496-00950-0

Kunstgeschichte: Aber Wie? Zehn Themen und Beispiele (Berlin: Dietrich Riemer)
ISBN 3-496-00971-3

Academies, Museums, and Canons of Art, edited by Gill

Perry and Colin Cunningham (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999)

The Changing Status of the Artist:, edited by Emma Barker, Nick Webb, and Kim
Woods (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999)

Gender and Art, edited by Gill Perry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999)

The Challenge of the Avant-Garde, edited by Paul Wood

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999)

Views of Differences: Different Views of Art, edited by Catherine King

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999)

Contemporary Cultures of Display, edited by Emma Barker (New Haven:

Yale University Press, 1999)