Bizarre but True!
I’ve just placed a short essay on the site titled “How Forms in Art Work.” It describes as far as we can tell how images appear in an artist’s mind and in their art. I wrote it a few years ago to correct a mistaken view among academic art historians that source-hunting is contemptible. That’s right: some art historians believe that anyone who tries to find the source of a painting in an earlier work should be treated, in the words of Harvard professor John Shearman, “with widespread contempt.” It’s no wonder art historians have failed to recognize that every painter paints himself when they pour scorn on anyone looking for a source. It’s like top chemists deciding that test-tubes can no longer be used. Bizarre but true: art history is in a mess of its own making.
Posted 15 Apr 2011: TheoryVisual Perception
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