Journal of Art Historiography (Jun 2013)
‘Rethinking the geography of art history’, Jerzy Malinowski (ed.), History of Art History in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.
Abstract
This review discusses the conference proceedings History of Art History in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. It focuses on the importance of the publication, and the fact that it highlights the almost complete ignorance of the historiography of art of central and eastern Europe, and also identifies a recurrent methodological deficit in many of the contributions, namely, their tendency to rely on a positivistic documentation of writers and texts with little analysis of their conceptual, aesthetic and ideological implications. The conference is thus an invaluable platform for further study, and also makes clear the need for more sophisticated critical interpretations.
