‘To what end? Eschatology in art historiography’

Abstract

To study eschatology in art historical texts is to study the revelations or the resolution that mark their explicit or implied goals. It is, in this respect, to investigate a feature inherent to any story. With regard to art historiography, analysis of the goals of art might be framed in narratological terms as analysis of the fate of the protagonist. To integrate this conceptualization of the theme with the broader cultural or spiritual significance commonly attributed to art and its ends, I have borrowed the essentially theological term ‘eschatology’. More than the study of goals and resolutions internal to given texts, this term invokes their aspiration to wider cultural, or even quasi-religious, import. Considering eschatology as a structural aspect of art historical texts opens a window onto the temporal difficulty and moral weight inherent in the seemingly straightforward effort to express what art has been and where it is going.

Keywords

• historiography
• eschatology
• narratology
• sequencing
• antistory
• backshadowing