Connoisseurship: Problems in the History of Styles

 

Art 430: Semester 1, 2003-04, Tuesdays, 2:30 – 4:20

 

William Hood

 

Office Hours: Tuesday, 11:12:00; 1:30-2:20; other times via e-mail appointment

 

Ends and Means. In Art History departments throughout the English-speaking world today, words like "style," "masterpiece," "quality," and "beauty" carry many, mostly negative, associations. Of all such academically unfashionable terms, however, none enjoys a worse reputation than "connoisseurship." Howver, whatever people may think it means, connoisseurship is actually a technical term that encompasses the range of practices by which one tries to establish the status of a work of art as an object. Connoisseurs, therefore, try to figure out a particular object's date, its material structure, its provenance or history of ownership, its maker, and so forth. Thus connoisseurship is the central and most important tool for any curator in an art museum. In fact, only the museum's standards of connoisseusrhip determine the quality and importance of its collection.

 

Until the 1970s, some training and expertise in connoisseurship was part and parcel of advanced education in most of the nation's major graduate schools of Art History. Since then, however, deprecating connoisseurs and their practice as elitist, imperialist, sexist, or even racist has become chic, at times even de rigeur, for art historians who like to count themselves among the shock troops of the methodological avant-garde.

 

Sadly, however, we do not stop often enough to examine the factual justification for drawing a connection between connsoisseurship and reactionary social or political attitudes. It is regretable but true that, like everyone else, scholars sometimes seem to take more pleasure from casting stones than from figuring out where their real target is.

 

Ends. This course, therefore, has two purposes. First, it will try to foster some understanding of the intellectual content of connoisseurship as a practice, as well as to provide opportunities for sharpening our own eyes. Second, the course will seek to redress the persistent academic emphasis on works of art as indexes of social problems; it will do this by returning to the close, loving scrutiny of objects for their own sake.

 

Thus you will find that "readings" of works of art are unwelcome in this course; so are "deconstructions," and other revisionist strategies that concentrate on "decoding" works of art as though they were ideological time-bombs. Instead, to negotiate this course with success, you will need to examine your own motives for studying works of art rather than some other aspects of culture, even of visual culture. You will need to confront – and to speak rationally about – what makes a thing "beautiful," what "good" taste means, why a work is a "masterpiece."

 

However "objective" its proponents believe it to be, connoisseurship has a history, just like any other practice. Therefore, we begin by examining the roots of the primacy of painting over sculpture in modern notions of what "art" is. Then we consider some foundational texts, mostly of the nineteenth century, on which most present-day art-historical practice rests. Then we turn to sculpture, and repeat the historiographical overview, beginning with the remarkable 18th-century figure who is often called the "father" of art history, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, moving to some basic texts on Greek sculpture, and then on Renaissance sculpture.

 

Finally, we turn to the practice of connoisseurship itself. It is very difficult for us to see subject-matter as the embodiment of forms as well as of ideas. Therefore, we will study what are called "decorative" arts, primarily because their form is so dependent on their practical function, but so rarely inflected towards a subject or theme.

 

Means. We cannot reach these ends without some blueprint, or guide, or method, of set of instructions. To be sure, the most important means of all is what happens in the classroom and library. But there are other, more practical, means as well.

 

A.        Course requirements are among the primary means for reaching the pedagogical goal of this course. Therefore, these are not simply tests of endurance, or make-work for the sake of busyness. On the contrary, every requirement for this course carries a specific benefit in helping you achieve our goals.

 

Students who wish to participate in this course should expect to make it their primary academic commitment for the semester. The work load will be heavy; my expectations for your enthusiastic participation in class discussion will be high; and the intellectual standards I will expect you to meet may challenge your self-confidence. Therefore, only those students who are willing to acquiesce in these conditions should seek enrollment

 

In practical terms, I will assume that you understand that I expect you:

 

            1. To devote a minimum of six hours per week to prepare for each class session;

            2. To attend every class meeting, without fail, and to be on time;

            3. To participate actively in class discussions, and to take part in teamwork;

4. To choose, with my help, a topic for your research, focused on works of art in

the collections of the Allen Art Museum, within the first three weeks of the

semester;

5. To submit a 2,000-word essay for Friday, October 17, at 4:30;

6. To develop a paper of 20-25 minutes in length, to be read in class, with

appropriate visual material, during the second half of the semester;

            7. To submit a written version of that report, approximately 3,000 words, as a Final

Project, no later than Wednesday, December 17, at 9:00 p.m.

 

B. Icons or Idols? The Status of Sacred Images in Renaissance Europe is the title of a series of lectures and seminars to be held Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, October 9, 10, and 11. Through the auspices of the Mead-Swing Committee and the Art Department's Baldwin Fund, Professor Alexander Nagel of the University of Toronto will give two public lectures and a seminar on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, October 9th, 10th, and 11th. Participants in the Connoisseurship course are urged to take advantage of this singular opportunity to hear and meet with one of the most outstanding young art historians working today. You are invited to have dinner with Professor Nagel after the first lecture. The schedule is:

 

            1. "The Threshold of Forgery," Thursday, October 9, 4:30 p.m., Fisher Hall

            2. "Christ as Idol in the Renaissance," Friday, October 10, 4:30 p.m., Fisher Hall

            3. "What is an 'Original' Work of Art?" Seminar, Saturday, October 11,

9:30-12:30, Rice Faculty Lounge; participation by members of the College and

Conservatory faculties.

 

C. Grading is of course an institutional mandate. But beyond the empirical consequences of a grade, the meaning of a grade is and should be a matter of interpretation. The nature of courses like this one obviates the usefulness of examinations and other measurements of progress as indexes of accomplishment. Therefore, my assessment of your work – not of "you" – is the final arbiter of grading. In general, I will factor your research and class participation at about 50%, and your in-class paper and the essay following it at about 50%. I may raise or lower the final course grade, according to the strength and value of your contribution to the course as a whole, and to the discipline you demonstrate in preparing for all of the above.

 

Syllabus of Class Meetings

 

 

1. Tuesday, 2 September: An Introduction to Connoisseurship

           

Class discussion; gallery visit

 

Assignment for next week: (1) From the works presently on display in the Ellen

Johnson Gallery, you are to select two. One of these must be a work of art that

you would like to own or live with, simply because it is beautiful. The other must

be a work of art that you consider to be significant or important, but that does not

appeal to your own personal aesthetic. You will want to be prepared to explain

and defend your arguments in a discussion in the gallery.

 

 

2. Tuesday, 9 September: How "Objective" Can "Subjective" Be?

 

Class meets in the Ellen Johnson Gallery, AMAM

 

Assignment for next week: Read Vasari, Lanzi, and Crowe & Cavalcaselle

[All specific assignments are spelled out on the Closed Reserve pages at the end

of the syllabus. Please refer to those for call numbers and page numbers.]

 

 

3. Tuesday, 16 September: Inventing a Language of the Eye

 

            a. Discussion of Vasari

            b. Discussion of Lanzi and Crowe & Cavalcaselle

 

            Assignment for next week: Read Morelli and Berenson

 

 

4. Tuesday, 23 September: The Eye as a Precision Instrument

 

            a. Discussion of Morelli's method

b. Discussion of Berenson's notion of "values"

 

Assignment for next week: Read Offner, "Giotto, Non-Giotto"

 

 

5. Tuesday, 30 September: A Master-Class in Connoisseurship

 

            a. Discussion of Offner's "Giotto, Non-Giotto"

            b. Gallery visit (AMAM)

 

            Assignment for next week: Read Freedberg; Rinehart; Rubin; Ladis; Maginnis

6. Tuesday, 7 October: Connoisseurship and Art History

 

            a. Discussion of Berenson's contribution

            b. Discussion of Offner's contribution

 

            Assignment for next week: Write an essay of 2,000 on a topic selected from a list

of themes, related to the readings and class discussions, to be chosen in class.

 

 

7. Tuesday, 14 October: The Meanings of Style

 

            Discussion of Pompeo Battoni's John, Lord Wodehouse

            Class meets in AMAM

 

            1,500-word essays to be turned in at the end of class

 

            Assignment for the week after Fall Break: Read Winckelmann and Potts

 

 

Fall Break

 

 

8. Tuesday, 28 October: Issues in the Connoisseurship of Sculpture

 

            a. Discussion of Winckelmann

            b. Discussion of Potts

 

            Assignment for next week: Read Richter and Brilliant

 

 

9. Tuesday, 4 November: Looking at Sculpture

 

            a. Discussion of Richter on Greek sculpture

            b. Discussion of Brilliant on the Laocöon

 

            Assignment for next week: Read Pope-Hennessy

 

 

10. Tuesday, 11 November: "Search for Truth"

 

            a. Discussion of Pope-Hennessy

            b. Discussion of two recent issues in the connoisseurship of Michelangelo

 

            Assignment for next week: Prepare, with your team, for the debate regarding

            the Michelangelo attributions.

11. Tuesday, 18 November: Controversies in Michelangelo Connoisseurship

 

            a. Frederick Hartt and the Plaster Model for the David

            b. Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt and the New York Archer

 

            Assignment for next week: From now until the end of the semester, you should

            work on your paper and then on revising it for submission as the Final Project.

 

 

12. Tuesday, 25 November: Student Presentations on Works in the AMAM

 

            Note: Class will begin at 1:30 today

 

 

13. Tuesday, 2 December: (Continuation)

 

            Note: Class will begin at 1:30 today

 

 

14. Tuesday, 9 December: (Continuation)

 

            Note: Class will begin at 1:30 today

 

 

Final Project Due: Wednesday, December 17, at 9:00 p.m.

 

 

 

 

CLOSED RESERVE

 

 

Berenson, Bernard, Aesthetics and History in the Visual Arts (1948), "Values," pp. 15-91 701 B452A

 

Brilliant, Richard, My Laocöon, pp. 93-106. NB105 .A34 A7 2000

 

Crowe, Arthur & Cavalcaselle, Giovanni, A History of Painting in Italy (1864), v. II, Ch. VII, "The Basilica of Assisi," pp. 1-27 759.5 C38.2 v. 2

 

Crowe, Arthur & Cavalcaselle, Giovanni, A New History of Painting in Italy, vol 1, "The Basilica of Assisi," pp. 175 ff. 759.5 C88 N.2 v. 1

 

Freedberg, Sydney J., "Bernard Berenson: A Brief Biography," in Shop Talk, Cambridge (MA), 1995, pp. 74-77 N7442.2 .S597 1995

 

Ladis, Andrew, "Richard Offner: The Unmaking of a Connoisseur," in A Discerning Eye, pp. 3-19 ND615 .O39 1998

 

Lanzi, Luigi, History of Painting in Italy (1809), vol. I, pp. 29-60 759.5 L298 v. 1

 

Maginnis, Hayden B.J., "Richard Offner and the Ineffable: A Problem in Connoisseurship," in A Discerning Eye, pp. 21-34. ND615 .O39 1998 [Also in The Early Years of Art History in the United States, N385 .E27 1993]

 

Morelli, Giovanni, Italian Painters (1880), "Principles and Methods," pp. 1-63. 759.5 M815 KE vol. 1

 

Offner, Richard, "Giotto, Non-Giotto," in Burlington Magazine, vol. 74 (Jan – Jun 1939), pp. 259-68; vol. 75 (Jul – Dec 1939), pp. 96-113 [Also in: A Discerning Eye, pp. 61-88 ND615 .O39 1998]

 

Pope-Hennessy, John, Learning to Look, "Search for Truth," pp. 92-119. N7483 .P66 A3 1991

 

Potts, Alex, Flesh and the Ideal, "Inventing a History of Art," pp. 11-46. N7483 .W5 68 1994

 

Richter, Gisela, Kouroi (1942), pp. 3-11; 27-40; 58-66. 733 .R418K

                        [also in Kouroi (1960), pp. 1-6; 17-25; 38-42. N733 .R418K.2]

 

Rinehart, Michael, "Bernard Berenson," in The Early Years of Art History in the United States, pp. 89-96 N385 .E27 1993

 

Rubin, Patricia, "Portrait of a Lady," in Apollo, V. 152, #463, September 2000, pp. 37-44

 

Vasari, Giorgio, Lives (1568), Preface, pp. 25-47 N6922 .V2213 1987 vol. 1

 

Winckelmann, Johann, History of Ancient Art (1764), in Writings on Art, pp. 104-44.

709 .W72 SEE