{"id":400419,"date":"2002-09-15T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-09-15T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/?p=400419"},"modified":"2022-06-13T22:26:47","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T21:26:47","slug":"a-muveszettortenet-mint-keptudomany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exindex.hu\/en\/kepi-fordulat\/a-muveszettortenet-mint-keptudomany","title":{"rendered":"Art History as the Science of the Image?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pictorial Turn<\/a><\/div>\r\n\t\t
On the margins of a lecture series<\/div>\r\n\t\t<\/td>\r\n\t<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody><\/table>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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J\u00f3zsef M\u00e9lyi: Horst Bredekamp, in his lecture series in Munich and for many years prior, has often\r\nspoken on the subject of art history as a potential historical science of the image.<\/b><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

Ern\u0151 Marosi<\/b>: To be honest, I feel that the notion that art history could be a science of the image\r\nis one-sided and to a certain extent contrary to the traditional frameworks of art history. Of course, this\r\nmight be an ultraconservative viewpoint. From its beginnings, by no means was it only a science of the image,\r\nbut much more than that, and perhaps this could be interesting from the perspective of image theory too. It is\r\nnot that art history within the framework of the concept of art treats the image as we imagine as based on\r\nsome kind of image-producing automatism. Here we might think of the camera, which maps things according to a\r\npredetermined optical conformity, be it for the eye or for the physiological and psychophysical processes\r\nwhich occur in our eyes, as in a camera, following the appearance of optical phenomena, in our brains. I feel\r\nthat this is a possible route in the perception of art history as a domain of pure visuality, if originally,\r\nhowever, not entirely identical with the interpretation of art. Thus, if here, taking the Crocean conception\r\nof pure visuality<\/i> as our starting point, we attempt to define art history, or in the same way, if we\r\nfollow the W\u00f6lfflin, Riegl branch of the stylistic history of the turn of the century, there is a resolute\r\nambition for the definitively optical definition of art \u2013 or in the case of Riegl, of other sensory domains\r\nand as an optical transition \u2013 then we progress along a sort of reduction of art history. It is not only\r\nvisuality and vision that belong to the thematic sphere of classical art history. In this sense, the history\r\nof art cannot be reduced to imagery. If it is a part of art history, today the history of the image is\r\ncertainly an extremely important part, but this cannot be identical with the entirety of art history. To\r\nsimply demonstrate this, the following catchwords emerge: architecture, sculpture, the applied arts, the most\r\nvaried spheres of the composition of objects. Thus, in this sense it is true that modern art historical\r\nwriting in such spheres attempts an interpretation not of their technical, but their sensory essence, as a\r\nvision; nevertheless, I feel that we cannot ignore the question of what actually happens with the artefact,\r\nwith the object, within which a creative artist \u2013 to use a really dirty modern word that is often and easily\r\nmisunderstood \u2013 codes<\/i> the (to use another similarly callous type of word) message<\/i>, which finally\r\nreaches us as a visual sign. I consider this an extraordinarily important question because I do not believe in\r\nany kind of \u201cvirtual\u201d art history. I am perfectly aware that the concept of art is a virtual concept; if,\r\nhowever, I simply reduce the concept of art to the creation of pictures, I then in fact relativise the role of\r\nmemory, and I relativise the role of those individual objects whose site of safekeeping will be the museum.\r\nThis engages with a third problem, that likewise concerns a question of relativity. If I comprehend works of\r\nart as objects and not simply as virtual images, then infallibly the problematics of quality and selection\r\narise. It is obvious that we can never conserve all of life. As proceeds from the state of the museum, we\r\ncannot circumvent the requisite of quality, which plainly expresses itself in the decision for preservation.\r\nThese are the three momentum<\/i> that prompt me \u2013 in a conservative manner, departing from the perspective\r\nof the dilettante,<\/i> strongly from the collection, and clinging fiercely to objects \u2013 to question the\r\nperception of the entirety of art history as a science of the image. Not to contest, of course, that there\r\ndoes exist as well the potential for a general science of the image concealed within, but at least in my own\r\ninterpretation, there is significantly more than that. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

J.M.: Neither Bredekamp nor Belting assert that art history should become exclusively a science of the\r\nimage. They contend, rather, that this could be realised in an interdisciplinary manner, in which art history\r\ncould play a vital role, in the case that its borders are expanded and its conservative viewpoint is revised\r\nwith reference to the Warburg principles, and advertising, television or the various branches of applied\r\ngraphic arts, for example, are lifted into its domain.<\/b><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

E.M.<\/b>: I would say that this has already taken place.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

J.M.: They would not contest it. What they put forth is that art history should take on the leading role\r\nin an interdisciplinary science of the image.<\/b> <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

E.M.<\/b>: This is absolutely true, but this does not imply for a moment that due to art history”s\r\ncharacter of being a leading force, the misunderstanding of other disciplines should follow. Of course, this\r\nalso touches upon such questions as the extent to which the history of architecture or sculpture remains\r\nspecific and the extent to which it is reduced to the generated image of architecture or sculpture. In\r\nGoethe”s description of architecture of the time, one of his cardinal tenets was that if a blind person or\r\nsomeone blindfolded were brought into a building, he would, in fact, become perfectly aware of the qualities\r\nof the building through his other \u2013 bodily, acoustic \u2013 senses. I would ask if here we do not return to the\r\nancient theme of Paragone, which focuses on vision as the most refined of the senses, this most intelligent,\r\nmost intellectual form of sensation as opposed to the other forms of perception that are connected with an\r\nobject or to the ground.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

J.M.: One of the neuro-researcher lecturers of the Munich series, Wolf Singer, even devised a sequence\r\ncategorising the forms of sensation.<\/b><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

E.M.<\/b>: That is a different question, if the natural scientist builds according to his own findings or\r\nperhaps by the fashionable opinions of society. That is to say, with good reason or not, here I must raise the\r\nquestion of the extent to which one type of artistic taste can influence the model building of natural\r\nscience. On a completely different level, this has often led to tragic results, e.g., when psychiatrists began\r\nto deal with the artistic representation of various psychic phenomena. With magnanimous simplicity, they\r\nconnected defined mental illnesses with stylistic phenomena. The research carried out in connection with the\r\nart of the insane in the fifties and sixties took as its departure point that certain stylistic phenomena in\r\nart history are sick. In this, the category of entartete Kunst<\/i> prevailed unequivocally. In fact, I\r\nquestion as well what kind of artistic ideal stands behind today”s researchers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

J.M.: Our collaborative work with the vision researchers led to quite interesting experiences. It became\r\nclear that we work with completely disparate concepts of the image.<\/b> <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

E.M.<\/b>: At such times, it is a good to ask the question: what is the opinion of the vision researcher\r\nabout art. With this, I have met with an entirely different kind of relation. I have recently dealt quite a\r\nbit with the description of apparition in the Hungarian chronicle and hagiography literature. These\r\napparition-descriptions can be interpreted with more or less results as images. They have a style, and if the\r\nperson is relatively familiar with the eras, one can search for an analogy, including in a painting. Here\r\nimmediately the problem of the chicken and the egg emerges. Which came first? The vision, which is\r\nillustrated, or the seen image, that induces the vision? And in this moment, we mix the questions of artistic\r\nimagery into the domain of literary history, which then becomes a real problem of the chicken and the egg, as\r\nit occurs within the category of common fantasy. I believe that this is of the essence in an interdisciplinary\r\napproach, as well. We have to lay all our cards on the table. I cannot imagine that an electronic\r\nrepresentation does not possess some determined style. We all know that the representation of Bohr”s atom\r\nmodel is a nice geometric pattern, and by now we are far beyond that. Today sequences and extremely abstract\r\ndiagrams visually describe exactly the same phenomena. In any case, I feel that the question of style is also\r\nof the essence from every interdisciplinary perspective. The natural scientist works from some sort of public\r\ndomain in just the same way as the artist, and we cannot directly recognise his\/her ideas. Here I imagine\r\nstyle in the sense of some sort of media that represents a common basis for fantasy and visualisation. For art\r\nhistory, just as for natural science. Until we approach this point, until we summon defined methods, the\r\ndanger of a short circuit will stand, in fact; i.e., that we will suddenly recognise something in the natural\r\nsciences that might be the key to our own problems. Of course, there are at least two hundred years of\r\nexperience: there was always a model that art history at some point began to treat as historical material,\r\nwhile the natural sciences regularly threw these out and transcended to another model. This leads to another\r\nproblematic sphere: the history of science. The history of science preserves those interpretational models\r\nthat natural science regularly throws away. The natural sciences would like to forget about them, while the\r\nhuman sciences are systematised in the subject matter of human thinking. Frankly speaking, I am not sure\r\nwhether, with the exception of mathematics, in the other natural sciences, old problems are brought out at\r\nall.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

J.M.: Does the pictorial turn exist, as far as you are concerned?<\/b><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

E.M.<\/b>: No, and in part, this follows from what I have said thus far. I do not believe that visual\r\nthinking can be divided from the traditions. Consciously or unconsciously, proceeding even from opposing\r\nlogic, we often run up against the beaten track. It is better if we do it consciously, rather than in the\r\nbelief that we have renewed something. I believe that there is a tradition of the interpretation of the image,\r\nand that this tradition cannot be broken; that there is no turning point to be found within it. If it is the\r\nconvention to speak of a turn here, it relates not to the software, but to the hardware, so that one might say\r\nthat there is indeed a turn in the technical conditions, but this would already be another subject.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

J.M.: Thank you for the interview.<\/b><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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