Artistic mimesis refers to the capacity of art to capture a copy of reality - calling into account the notion that art serves as an objective record of places, events and people. If the artwork was not copying the world it could be attempting to imitate ideas. This idea of art being a faithful copy of nature has been used as the critical framework for many conservative critics. However, Plato saw that this process of imitation could be applied to the copying of ideas and concepts, which he thought was the highest achievement within artistic practice (if it could be achieved at all). Interestingly, Plato considered craft more important to society than art.

Aristotle was interested in classifying things both of a physical and metaphysical nature. He saw art as being an experience that could be categorised; he thought of art as being either one of the following or a combination of:

• art as a representation of reality, art is exactly what we see, that is, good art reflects reality
• popular beliefs of what is considered art by society, opinions are informed by taste and style, therefore art would constantly change due to differing taste
• art is solely the experience of either the artist or viewer, there remains autonomy between the art work and the artist or audience.

Aristotle suggested the basis for “aesthetic liberalism” in which each artistic practice was seen as divergent and could not be critiqued in a general manner as social or political concerns were. To critique the visual arts you needed to be trained.

He was a prodigious writer who discussed aspects of beauty and art. Aquinas considered beauty an integral thing to life and his investigation into beauty could be applied to the visual arts. He suggested that beauty was the combination of “integrity”, “proper proportion” and “clarity”. In a sense he was developing categories and a structure in which the audience may perceive an artwork. He saw beauty as both “transcendental” (beyond the worldly) as well as being part of the every day experience for the individual. Aquinas believed that everything had an element of beauty. It was only for the viewer to see it, similar to the idea “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.

“...arts resemble nature as shown in our human bodies; and their birth, growth, age and death.”

Perhaps the first art historian, Vasari gave biographical accounts of Proto-Renaissance and Renaissance artists. His book Lives of the Artists published in 1550 highlights his ability to give account of artists and their strengths as practitioners. His accounts were far from subjective but he also offers a personal insight to contemporaries of his time. His writings offer a historical window into the activities of artist, critics and society. He sees art in a constant state of development; this is evident in his judgement of Mannerist artists being stylistically superior to the early Renaissance artists.

Thought of as the “Father of Aesthetics” he would greatly influence Kant’s concept of aesthetics. He is known for developing the principal of aesthetics, referring to it as “the science of sensitive knowing”. This situated art as being both an experience as well as an idea.

“Art is a place where truth manifests itself”

He considered judgment as being the basis for exploring the relationship between understanding and experience. Similar to the romantic painters of this period, Kant was interested in the fields of experience and what lies beyond personal experience. Kant is recognised as a ‘transcendental idealist’ suggesting that the human mind, reality and what dwelled beyond reality were interrelated. The philosophy of "Idealism" greatly influenced the Romantic painters who believed in an interconnection with nature and God; themes such as the sublime and pantheism demonstrate the painter’s interest in the transcendental. Perhaps Casper David Friedrich best exemplifies this interest in the sublime and metaphysical.

He attempted to explain how we understand our phenomenal world in his seminal work Critique of Judgement. For many artists it is the question of judgment within their own aesthetic sensibility that is paramount and what constitutes beauty.

For Kant, art offers a way in which concepts that cannot be easily explained are best communicated as aesthetic object. An example is the depiction of “beauty” which is probably best demonstrated visually with a written or oral description providing a poor comparison.

Kant offers a constructed explanation of the mechanism that is in use when coming to an understanding through judgment. He pointed out that the world exists in two states ‘phenomenal (the appearance of reality) and the noumenal (what the world really is beyond its physical appearance). Artists, in their depiction of their subject matter, can demonstrate that the ways of viewing a subject are varied and different for each individual.

“The highest act of reason, the one through which it encompasses all ideas, is an aesthetic act”.

Called the “Father of Art history” by Gombrich; the visual arts was for Hegel the embodiment of social, and personal issues, he believed that art was like a language and its usage was dependent on the conventions applied. Looking at art was for him in fact engaging in a conversation, creating a dialogue between the viewer and the artwork just as much as it is a dialogue between the artist with the artwork. ‘Dialectical theory of Art’ is central to Hegel, who suggests that understanding has been gained through the development of opposites such as the development of a thesis and antithesis to develop a concept or synthesis. He suggested that the basis of art theory was the development of ongoing argument that contested validity, perhaps this concept is best demonstrated through the development of art movements within modern art where manifestoes were proclaimed as antithesis to the thesis of the previous art movement’s aim. For example, Cubism, with its new way of looking at the world was the “antithesis” (using Hegel model of dialectics) to the thesis of Impressionism which was the aim of recording the sensations of the world the painters saw. It was Hegel who identified successive styles that occur throughout the history of art. In Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) Hegel has turned his direction towards criticism. Hegel in his development of dialectics of art investigates the roles of artist, artwork and audience in terms of intention of the artist and artwork and interpretation by the audience.

Hegel also attempts to differentiate art into three categories similar to Aristotle. Hegel saw art as:

• Symbolic art – the examination of art that suggests a representation of a power or being beyond its physical presence
• Classical art – art that is or refers to ancient Greece and Rome.
• Romantic art – what Hegel called "infinite subjectivity", this is art that is connected to a sense of spirituality and transcendental. It goes beyond rationalism and reality.

• Extended what Hegel discussed in terms of the historical determinant that influences and dictates the production of an artwork. Art is a result of the ideas, concepts and technology of its time; it provides evidence of how perception and style were bound to notion of history. Artists within different cultures and histories maintained their own artistic conventions and ideals. This is demonstrated in the interpretation of space by Western artists compared to rural Indigenous Australian painters.

“The whole question, then, if you insist that I confer upon you the title of artist or connoisseur of the fine arts, is to know by what process you wish to create or feel wonder.”

Most notably recognised as a poet and for his critical writings (particularly Salon 1846) his work contextualised the situation of the contemporary art world during the emergence of modernism. Baudelaire embraced the radical changes that modernist painters introduced. He attempts to validate new styles and artists to the general public. Baudelaire recognised and criticised the power of the institution known as the “Salon” in Paris during the 19^th century. His opinions were candid and radical in their time prefacing that art is personal, subjective and idealistic, totally against the positivist belief of the established “art world” of that time.

Similar to the aims of the Impressionist artists, his writing was shocking and new. He formulated a style of criticism and critical thinking that was idiosyncratic and candid. As the impressionists sought to depict the sensation of light he sought to discuss the perceptions within the logic of modernism. He cites his criticism as “partial, passionate, political”; Baudelaire examines the significance of what he calls a “naiveté” (a personal temperament on the artist’s behalf) compared to that of the “romantic” (an interest in the sublime, intimate and spiritual). His writings on art embrace the coming of a new age in painting, what he calls "modernity". He sees Impressionism as the style that negates tradition in favour of the pioneering spirit to create a new from of perception.

Ruskin believed that art and ethics were tied up together and that art had a moral obligation to the individual and also to society. He distinguished the relationship of art to society in three features:

• Relationship between God and man as each is involved in a creative act, God creates nature and man creates art.
• Art reflects the value of society, artistic styles and considerations are attributed to social and historical attitudes
• The distinct relationship between the viewer and the artwork, investigating the interaction of meaning and how a premise of knowledge about the artwork arises in the viewer. He was responsible for developing the term the “innocent eye” in reference to art appreciation, which highlights the balance between interpretation and recognition. He sees that certain knowledge about art can contaminate perception as well as strengthen it. This idea can be equally applied to both artist and viewer, perhaps the statement often heard by uneducated viewer, “I might not know much about art but I know what I like!” This demonstrates the concept of the “innocent eye” in a very general manner.

He wrote comprehensively on examining and interpreting what “beauty” is in art, dividing this concept into two categories “Typical Beauty”, being the appearance of beauty and “Virtual Beauty” the ephemeral experience of beauty.

Ruskin greatly favoured the paintings of John Turner, believing him to be the greatest living painter of their time.

His studied architecture and believed that seven specific virtues must be identified in architecture. He titled these the “ Seven Lamps of Architecture”: truth, beauty, life, memory, power, sacrifice and obedience.

“Truth is ugly. We possess art lest we perish of truth.”

Nietzsche examines the important links between life (physical/metaphysical) and art. Nietzsche celebrates and criticises the use of art in society. He understands the coming of a new age known as “modernism” and the anxieties associated with it. His renowned statement “god is dead” epitomises the ideological shift in the consciousness of society.

He highlights the importance of a thorough knowledge of classical art and suggests there are two forms, Apollonian and Dionysian. Apollonian art refers to the radiant beauty of art, whilst Dionysian refers to the tragic component within art, this is to say tragedy makes the viewer aware of what is beyond reality. Art for Nietzsche resonates within Apollonian and Dionysian expressionism.

“Impressionism has shown how appearances change with the light and are affected by rapid movement... That’s not enough! We don’t see things as fixed but as shifting. A tree changes if my gaze slightly shifts...”

As an artist Cezanne doubted what he saw in context to how it could be captured in his paintings. His doubt of ‘vision’ developed a questioning of the process of seeing. Cezanne suggested that this doubt was part of the complexity of painting and in turn refers to the dilemma of objectivity and subjectivity. Cezanne believes painting is riddled with uncertainties that influence how the artist makes art. The process of selection and hesitation create a new dilemma for the artist, as well as opening new possibilities in view of the fact that there is no way that painting can be entirely objective.

Clive Bell was influenced by the impact of Post Impressionism and the artists’ attempts to synthesise spirituality into their “impressions” on canvas. In 1914, he wrote Art in which he coined the term “significant forms”. These identified the importance of an artwork to have the ability to provoke an emotional response. Bell suggested that significant forms could be identified in the structure of the artwork. Significant forms acknowledged how vital and constant such visual interplay are throughout the history of art. Bell sees art as the manipulation of line, colour combinations and form to create an artwork rather than its importance of representing something real. Formal qualities were important in conveying meaning and ideas. His writing suggests a bridge from realism to abstraction in terms of formal and structural considerations. Later the writer and critic Clement Greenberg would take up Bell’s ideas of abstraction as being the most expressive form.

Known as a philosophical pragmatist, Dewey offered a counter theory to that of Clive Bell. For Dewey, art was to be considered in terms of it social implications rather than being treated as an isolated object. For Dewey, art and life were entwined. He sees the experience of art as personal and social, recognising that art develops and enriches our lives through its dialogue with the viewer. For Dewey it is the “aesthetic experience” that is the greatest and most complete experience for the individual to encounter and artists best demonstrate such experiences in their art works.

Writings:

Art and Experience (1934)

Experience and Nature (1925)

He saw art as a type of transmitter and the viewer was the receiver, meaning is only clear if the receiver is tuned into what is being transmitted. It is necessary to appreciate what is being conveyed in an artwork to gain its true meaning the meaning that resides deep in the subconscious of the artist. He saw the artwork as a “significant form” from which meaning resonates, the emotive work of the Post Impressionists, particularly Van Gogh and Gauguin demonstrate, the significance of art as language.

He was interested in connoisseurship and how meaning is developed form particular knowledge of an artwork. He was greatly influenced by the aims of the Post Impressionists and saw their paintings as a radical renewal within the tradition of art. He was keenly interested in the “purity” of the artwork and wrote extensively on this subject, favouring the new aesthetic sensibility proclaimed by the Post Impressionists

“I must point out that the fourth dimension – this Utopian expression should be analysed and explained... in anticipation of a sublime art”.

Poet, art writer and philosopher, Apollinaire was a contemporary of the Cubists and Surrealists. He coined the phrase Cubism in 1911 and wrote Les Peintres Cubistes a year later which sought to outline the aesthetic principles of Cubism. His writings were also instrumental to the development of the Surrealist movement. In many ways Apollinare served as a muse for many artists of his time.

“Surrealism, n.m. Pure psychic automatism through which it is intended to express, either verbally or in writing, the true functioning of thought. Thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason, and outside any aesthetic or moral pre-occupation.”

The cornerstone of the Surrealist movement, Breton delivered manifestoes and was the guiding intellectual light for artists interested in psychoanalysis and the subconscious. He saw art as the window into the unconscious mind and worked towards an artistic realisation of his theories and concepts.

Writings:

Surrealist Manifesto, 1924

“It is evident therefore that colour harmony must rely ultimately on purposive playing upon the human soul: this is the guiding principle of internal necessity.” (The Effect of Colour, 1911.)

“All the arts derive from the same root. Consequently, all the art are identical. But the mysterious and precious fact is that the ‘fruits’ produced by the same trunk are different. The difference manifests itself by the means of each particular art – by the means of expression.” (Concrete art, 1938)

Kandinsky was writer, teacher and philosopher of the visual arts. He believed art alluded to a metaphysical quality which he termed as spiritual. His synthesis of this idea is seen in his ‘Proto-abstract expressive” work. He was an instrumental teacher in the Bauhaus in which he attempts to quantify emotional and sensational responses to art.

Concerning spirituality and art, both as an intellectual and painter he is one of the most influential painters for Abstract Expressionism.

Writings:

Concerning the Spiritual in Art

“Pure science and pure art, disinterested and free... Art makes us realise that there are also constant truths concerning forms... which creates dynamic equilibrium and reveals the true content of reality” Plastic Art Pure Art, 1937

Mondrian presents the artist was an idealised manufacturer of truth through the use of logic and integrity. He believed that abstract painting best represented such ideas without the distraction of surface appearance. He states there are two priorities in making art “direct creation of universal beauty” and the “aesthetic expression of oneself”.

"reveal the reality that is behind things"

Klee was interested in showing how art was nothing but a “simile of Creation”, where art makes visible things that are not necessarily seen with the eye but rather felt, thought or experienced on some other level. He was interested in the connection between art and its reception to the unconscious.

Writings:

Pedagogical Sketchbook, On Modern Art and The Thinking Eye

Through his writings, Freud legitimised the activities of psychoanalysis as a science. For many artists, particularly the Surrealists, this proved to be the fertile source of information. In his book Interpretation of Dreams 1900, Freud offers a methodology to unlock the unconscious. Art and psychoanalysis would from this point developed into a partnership, which explored the inner mind as well as providing a critical tool for the analysis of artworks. Imagery could now be identified as images that exist beyond a physical plane. Fantastic imagery was the development of the unconscious; images were symbols that manifested meaning. Salvador Dali developed his “paranoiac-schizophrenic” method of painting through the readings of Freud.

Images would no longer be read as simple visual language. Symbolism and psychological projection would be a constant reference point in art criticism.

Writings:

Interpretation of Dreams, 1900

Totems and Taboo, 1913

An Outline of Psychoanalysis, 1938

Jung trained under Freud but went on to develop his own method of “Analytical Psychology”. He stated that there are four innate states of consciousness:

Thinking / Sensation / Feeling / Intuition

This category led to his development of archetypes of - Ego and shadow / Persona and Soul-image, which appear as either anima (female) or animus (male) in its psychological manifestation. In other words males have a psychological female counterpart i.e. Anima whilst females have animus.

Jung proposes that aspects of spirituality be regarded as important as psychology. The artist Jackson Pollock utilises Jungian psychology in the development of his Abstract Expressionist style.

Writings:

Man and HisSsymbols

Archetypes

Stein provided historic and bibliographical accounts of Cubist artists such as Picasso and assisted in establishing the cult of the “artist as hero”. Development of modern biographies of artists through memoirs is a key feature in term of writings about the visual arts.

"When I discovered ready-mades I thought to discourage aesthetics. In Neo-Dada they have taken my ready-mades and found aesthetic beauty in them. I threw the bottle rack and the urinal into their faces as a challenge, and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty!" (Duchamp to H. Riveter in 1962)

Duchamp developed the process of conceptualisation within art as the paramount activity in artmaking. His “Ready-mades” exemplify the dynamism of ideas over the technical skill in the production of an artwork. In many ways postmodern aesthetics owe much to Duchamp’s artistic activities.

For Panofsky, defining and deducing the hermeneutical values (innate truths) within the categories of perception and interpretation, it was the dominion of the “iconological and the iconographical”. Utilising these two divisions, Panofsky has allowed for other fields and territories to be marked out by other historians and theorists.

Iconology is the tracing of the style or the genre of the artwork whilst iconography examines the possible modes of interpretation that can be applied to the artwork in terms of developing a critical account of the artwork.

In many ways ,Panofsky develops the operation of the practice of art history and art criticism in terms of the operation of Iconology. Broadly speaking, the historical development of style, in terms of subject matter/genre/medium, relates to the iconological study of art. Whilst iconography is associated with critical readings of the artwork informed by varying theorists and philosophers.

Most notably his Art in the Time of Mechanical Reproduction highlights his historical materialist approach and his concerns about aesthetics in a time where imagery can be commercially copied and the image robbed of its potency through the process of reproduction. In a time when cinema and photography were gaining credence as an art form it is interesting that Benjamin should write this article.

Writings:

Illuminations.

Aesthetics and Politics.

Reflections: Essays, Aphorism, Autobiographical writings

“No work of art of any consequence has ever fitted perfectly into its genre.”

Aesthetic Theory

“There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists.”

What Gombrich called “illusions” can also come to mean forms of “representations” or what is called expressive forms in the HSC. Gombrich was interested in examining how the visual arts had psychological influence and historical impact on society and the individual. He reviews and critiques the significance of art history as a method that reports and assesses art as a communicative language organised in differing styles. He situates both social conditions and the dominant style as the provision forces on the artist; art is evidential of the artist’s worth and activities.

Gombrich sees the production of art as something that goes beyond personal expression. Art becomes a signpost of the ideas and concepts of the time. Art reflects the Zeitgeist in terms of its production and readership, and this is what Gombrich cites as the crux of art history. Both physical and psychological recognition of traditions and past styles are important for interpreting artworks as well as appreciating the value of art history. Gombrich uses the term “conventions” to describe the formulae used at any historical events. There are many cases where social determinants reveal some influence in the development of styles. For instance the visual conventions used by Pre Renaissance artists such as in the Medieval period, distinctly reflect a lack of perspective, whilst after the Renaissance it is seen as an accepted convention. Gombrich points out that historical determinants of conventions shape styles.

Writings:

The Story of Art

Illusion and Visual Deadlock

Expression and Communication

“... the self discovery of the individual as a creative personality"

He developed theories about colour and design. Examining the structural and psychological aspect that envelops an artwork and how the viewer responds. He was a key figure in the Bauhaus school, his paramount concern was the ability of artists to express themselves with honesty and finesse.

"Now if we look at the art of our recent past... what we see is something which depends more and more upon theory for its existence as art, so that theory is not something external to a world it seeks to understand: hence in understanding its object it has to understand itself. But there is another feature exhibited by these late productions which is that the objects approach zero as their theory approaches infinity, so that virtually all there is at the end is theory, art having finally become vaporised in a dazzle of pure thought about itself, and remaining, as it were, solely as the object of its own theoretical consciousness"(p. 31). Arthur C. Danto: The End of Art (published in a collection of essays entitled The Death of Art, ed. by Berel Lang, New York, 1984).

Danto wished to come to terms with exactly what were the mechanisms within art, questioning whether art was predominantly concerned with “representation” or to turn this process of viewing and producing art so that the big question becomes one concerned with “interpretation”.

He was keenly interested in what Duchamp did with his artwork Fountain (1917), he wished to understand the difference to the properties of the everyday object to those that have been nominated as an artwork. Duchamp’s "Ready-mades" highlighted a turn in aesthetic conventions; Danto was interested in this development and questioned how representational art really was? Was legitimacy contingent on the interpretation of the object rather than what it represented?

Art in Danto’s terms is no longer evolving from aesthetic considerations but mutating in the development of media and employing theory as a scaffold for its “new aesthetics”.

“REVOLUTIONARY ART IS CONSTRUCTIVE

REVOLUTIONARY ART IS INTERNATIONAL

REVOLUTIONARY ART IS REVOLUTIONARY”

What is Revolutionary Art?

Read was an English critic who believed modern art was evolving into a form that took concern and impetus from society as much as from the artist’s imagination. He was influenced by of Jungian psychology (particularly archetypes) and the aesthetic development within post Marxist theories. He examines the issues of materialism, idealism and persona expression within artistic practice. He developed theories that synthesise the ideology of the time with formal training in the fine arts. He was a key figure in introducing modern art to a wider European audience during the post war period.

Historian and critic, Clark provided formal analysis of artistic practice in contexts of the social and cultural conditions that surrounded the artists and artwork. His book Civilisations utilises art as a signpost for development. Art becomes a litmus paper for cultural development.

Clark also extensively wrote on the history of the human form in visual arts examining issues of visual conventions, taste/connoisseurship and the historical development of the depiction of the human body.

“... the guarantee of its standards of quality as well as of its independence’ is to be found only in its purity.” Modernist Painting, 1960

Abstract expressionism

Greenberg celebrated the development of non-representational work, such as Abstract Expressionism, as the true spirit of Modernism in its attempt to become aesthetically autonomous from all traditions and references to reality. He called this “self referential autonomy”, and it refers to the evolution of aesthetic conventions that are not reliant on the artist’s perceptions of the physical world which are illusionistic (see Plato). But rather, art is the search for the absolute, which is found in the conceptual or emotive world of the artist and viewer not a physical reality.

He saw the concept of avant-garde, as a process that insured it would keep culture alive and dynamic, art was an important tool for shaping and defining society, and art gave a sense of uniqueness to society.

Writings:

Avant-garde and Kitsch

Art and Culture 1961

Feldman writes with theoretical perception on the development of formal and critical analysis of visual arts. Feldman is interested in teaching the audience how to respond to an artwork in an informed and intellectual manner.

“An image is a sight which has been recreated or reproduced. It is an appearance, or a set of appearances, which has been detached from a place and time... Yet when an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected by a whole series of learnt assumptions about art. Assumptions concerning:

• beauty
• truth
• genius
• civilisation
• form
• status
• taste etc.

“Many of these assumptions no longer accord with the world as it is.”

Ways of seeing: video and book

Berger developed a Marxist perspective to viewing and critiquing visual arts, in terms of individual response and social attitude to the production of art. He provided a critical framework that analysed the production and reception of art in terms of capitalism and patriarchy. Ways of Seeing was an attempt to call for critical considerations of Feminism and Marxism as powerful tools for reviewing art works.

Writings:

Ways of Seeing, 1973

“Any one of our new media, is in a sense a new language, a new codification of experience collectively achieved by new work habits and inclusive collective awareness.”

McLuhan is responsible for describing video and television as a “hot medium” due to the very dynamic nature of this art form. He critiques the importance between language and electronic media. His work Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964) developed the ideas that communications is a means unto itself but it is the “medium that is the message”, highlighting the impact of technological media in a contemporary world. Electronic and video art took up this catch phrase in the legitimisation of this new field of art practice. He fully appreciated the impact digital technology would have on society. Many artists credited his understanding of popular culture as a signpost for future practices within the visual arts.

Writings:

The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man)

The Medium Is the Message: An Inventory of Effects

Both a scholar and painter, Hofmann sought to develop a better structure of understanding art, in particular painting. He knew Picasso, Delaunay and Maitisse and was later very interested with what Abstract Expressionism offered as an expressive style. He sought to examine the systems of representation within painting and the mechanism that exist within the artwork itself. He saw art as a development from “Mimetic” to “Expressive” and finally to “Conceptual” formulae for producing art.

A French critic who developed the theory of semiotics, Barthes reviewed a variety of things ranging from cinema, art popular culture and literature. His aim was to establish semiology as a legitimate study that would provide a powerful tool for critiquing the conditions and intricacies of “Modern Life”. He saw within semiotics an opportunity to develop a "science that would study the life of signs within social life."

His work provided an account of high and lowbrow art and culture formulating a universal critique, this is evident in his work Mythologies (1957). He was interested in the study of discreet systems that are at work in society addressing such areas as the tradition and place of photography or literature. This structuralist approach attempted to map out the significance of signs that are apparent in these systems of representation. However his use of semiology was never cold and clinical, instead he offered insightful observations such as provided in Camera Lucida (1980) and discusses the simple joy of writing (a practice not dissimilar to the visual arts) as “jouissance”, a pure feeling of joy. His work in semiotics lead to the autonomy of the reader or viewer, the issue of multiple interpretations and the end of the modernist rationale of the artist hero or the death of the author in favour of the power of the readership at practice.

Writings:

Mythologies (1957)

Critical Essays (1964)

Criticism and Truth (1966)

S/Z (1970)

Empire of Signs (1970)

The Pleasure of the Text (1972)

Camera Lucida (1980).

Hughes maps the “cult of modernism” in terms of themes, personal histories and insightful observations. He understands the complexities around the production of an artwork or the development of an artist. Best known for his book Shock of the New’ Hughes contextualises the operation of the “agencies of the art world”. He views and critiques art as the collective consciousness of society, in which his writing offers an account which is informed and tempered with a subjective wit. Currently writing as a contemporary critic, his criticisms are seen as the “aesthetic barometer” within the postmodern world.

Writings:

Shock of the New

Nothing if not Critical

American Visions

Said highlights the issues of ethnicity and geo-politics and their effects on art. This is to say that Said examines the cultural constructs that exist and how dominant culture assimilates and marginalises other cultures. He examines how western cultures have developed a system of colonisation.

Said critiques the West’s attitude and how it devises practices that view all art outside Western cultures as inferior and worthy of colonisation. He examines the commodification of art outside the western world. It is his work that has been instrumental in the recognition of how museums operate as cultural centres that offer particular accounts of history as well as giving a voice to the “cultural other”.

Similar to McLuhan, Popper was interested in the development of aesthetics with the advent of digital technology. He sees computers as rewriting the visual conventions that were established in photography. Popper suggests that computers are the newest art medium, which have completely radicalised art practice and the perception of art.

Writings:

Art of the Electronic Age

A feminist writer who examined and critiqued aspects of “sexism” within the historical and critical accounts of art. The author of the Obstacle Race in which Greer demonstrates, through historic practice, the gender bias that is apparent in the historical account of “great artists”. Extending from the premise of Linda Nochlin’s seminal book Why have there been no great Female Artists? Greer examines the historic and social conditions throughout particular artistic periods. She highlights that indeed there were female artists of notable talent however their gender made them “invisible” in art historical accounts until the Feminist movement.

“Shifting the paradigm of art history involves therefore much more than adding new materials – women and their history – to existing categories and methods. It has led to wholly new ways of conceptualising what it is we study and how we do it”

Pollock demonstrates that particular biases can arise within art history. She is renown for her examination of art history in terms of a feminist revision, pointing out the dominant language of patriarchy and its operation to suppress female artists. She could be identified as a social and critical historian who reviews the operation of art.

Extending Marxist theories about influencing factors within society and the alienation of self, Pollock has written a number of works that address issues of gender representation and developed specific women’s studies which reclaim much territory lost throughout history.

Pollock critiques the readership of art and the operation of the audience in terms of gender representation and modes of decorum. Pollock is reclaiming and establishing strategies that celebrate the position of women artists as well as examining dominant trends within the contemporary art world.

Writings:

Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art (1988)

Artist and theorist, Burgin is interested in aesthetics and social theories. He corrects the viewer in any bias to considering that art lives in a social or cultural vacuum. Similar to Barthes, Burgin is interested in the close association of art and language. His work examines theories of representation in terms of historical traditions and mass media manipulations. He situates post modernity as an aesthetic issue of legitimacy and discusses how the ready acceptance of visual conventions within Modernism have been overthrown in Postmodernist practices.

An Italian art writer who was influential in widening the appreciation of art practices in Europe, particularly Italy introducing such innovative styles such as “Arte Povera” and “Transavantgardism” to a wider audience. He was one notable European voice at a time when art writers were notably American and theorists were French.

“When all is said and done, what counts for true art lovers is the pleasure they feel in seeing a Van Gogh painting. And isn’t this the very thing that sociology desperately tries to ignore through a sort of reductive and disillusioning agnosticism?”

He examines how art becomes an incubator for historical reference and a touchstone to specific ideologies; similar to Barthes, Bourdieu examines how significance and meaning resonates. For Barthes it was through the investigation of popular culture for Bourdieu it is the establishment of galleries and museums. These theorists investigate how meaning is transmitted and what structures are utilised in this process of developing meaning.

“To the postmodernist mind, everything is empty at the centre. Our vision is not integrated – it lacks form and definition. It is any wonder, then, that art has fallen prey to difficulties of legitimacy – or that, like a dark body which absorbs everything and gives out nothing, it should be undergoing what seems, by now, like a permanent crisis of credibility?” p117, Has Modernism Failed? 1984

Gablik is recognised as a postmodern critical historian who, in her book Has Modernism Failed, attempts to situate artistic practice in the 1980s, particularly examining the blurring of highbrow and low brow art as exemplified in graffiti art. She takes a post-Marxist approach where she investigates the agencies of the art world such as the viewer, curator, artist and critic and examines how they influence each other and the visual conventions of that period in America.

She attempts to map out the transformation of Modernism into Postmodernism.

“What then, is postmodernism?.. In an amazing acceleration, the generations precipitate themselves. A work can become modern only if it is first postmodern. Postmodernism thus understood is not modernism at its end but in the nascent state, and this state is constant.”

Lyotard was a French theorist who developed concepts about post modernity in terms of cultural and historical contexts. He examines both the social and personal issues that arise with this rupture and the end of modernist thought.

She had been actively involved in feminist issues in the 1980s questioning the validity of censorship. But she is probably also recognised as an innovative theorist and writer on contemporary photographic practice. Sontag acknowledges both historical and critical practices within her analysis of photographic practices. She has done a great deal towards establishing a critical dialogue solely concerned with specific photographic aesthetics.

“... to think the expanded field was felt by a number of artists...(they) had entered a situation, the logical conditions can no longer be described as modernist. In order to name this historical rapture and the structural transformation of the cultural field that characterises it, one must have recourse to another term. The one already in use in other areas of criticism is postmodernism” p287 The Originality of Avant Garde

Krauss’ critical grounding is founded in her experience as a social historian who critiques the contemporary situation of art in the postmodern age. Informed by structuralism, post-Marxism and feminism, Krauss has informatively navigated the conceptually dense terrain of post modernity, providing insights within social, political and aesthetic strategies that are in operation.

“We are entering a world where there won’t be one but two realities: the actual and the virtual.”

Virilio is interested in the impact technology has had on society, as well as examining how cinema and digital technology shapes individual perception. He views the rapid nature of technology and speed of information exchange as being part of the evolution of space and territories. He suggests that virtual reality will replace physicality already suggested with the growth of the Internet, electronic surveillance and “cyberspace”. Many artists have used his writings as a basis to examine and explore the power of technology to demolish and construct virtual spaces as in CAD, architecture and art.

Writings:

Semiotext[e], 1995)

The Lost Dimension

The Vision Machine 1988

The Aesthetics of Disappearance 1989

War and Cinema

Foucault examines the development of history in its disjunctions rather than it being a steady development of ideas and concepts. He calls these breakages in history – epistemes, which are echoed, in stylistic development found within art.

He is known as a Post Structuralist who seeks meaning through an understanding of language. His critical analysis of language has been applied to visual arts, as it is another form of language. He unpacks the meaning and significance of an “object” (this could include an artwork) by deconstructing the context(s) in which the “object” gains recognition. This process of analysis allows for close inspection of influencing factors that arise and a deeper understanding is reached when many elements that contribute to the “object” are stripped away and analysed as separate features.

Race and ethnicity are the central concerns for this social theorist who has greatly influenced many artists examining their own cultural identity. Indigenous and minority racial groups have suffered under the conditions of “Post-colonisation”, Bhabha articulates these conditions and acts as a catalyst for many to empower their situation and identify and value their cultural heritage.

Similar to Virilio and McLuhan, Baudrillard is fascinated with popular culture and the changing social, political and material conditions within the postmodern world. He sees a contemporary culture as a media saturated world that no longer desires the real thing but instead prefers the “simulacrum”. The simulacrum according to Baudrillard is the object that has been copied with no original in existence. This is to say it is the idealised object that is shown in advertising, in cinema and found within the virtual reality of the World Wide Web. He situates the simulacra in a world that is known as “hyper-reality” a world that is more real than real. Cinema, advertising and art are all practices that can adopt “hyper-real” worlds. It is this theory that has greatly influenced many artists utilising temporal or digital media.

Zizeck combines psychoanalysis with cinema theories to provide a revealing window into our subjective and cultural world. He sees popular media such as television and cinema as a mirror of the ideology of our time as well as the neurosis of society. Many contemporary artists, particularly those working with temporal media have reviewed Zizeck’s writings.

Writing in an intimate and popularist fashion, Collings attempts to decipher much of the difficulty associated with dealing with contemporary art practice. His work predominantly centres around the activities of the Young British Artist as he explains and contextualises the development of contemporary practices by offering particular themes of investigation such as “Shock, Horror”, “Nothing Matters” and “The Shock of the Now” in his television series This is Modern Art. Collings attempts to explain in a “non-alienating” manner the strategies and conventions of artists who have been instrumental in the development of modern and postmodern art.

Writings:

What is Modern art?

Blimey! From Bohemia to Britpop: the London Art World from Francis Bacon to Damien Hirst.

It Hurts: New York Art from Warhol to Now

“... one hears endless diagnosis of death: death of ideologies (Lyotard); of industrial society (Bell); of the real (Baudrillard);of authorship (Barthes); of man (Foucault); of history (Kojeve) and, of course, of modernism (all of us when we use the term post-modern).”

Bois examines the condition of artistic practices, particularly painting within a contemporary context. He acknowledges the dominant theories and maps out their effect on the art world today. He articulates the stylistic and intellectual transition of art in a postmodern world.