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Current Problems in the History of Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

André Chastel
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Extract

Perhaps nothing is more indicative of an advanced civilisation than informed interest in the arts. There have always been connoisseurs and persons of taste; more recent, however—it goes back only two or three generations—is the academic discipline which has brought the serious historian into a domain which had long been reserved for the enthusiast, the lover of virtu, and the artist. When Nietzsche noted Burckhardt's and Taine's success in combining the history of art with that of civilisations, he wondered whether this was a symptom of decadence. Little inclined to propose, easy tasks to modern man, he perceived a mortal danger in ‘pedantic’ simplifications and did not doubt that the need for ‘scientific’ explanations in matters of art would have as its counterpart a growing paralysis of the creative faculties. To the extent that this meant hypertrophy of memory, it would gradually enervate the fecundity of talent; was it even certain that it always favoured the development of sure and keen taste?

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , September 1953 , pp. 74 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © 1953 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

1 Les chefs d'œuvre des collections françaises retrouvés en Allemagne, Paris: Orangerie, July-August, 1946; Mostra delle opere d'arte recuperate in Germania, Rome: Palais de Venise, 1948; Seconda Mostra, ibid., 1950.

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5 The division and regrouping of European collections was conducted for the first time on a grand scale by the Republic and the Empire of France; it coincided with the completely new idea of a national museum. From 1794 to 1815 Paris had the most sumptuous museum which had ever existed. Cf. H. van der Tun, Les Vieux peintres des Pays-Bas et la critique artistique en France de la première moitié du XIXe siècle (Publications de la Faculté des Lettres de Lille, IX), Paris, 1948.

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9 All the same, precise norms ought to be established for exhibition catalogues; a good example is the catalogue published in connexion with the exhibition of Vitraux français du XIIème au XVIème siècles, Paris: Pavillion de Marsan, May-Oct., 1953.

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11 La Mostra del Restauro, Vicenza, 1949, should be mentioned for its clarity in the exposition of principles.

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15 Cf. Coremans, Van Meegeren's faked Vermeers and de Hooghs, a Scientific Examination, London, 1950; and the attempt at discussion ofJ. Decoen, Back to the Truth: Vermeer-Van Meegeren, Two Genuine Vermeers, Amsterdam, 1951.

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