The Invention of Art History in Ancient

"The ancient Greeks developed their own very specific ethos of art appreciation, advocating a rational involvement with art. This book explores why the ancient Greeks started to write art history and how the writing of art history transformed the social functions of art in the Greek world. It looks at the invention of the genre of portraiture, and the social uses to which portraits were put in the city state. Later chapters explore how artists sought to enhance their status by writing theoretical treatises and producing works of art intended for purely aesthetic contemplation which ultimately gave rise to the writing of art history and to the development of art collecting. The study, which is illustrated throughout and which draws on contemporary perspectives in the sociology of art, will prompt the student of classical art to rethink fundamental assumptions on Greek art and its cultural and social implications."--BOOK JACKET.

List of illustrations	p. ix
Ackcnowledgements	p. xiii
List of abbreviations	p. xv
Introduction: art and society in classical art history	p. 1
Greek art, the idea of freedom, and the creation of modern high culture	p. 1
Greek art sans miracle: Max Weber, Talcott Parsons and the historical sociology of Greek art	p. 12
Summary	p. 29
Rethinking the Greek revolution: art and aura in an age of enchantment	p. 31
The Greek revolution	p. 31
Viewing and religious experience in ancient Greece	p. 40
Art and aura in archaic Greece: aristocratic elites and the appropriation of the sacred	p. 55
Art and aura in classical Greece: naturalism, ritual interaction and aesthetic experience	p. 67
Portraits and society in classical Greece	p. 97
Introduction: forms and concepts of portraiture	p. 97
Portraits and exchange in classical Athens	p. 109
Evaluating portraits: social structure, aesthetic judgement and the civic body	p. 116
Portraits and society: some causes and consequences of artistic change	p. 134
Culture, social structure and artistic agency in classical Greece	p. 141
Introduction: primitivists, modernisers and the problem of the artist in classical art history	p. 141
The artist and the polis	p. 149
Art and cultural rationalisation in classical Greece	p. 158
Tradition, innovation and artistic agency in classical Greece	p. 182
Art and intellect in classical Greece	p. 191
Culture, social structure and the limits of artistic rationalisation in classical Greece	p. 201
Reasonable ways of looking at pictures: high culture in Hellenistic Greece and the Roman empire	p. 205
Introduction: art as an autonomous province of meaning	p. 205
Courts, cultural organisations and collecting; Pergamon, Alexandria and the invention of art history	p. 212
A natural history: Pliny's story of Greek art	p. 235
Reasonable ways of looking at pictures	p. 246
The rhetoric of display	p. 264
Conclusion	p. 276
Epilogue: art after art history	p. 277
Introduction: copying and creation in post-classical art	p. 277
Art and agency in post-classical Greece	p. 279
Conclusion: the ancient system of the arts	p. 301
References	p. 303
Index	p. 325
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece: Religion, Society and Artistic Rationalisation

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