On the State of Medieval Art History

Abstract

Ever since Renaissance humanists conceived the Middle Ages as a foil for their own accomplishments, “medieval art” has been understood not so much as a result of co-herent artistic developments as the product of external his-torical processes. To be sure, scholars have discerned short chains of linked morphological transformations, usually in connection with efforts to reinstate classical conventions. But they have been unable to chart the kind of logical succession of artistic responses that give apparent consis-tency to ancient Greek sculpture or Renaissance painting - that is, a consistency largely independent of extra-ar-tistic events.

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