Lack Of Objectivity In Connoisseurship Of Art

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Recommended: Art history chapter 4

Although I partially understood the idea of connoisseurship from the readings, it was clarified for me during class. Connoisseurship is seen as scientific because of the use of morphology (a branch of biology which focuses on form) as well as the use of minute examination. Morelli used morphology to analyse small details in an art work (such as a finger nail) and compare them to details in other work in order to determine where a painting was made and who it was made by. It is something that is not seen as objective, because although connoisseurship uses scientific methods, it has been proven to be difficult to remove your own bias from an analysis. An example of bias as seen in connoisseurship of art is Eurocentric bias. Because of preconceived ideas about race, art from certain locations is often viewed as not as good as art made in Europe. Berenson critiques the lack of objectivity in connoisseurship, by saying that the only thing that should …show more content…

Wolfflin believes that you should you should not look at individual factors but at the individual as part of a larger period of style. An example of this would be Van Gogh’s evolution from realism to impressionism to post-impressionism. For Wolfflin, these developments are exclusively formal, and do not focus on the context. Although all of this was clarified for me during this week’s class, I found these readings to be quiet challenging and hard to understand. I now understand what exactly the double roots of style are as well the issues that Podro has with Wolfflin’s theories. I still do not completely understand how to use this theory when applied to art from eras other than those used by Wolfflin. It was my understanding that this theory is no longer used by art historians, but I wonder if there is another, similar theory that has evolved from formalism that is still being

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