Chapter 3
contextual analysis
Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger
context— a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in
an environment, an environment in a city plan.
Eliel Saarinen (18 7 3 -19 5 0 )
When you undertake a contextual analysis, you’re
trying to understand the work o f art in a particular
cultural moment. As the quote by the architect Eliel
Saarinen above suggests, a focus on context gradually
enlarges our view and expands what our scholarship (or,
in his case, design) should encompass. This can mean
focusing on the work o f art as it exists today, or on the
work o f art in its own time or at another point in history.
It can also mean looking at the social, political, spiritual,
and/or economic significance o f the work.
Art and context
People often talk about art “ in context,” but that isn’t a very sat
isfactory approach in some ways. It suggests that context (cul
ture) is already all set without the work o f art, as i f the work o f
art has no effect on individuals or society. O f course, if it were
true that visual images don’t have any effect on people, then
there wouldn’t be any advertising on TV or in magazines!
To think o f a work o f art “as” social context rather than
“ in ” social context means recognizing it as something that has
an effect on people, on how they think and feel and act, and
on larger social processes— how groups o f people think and
feel and act. Works o f art and social context are often thought
o f as mutually constituting, that is, having an effect on each
other. Works o f art are shaped by historical processes, which
are in turn shaped by works o f art in a continual interaction.
Contextual questions
The following are some basic questions to ask in developing
a contextual analysis. Not every question is applicable to every
artwork. For example, if you don’t know the artist’s identity,
for whatever reason, then there are a number o f questions that
you can’t ask about the creation o f the work.
One range o f questions focuses on the people involved in
the creation, use, and viewing o f the artwork— the patron, art
ist, and viewers:
•
Who were the patron, artist, viewers?
•
What sorts o f records did the artist leave about the creation
o f this work? Did the artist say anything about his or her
intentions in creating the work? Were other artists or
workshop assistants involved?
•
What were the patron’s motives in sponsoring this work?
To what extent did the patron participate in its creation?
What does the contract for the work or correspondence
about it reveal? Was the patron acting individually, or on
behalf o f an institution?
•
Who was able to see the work? Under what circumstances?
What was the response o f contemporary viewers to this
work?
Other questions for building a contextual analysis address
the physical work o f art, its location, and use:
•
When was this work made?
•
Where was it originally located?
•
In what rituals was this work used or seen?
•
Does the work make use o f rare and/or costly materials?
Does it include materials that have either a ritual or symbolic
value? Are they new or innovative in some way?
•
Are the artist’s techniques new or innovative in some way?
Was there any particular significance in the choice o f
techniques?
Still other contextually oriented questions address the larger
social issues presented by the work o f art:
What was the political, religious, or social context in which
this work was created?
What is the subject? Why would the artist, patron, or viewer
be interested in a depiction o f this subject?
Was this a new or innovative subject, or a new treatment
o f a familiar subject? If so, what prompted the change?
If not, what was the motivation for conservatism?
What political, religious, and/or social messages are
being conveyed through the subject matter or artistic style
o f this work?
Was this a new or innovative artistic style? I f so, what
prompted the change?
Let’s see how some o f these questions might be used to begin
interpreting a work o f art, taking as an example the Selimiye
Mosque built in Edirne, Turkey, in 1567-74 (Figure 3.1). The
architect was a man named Koca Mimar Sinan (1489-1588),
and in a contextual analysis you will want to find out as much
background information about him as possible. Sinan was,
in fact, an amazingly productive architect who designed more
than 80 large Friday mosques. He actually began his career
as a soldier and engineer, and was not appointed architect to
Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (ruled 1520-66) until 1538.
His patron for the Selimiye Mosque, the person who com
missioned and paid for its construction, was Suleyman’s son,
Selim II (ruled 1566-74). In this case, you would want to ex
amine Selim’s reign, his patronage o f mosques generally, and
o f Sinan’s work in particular. In terms o f viewers, you would
want to think about not only the Muslim residents o f the city
and those who worshipped at the mosque, but also foreign
visitors and what their impressions might have been.
The second set o f questions listed above raises some other
interesting issues. The Selimiye Mosque is located in Edirne,
which was the first Ottoman capital in Europe. You would
want to consider the role o f this provincial capital city in the
Ottoman empire at this time. Since this is a mosque built for
Friday worship, you might want to look at the floor plan o f
the mosque and see how it is constructed to accommodate
the large numbers o f people who would assemble there on
Fridays.
As far as the third set o f contextual questions is con
cerned, there are numerous political and religious messages
conveyed by the building. In designing this building, Sinan
wanted to build a dome to surpass that o f Istanbul’s congre
gational mosque, which was originally built as the Christian
church o f Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom). You might think
about the message conveyed by such an act, in surpassing a
dome constructed in the sixth century by Chrisdans, and its
construction in an Ottoman capital city so close to the main
centers o f western Europe. In this regard, you might want to
think about Selim's motives as patron and Sinan’s motives as
architect. You would consider the range o f activities that went
on at this site, and the complex o f buildings that form part o f
the mosque, including a madrasa set aside for study, a hospi
tal and charity kitchens, a covered market, and public baths.
The minarets provide an opportunity to see how the for
mal questions can lead to contextual insights and vice versa.
In a formal analysis, you would discuss the remarkable soar
ing presence o f the minarets. They spring up from the mass o f
lower buildings o f the mosque complex and frame the dome
itself, accentuating its own lightness and upward thrust. You
would note that, since the mosque is located on a founda
tion at the city’s edge, the minarets dominate the skyline and
provide a landmark visible from many parts o f the city. You
would discuss the remarkable engineering required to build
these soaring minarets, each o f which is more than 295 feet
(89.9 meters) high but only 12 feet (3.81 meters) in diameter
at the base. This might lead you into a contextual discussion
o f Sinan’s engineering accomplishments and the practice o f
engineering generally in Ottoman culture.
From a contextual standpoint, you would also focus on
the fact that only royal mosques were permitted to have more
than one minaret and usually no more than two, so that the
presence o f four in this building is extraordinary. You might
think about why Sinan and his patron Selim would want to
construct a mosque with four minarets in this particular city
at this particular time— the complex o f artistic and political
factors that might have prompted such a decision.
Art out of context? Museums and art history
Museums are a fact o f Western cultural life today. Most people
in Western societies have made at least one visit to a museum,
and these institutions can seem as natural a part o f the cultur
al landscape as churches or town halls. But museums haven’t
Sarah symmons analyzes a print by Goya
As an example of how contextual analysis works in practice, here is British art historian
Sarah Symmons analyzing a print by Goya (see Figure 2.4). After a brief description of the
work, drawing the reader’s attention to its key features, she broadens the discussion to
include contextual references to the artist’s preliminary sketches and to the more general
use of dream imagery in the art of Goya’s time. Finally, Goya’s depiction of a solitary fig
ure beset by nightmarish creatures is contrasted to the biographical fact that, when he
made this image, he was one of Spain’s most successful artists. In 1799, the year this print
was published as part of a set of 80 titled Los Caprichos (“The Caprices”), he was appointed
Court Painter.
a
A figure of an artist is shown collapsed over a
w
also a dreamer. The dream was a traditional
device used by artists and writers in Spain as
ing. Four species of creature inhabit the dark
well as in other European countries to intro
void surrounding him— a lynx, a cat, a host
duce subjects of a fantastic, philosophical,
of bats, and seven owls, one of which is also
or obscure nature, and Goya initially consid
partly a cat, who jabs the sleeper in the arm
with a sharp stylus. Two sketches reveal that
ered calling these prints Suenos (“Dreams”)
Goya originally intended to make this striking
world of the state artist is here undercut by
design into the title page of the whole work
the monstrous uncertainties of the “imagi
[Los Caprichos]. One bears a longer caption
nation unfettered by Reason," as Goya wrote
on the sketch.
that eventually became part of an article pro
moting the Caprichos in the Madrid Doily. Here
Goya speaks of himself as an author, but he is
instead of Caprichos. The glittering material
yy
(Sarah Symmons,
1998, pp.175-76)
Goya,
London: Phaidon,
always been around (neither have churches and town halls,
for that matter). Museums are, in fact, cultural institutions
with a specific history that are dedicated to specific ideals and
goals. It’s important to be aware o f this, because the museum
is the place where you will most often study art, even though a
lot o f art wasn’t actually made to be exhibited there. The mu
seum itself may shape the viewer’s understanding o f a work
o f art, by displaying it in a different context than it may have
had in its original cultural setting. At the same time, muse
ums have their own cultural agendas, histories, and politics
that must be taken into account in any experience o f art you
have in a museum.
A brief history of museums
For the ancient Greeks, a mouseion was a place not for the dis
play o f art but for contemplation, a philosophical institution
dedicated to the Muses. The Romans followed the Greeks in
making “ museums” places o f philosophical discussion. Even
if museums then weren’t quite what they are today, traditions
o f collecting and display were part o f many ancient Mediter
ranean cultures. Egyptian pharaohs collected natural his
tory specimens and works o f art. In both Greece and Rome
wealthy citizens often maintained private art collections, and
temple treasuries were open to visitors.
Later, the treasuries o f the great medieval cathedrals
presented splendid displays o f gold and silver artworks that
attracted pilgrims and other visitors. During the Renaissance,
many nobles and wealthy merchants formed collections o f
rare and wondrous objects, both natural and made by hu
mans, and displayed them in “ cabinets o f curiosities.” Collect
ing art— painting, sculpture, prints, drawings— became
an accepted activity o f the elite. It was at this time that the
word “ museum” came into use again, but now it described
a collection o f natural objects or works o f art that promoted
comprehensive and encyclopedic knowledge, rather than
philosophical contemplation.
In the eighteenth century, some individuals opened their
collections to the public, and the modern museum was born.
Many great museums today, such as the Louvre and the British
Museum, trace their origins to this time. Through the nine
teenth century, museums rapidly filled with the spoils o f war,
or artworks gathered by colonialists and missionaries. For
better or worse, modern museums are wrapped up in the his
tory o f the nations that fostered their growth.
Are there counterparts to the museum in non-Westem cul
tures? Although museums as we know them today have their
roots in the European Enlightenment, traditions o f collecting
and display are widespread. The emperors o f China collected
works o f art and displayed them in imperial academies and
palaces. Islamic leaders also collected works o f art that they
displayed in palaces for the pleasure o f the elite. Buddhist
temples in Japan have amassed collections o f calligraphy
and other artworks for display on special occasions. Today,
museums are found around the world. There are many dif
ferent kinds o f museums, dedicated to anthropology, history,
natural history, science, technology, and popular culture,
among other things. What we might define as “art” can be
found in any o f these institutions.
Museums and the experience of art
The ways that museums can shape our understanding o f
works o f art was something I realized most fully during a visit
to Florence as a student. I had just spent most o f the day in the
Uffizi Gallery, one o f the world’s great painting collections,
where I wanted to study Italian altarpieces from the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries. Many o f them were displayed together
in attractive galleries with bright lights and white walls (Fig
ure 3.2). When I left the museum, I stepped into a church not
far away to see another altarpiece (Figure 3.3). As my eyes
adjusted to the darkness, I glimpsed the painting, lit by the
soft glow o f candles and the diffused light entering through
the stained-glass windows. The air was faindy scented with
incense, and murmured prayers rose around me. An elderly
woman knelt before the altarpiece and prayed intensely.
What a different experience! It wasn’t a question o f better
or worse, but o f each place yielding very different insights. At
the Uffizi, I was able to see a lot o f altarpieces all together,
so that I could compare different artistic styles and iconogra
phies and observe the changes that took place in this art form
across time and space. At the church, I was able to experience
a single altarpiece in a way that, despite the passage o f time,
was close to the conditions for which it had been created. The
altarpiece was surrounded by a church’s distinctive smells,
sights and sounds, with the low light muting yet enriching the
colors o f the painting.
I was lucky enough in Florence to experience similar works
o f art in the church and museum in close proximity, but that’s
not necessarily typical. As you visit museums to study works
o f art, you’ll have to keep in mind the ways that the museum
environment shapes your perception o f the work. For exam
ple, think about the lighting level, your position in relation
to the work, the number o f people around you, the kinds o f
noises you hear, the way works o f art are grouped. Compare
3.2 Photograph of gallery,
Uffizi, Florence.
3.3
Photograph of church interior,
Santa Croce, Florence.
this to the original context(s) in which the w ork would have
been seen. At the same time, it’ s important to keep in mind
that much European and American art from the late eight
eenth century on has been made with public m useum s or gal
lery spaces in mind as places where the artworks may appear.
Much contemporary installation art or perform ance art, for
example, needs the kind o f large, public spaces that m useum s
and galleries provide.
The process of interpretation: confronting your
assumptions
When interpreting works o f art, it’s important to be aware o f
the assumptions you make. You must question those assump
tions— ask where they come from, why you maintain them,
and how they shape your interpretation. Some o f these may
be simple factual assumptions: you believe the Renaissance
in Italy extended from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century.
Others may be more interpretive biases or concepts: you be
lieve Italian Renaissance painting is a naturalistic tradition o f
representation, or you believe that Italian Renaissance art rep
resents humanity’s highest achievement.
Both o f these kinds o f assumptions, factual and inter
pretive, should be questioned when you’re undertaking arthistorical analysis. Instead o f assuming that you know or un
derstand a work o f art you’re studying, consciously take the
position that you don’t know anything for sure— everything
you think you know must be tested and rethought. It’s not that
your assumptions are necessarily wrong, just that you need to
be aware o f what they are.
The challenges of cross-cultural interpretation
Everything I need to know about Africa is in those objects.
Pablo Picasso ( 1 8 8 1 - 1 9 73)
Like many modern artists, Picasso was interested in and in
spired by the art o f other cultures. He kept masks and figural
sculptures from Africa and the Pacific in his studio and made
many visits to ethnography museums. Unlike art historians
today, Picasso was primarily interested in the formal qualities
o f these works, rather than their cultural context. His state
ment above suggests that he didn’t need to study cultural
context to understand a work: for him, understanding arose
from a visual engagement with the piece. Let’s put Picasso’s
assertion to the test with the sculpture pictured in Figure 3.4.
Think about how you might interpret this work, without re
searching any contextual information about it. What does the
artist seem to emphasize? What ideas or emotions does the
work provoke in you, the viewer? Can you tell how the work
w
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3.4 Power figure (nkisi nkonde),
19th century. Wood and other
materials, height 46 in
(116.8 cm). Kongo people,
Democratic Republic of
Congo. The Field Museum,
Chicago.
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was used originally? Why are nails and metal blades inserted
in the surface?
Here’s a brief interpretation o f sculpture o f this kind, one
that draws on both formal analysis and contextual analysis
for its insights. As you read it, think about how much o f this
insight is available to the viewer simply through looking:
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Kongo peo
ples, who live along the Adantic coast o f central Africa, used
such sculptures in rituals that dealt with social and personal
problems, including public strife, theft, disease, seduction and
the accumulation o f wealth. The figure contains relics o f the
dead person, whose spirit was a powerful force to be harnessed
toward the desired end. A ritual specialist, nganga, owned the
figure and used it as a medium to access the spirits on behalf
o f his or her client. The insertion o f nails and blades into the
surface o f the sculpture was not the work o f the artist, but o f
subsequent users o f the piece. Hammering a nail or blade into
the figure attracted the attention o f the spirit associated with it
and roused that spirit to action.
The figure itself is impressive, it conveys a sense o f strength
and power in its large, staring eyes and muscular arms held at
the ready. However, to the people who made and used it, the
wooden sculpture itself was not the most important part o f the
piece— the medicines and relics were. In fact, nganga specialists
often simply kept the medicines and relics in simple clay pots,
and they were considered just as effective in that form.
Now, although Picasso asserted that he was not interested in
context, in some ways he— like us— couldn’t help but inter
pret works by applying his own cultural criteria to what he was
seeing. His looking process wasn’t neutral. Even if he wasn’t
explicitly interested in context, in some sense he was creating
a context or meaning for the work because o f the ideas and
assumptions he couldn’t help but bring to bear. For example,
Picasso would probably have found wooden figures o f this
kind more interesting and more important for the qualities
o f their carving than for the small bits o f bone and herbs con
tained in them— a perception exactly opposite to that o f the
Kongo people themselves.
Even more revealing, Picasso, like many other people at
the time, called works like this “ fetishes.” For him this might
have seemed to be simply a descriptive term, but we can see it
today as loaded with cultural assumptions. In Picasso’s time,
the word “ fetish” indicated a material object worshipped by
people who endowed it with divine powers and the ability
to act like a person to fulfill their wishes. At the same time, the
term fetish was also being used in psychoanalysis to indicate
an irrational sexual fixation on an object (as in a “ foot fetish” ).
The two meanings o f fetish imply that the religious practices
connected to these figures were at the very least misguided,
if not “ sick.” Rather than taking these practices at face val
ue within their own cultural context, the term fetish assigns
these figures a negative value based on European cultural
values and practices.
So even Picasso, who had explicitly denied any interest in
context or the interpretation o f context, was looking and
interpreting with culturally informed eyes. Picasso wasn’t
“wrong” to do this, because it’s really unavoidable. We all
come to art history, to the process o f interpretation, equipped
with prior knowledge and our own cultural experiences. We’re
not blank pages, and this is not a bad thing. Some o f your
assumptions and prior knowledge will increase your under
standing and your ability to interpret the work and to engage
with it on a variety o f levels. The point is that you should try
not to apply what you know from your own culture unthink
ingly to the interpretation o f works from other cultures. It
can be misleading to assume that there are universal values
expressed through art or universal forms o f representation.
Often these kinds o f “ universal truths” turn out to be just your
own specific cultural beliefs or values in disguise.
Now think again about your initial interpretation o f the
Kongo figure. How does it reflect your own cultural assump
tions?
The challenges of historical interpretation
The past is aforeign country: they do things differently there.
L. P. Hartley ( 1 8 9 5 -1 9 7 2 )
What do these words, a famous line from the English novel
The Go-Bettueen (1953), have to do with art history? They remind
us that we cannot assume that we understand the past, or that
there is an immediate connection or understanding between
us and the past, even within our own culture. In this sense,
studying a work o f art from the past is like visiting a foreign
country. As an art historian, you must learn to “ speak” the lan
guage o f that past culture and learn to “ practice” its customs.
Once again, the challenge lies in not making easy assump
tions about what you know, or think you know, or can ever
know, about the meaning o f a work o f art.
An easy linguistic example o f this principle o f interpreta
tion is the word “artificial.” Today it usually means “ fake” or
“ not natural,” as in “artificial flavoring and coloring” listed
on food labels. The word often carries a negative connotation.
But in the eighteenth century, artificial meant simply “ made
by human hands.” For example, on his voyages o f exploration
Is African art anonymous?
If you look at the captions for African art in
their skill. But because in most African cul
your textbook, you will often see, instead of
tures history was an oral tradition, the name
the artist's name, a statement like “artist
of the artist was passed on verbally and not
unknown” or “anonymous.” This reflects the
written down.
history of collecting African art and Western
attitudes toward Africa, more than African
cultural practices. But it’s easy to overlook
this history and simply assume that the indi
vidual artist is not important in many African
cultures.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth cen
turies, the outsiders who collected in Africa—
explorers, colonists, soldiers, missionaries,
and anthropologists— often didn’t record the
names of the people who made or owned art
works. These collectors frequently assembled
Historically, artists in many African cultures
objects to illustrate a timeless picture of a
— sculptors, weavers, metalworkers, potters
culture, not to document individuals and their
—were often celebrated individuals, widely
work. They usually didn’t value these objects
known in their communities and beyond for
as “art," so it wouldn’t have occurred to ask
for the name of the “artist.” Moreover, objects
were often collected in such large numbers
that it was difficult to record a lot of informa
tion. For several decades, art historians and
anthropologists have worked to rediscover the
names and histories of African artists.
The stool illustrated here is one of about 20 ob
jects that were thought to have been made by
wood carvers living around the village of Buli
in south-eastern Democratic Republic of Con
go (Figure 3.5). These works were attributed
to a “Buli School,” following the accepted way
of naming anonymous Western artists. Some
scholars now believe that this stool was made
by Ngongo ya Chintu, an artist who worked in
the village of Kateba near Buli, and who may
have carved all the objects attributed to the
“Buli School.”
3.5 Attributed to Ngongo ya Chintu, stool, late 19th century. Wood, height 20 /> in (52 cm).
British Museum, London.
This stool and a similor example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Neu/ York, are thought to haue
been carued by an artist named Ngongo ya Chintu. He u/orked on the borders of Luba and Humba
territory in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), and his style incorporates
aspects of the art of both these peoples.
in the Pacific ocean, Captain James Cook (1728-79) collected
both “artificial curiosities” (baskets, sculptures, textiles) and
“ natural curiosities” (shells and plants). To complicate mat
ters further, we can also note that earlier, in the sixteenth
century, “artificial” actually had a positive connotation, as in
“ made with art,” or “ full o f deep skill and artistry.” So even
a common word like “artificial” requires sensitivity in when,
where, how and why it is used— in other words, you have to be
sensitive to the particular context in which you find it
Similarly, visual images have the same kind o f changing
meanings through time. There are original meanings— creat
ed by the artist, patron, and viewers— and then there are the
meanings that subsequent generations create and find in the
work. You, as an art historian, must be aware o f this process,
and aware o f how differendy you might look at a work com
pared with its creator, patron, initial audience, or people o f
other times and places. You may regard a painting like Olym
pia by Edouard Manet (1832-83) as completely unobjection
able, but remember that many nineteenth-century viewers
were shocked by Manet’s depiction o f a naked young woman
staring out direcdy at the viewer.
Historical interpretation in practice
The Arnoljim Portrait (previously known as the Arnoljini Wed
ding) by Jan van Eyck (c. 1390-1441) dates to 1434 (Figure 3.6)
and provides a good example o f the challenges o f historical
interpretation— in fact, the work has become famous for its
resistance to easy interpretation. Once again, think about how
you might interpret this work without looking up any contex
tual information about fifteenth-century Europe, van Eyck, or
the Arnolfini family.
There’s some doubt as to whether this painting depicts
a wedding ceremony, as its traditional title suggested. It may
actually commemorate another legal arrangement between
the couple, such as the husband granting power o f attorney
to the wife. I f the painting does indeed represent a wedding,
you may be wondering when the bride and groom are going
to go o ff and get changed for the ceremony. In fact, the white
wedding dress and the morning coat are nineteenth-century
inventions, and there was no standard wedding costume at
3.6 Jan van Eyck, Arnolfim Portrait, 1434. Oil on panel, 32 '/ x 23 /, in (82.2 x 60 cm).
National Gallery, London.
this time. I f this im age does depict a w edding, did these two
get married in their bedroom ? What about the church or the
court house? Again, at the time, it w o u ld n ’ t have been at all
su rp risin g for the cerem ony to take place in a private hom e.
W eddings were primarily contractual agreem ents, and a reli
gious cerem ony w as not considered essential.
You probably also suspect that the artist is making a state
ment about the wealth and status o f these people. The cou
ple's fur-trimmed clothing is something that, both then and
now, indicates wealth. But take the oranges on the chest at
left, behind the man. You probably didn't think twice about
them— grocery stores practically give them away in season.
But to a northern European at the time, oranges were “ the
fruit o f kings,” a rare and costly import from Spain. Fifteenthcentury viewers would have interpreted the inclusion o f these
oranges— so carelessly and luxuriously scattered over chest
and windowsill— as a sign o f great wealth, in the same way
that you might react to bottles o f the finest champagnes in a
portrait today.
But this painting isn’t just a straightforward “ snapshot”
recording an event; it’s also a highly complex and subtle state
ment about the couple. Many aspects o f this painting are still
poorly understood, and the precise nature o f the overall mean
ing isn’t entirely clear. Scholars have described this work as
a large puzzle, for each element seems to contribute to this
larger meaning. The painting seems to address marriage and
family, domestic life and the responsibilities and duties it
brings to each member o f the couple. The little dog, for ex
ample, is on one level a sign o f wealth, for it is a rare breed.
Yet the dog also symbolized fidelity, especially marital fidelity,
at this time. Notice that the woman stands in the part o f the
room dominated by the bed, perhaps a symbol o f domesticity,
while the man stands next to a window, which opens onto the
outer world. The woman pulls up her gown over her stom
ach, creating a rounded silhouette that evokes pregnancy, and
therefore the perpetuation o f the family lineage.
The continuing mystery o f this famous painting reminds
us o f the limits o f interpretation and historical understand
ing. The kinds o f documents that might answer our question
directly (a description o f the painting by the artist or patron,
a contract for it, the impressions o f early viewers) don’t sur
vive. Does this mean we shouldn’t or can’t interpret the work?
I think it means that interpretation is more necessary than
ever if we are going to engage with the work on levels beyond
simply admiring van Eyck’s technical skill as a painter. To
achieve understanding, viewers today must work both from
the painting itself, for it provides its own primary evidence for
interpretation, and also from general knowledge o f northern
Renaissance culture and society.
Let’s go back to the quotation that begins this section. It
makes a simple but profound point: be aware that historical
works, even if from your own culture or the recent past, are
in some sense foreign and not necessarily easily comprehen
sible. At the same time, you don’t need to feel entirely cut o ff
from the past, for the past is only knowable in the present and
is, in that sense, part o f the present.
Art and its controversies
When thinking about art in context, it’s important to re
member that art is not always produced in an atmosphere o f
complete and happy agreement among patrons, artists, and
viewers. Often there is a range o f different and sometimes
conflicting intentions, responses, and interpretations at play.
As noted above, responses to art change with time, too: what
was once shocking may become acceptable and vice versa.
Many different cultures and time periods have seen conflict
over art—what it depicts, how it depicts it, where and how it
is displayed, how people respond.
Over the past 20 years, for example, with the ascendancy
o f conservative politicians in the United States, controversies
involving public funding and questions o f “decency” have
attracted widespread public attention. Perhaps the most fa
mous o f these concerned the 1990 retrospective exhibition o f
photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-89). The exhibi
tion, which included homoerotic and sadomasochistic im
ages, came under attack for its content, especially since it had
received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA). In response, Congress cut funding to the NEA and re
quired the organization to keep in mind “general standards
o f decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values o f the
American public.”
More recently, in 1996, artist Renee Cox (b. 1957) of
fended some viewers with her nude self-portrait as Christ
in Yo M a m a ’s Last Supper (Figure 3.7), an image modeled on
Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452-1519) Last Supper. Cox, born in
Jamaica and raised as a Roman Catholic, intended the image
as an exploration o f the idea that all humans are created in
God s image— even someone as marginalized in American
culture as a Black woman. Among Cox’s most vocal critics
was the mayor o f New York Rudolph Giuliani, who called
the work anti-Catholic and obscene, and threatened to form
a “decency commission" to monitor the Brooklyn Museum,
where the work was displayed. O f course, such controversies
are not new. Like Cox, Michelangelo was severely criticized
for depicting a nude Christ in his Sistine Chapel Last Judge
ment (1536-41). Although his patron, Pope Paul III (reigned
1534-49), was gready moved by the work, later popes, from
as early as 1546 and into the eighteenth century, ordered loin
cloths to be painted over the nude figures whose genitals were
most prominent.
Contextual interpretations should take into account the
varied positions o f the artwork’s different constituencies. The
artist’s and patron’s intentions may be quite far apart, as may
be the response o f different viewers to the work. A good exam
ple is the controversy over the destruction o f the monumental
stone Buddhas at Bamiyan, Afghanistan (Figure 3.8), early in
2001 on the orders o f the ruling Taliban faction. Carved into
the living rock, the Buddhas had presided over the trade route
known as the Silk Route since the third century c e . It is pos
sible that their destruction was not simply an inevitable out
growth o f a generic “Muslim” aversion to figurative imagery'.
After all, local Muslim populations had coexisted with the
Buddhas for centuries. Moreover, a delegation from the fiftyfive-nation Organization o f Islamic Conference petitioned the
Taliban not to destroy the images, and local Taliban members
would not do it.
3.8 Rock-carved Buddha, Bamiyan, Afghanistan.
Height 175 ft (53 m). Left: the Buddha, c.1997,
before it was demolished. Below: the Buddha
after it was demolished by explosive charges
in 2001.
The destruction o f the statues can be seen in the context o f
contemporary politics, at a time when the repressive Taliban
regime was rejecting the international power structure that
was pressuring it in various ways. The Taliban’s horrific ac
tion can be interpreted as rejecting the international cultural
values that also encourage the preservation o f historical arti
facts like the Buddha images. These kinds o f complexities are
at the heart o f nuanced contextual analysis.
Style and meaning
The concept o f artistic style is an important one in art history.
You could say that style is where art’s formal and contextual
aspects meet. Art historians have spent a lot o f time trying
to define artistic style and explain how and why it changes
over time and varies between individuals and groups. Ernst
Gombrich (1909-2001) defined style with deceptive simplic
ity as “ any distinctive . . . way in which an act is performed.”
In a famous essay, Meyer Schapiro (1904-96) defined artistic
style as “ constant form— and sometimes the constant ele
ments, qualities and expressions— in the art o f an individual
or a group.” Style is sometimes identified in terms o f a time
period or culture (Italian Renaissance; Edo period, Japan);
in terms o f a group o f artists (Rembrandtesque or School o f
Rembrandt); or in terms o f an individual artist’s style.
Style is important to art historians because, i f works o f art
both reflect and shape the world around them, then style is
one way that they do that. That is, style communicates reli
gious, social, political, and moral values through the formal
properties o f the work o f art. The idea that style both express
es and shapes values or ideas may seem difficult to grasp, but
let’s look at it another way. Take the concept o f lifestyle, for
example. The word “ lifestyle” indicates certain types o f social
behavior, consumer products, and ways o f living chosen by
an individual, usually to express a sense o f connection to a
certain group or idea. Lifestyle choices are affected by gender,
race, class, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, personal taste—
and they affect the way we experience these characteristics. An
individual’s choice o f a car, for example, often has as much
to do with image as it does with functionality. The popularity
o f SUVs (sports utility vehicles) in prosperous Western coun
tries at the turn o f the twenty-first century is a good exam
ple— people who drove nowhere more exciting than the local
grocery store wanted these rugged, off-road vehicles in order
to appear outdoorsy and adventurous.
The complex interplay o f an artwork’s features is im
portant in defining a style, not any one feature in particular.
Subject matter is a good example o f this. Images o f the Bud
dha have been made in widely varying cultures and time peri
ods, and in many different formal styles. Considered alone,
the subject matter o f the Buddha does not tell you where
and when a particular image was made. To find this out, you
would have to look at other evidence, including the style in
which the figure o f the Buddha is depicted. Similarly, par
ticular formal features are not necessarily diagnostic o f a cul
tural style. Doric columns, for example, originated in ancient
Greek architecture, but this type o f column was later used in
different styles o f Roman, Italian Renaissance, and nineteenth-century Western architecture.
Conclusion
For me, the process o f interpreting a work o f art from another
culture or from the past is like speaking a foreign language.
I may not speak a language well, and may not fully understand
what native speakers are saying, but a great deal o f successful
communication
is still
possible,
despite
my
imperfect
grammar and vocabulary. So, too, with a work o f art. You
may not grasp all o f its meaning— if that’s even possible,
given the variable understandings and interpretations o f
the very people who made and used the work— but there
is much that you can know and understand. Your tools are
contextual and formal analysis.
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