Overview

This volume presents definitive essays by internationally renowned experts and innovative younger scholars on the wide range of approaches used by art historians past and present to analyze images, objects, buildings, and performances. It provides critical considerations of key methodologies, from formalism and iconography to social history and psychoanalytic approaches. It foregrounds fundamental concepts, from the artist, the beholder, and the frame to museums, canons, and periodization. At the same time, it broadens art itself as a category by considering photographs, digital media, performance, architecture, and visual culture more generally. The chapters also explore new approaches and new points of view that have expanded Art History’s remit in exciting ways in recent years by addressing growing interest in race, ethnicity, and the legacies of colonialism; gender identity and sexuality; ecocritical approaches to making and consuming art; materiality and the senses; digitally informed methods; the nascent field of Disability Studies; and scientific research on vision and on the technical analysis of works of art. This comprehensive collection will be indispensable for students and scholars of Art History, as well as for readers coming from other disciplines who are seeking fresh approaches to visual and material culture.

Full Product Details

9781032915180

Table of Contents

Reviews

""The past half century saw the rise of a radical Art History that challenged the underlying assumptions of traditional art historical practices. For the interested but uninitiated student, such a dizzying and heterogeneous range of theories and histories can be baffling. This innovative and critically-edited volume of essays by experts and younger scholars will be an indispensable companion in negotiating this complex but immensely rewarding subject."" - Professor Partha Mitter, University of Sussex ""With thirty essays by over thirty authors, this anthology provides a panoramic view of Art History as it has been shaped by traditions and reconfigured by contemporary concerns and critical challenges. The range of approaches, of voices, and of perspectives creates a complex picture of the current state of the field, widely defined and definitively explored. The collection presents a comprehensive and compelling guide to the diversity and relevance of art historical inquiry in our time."" - Professor Patricia Lee Rubin, The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University ""In recent decades the disciplinary borders of Art History have become ever more elastic, interdisciplinary, and fluid. This important collection of essays serves as a necessary guide and exciting provocation for students, teachers, and researchers alike. Art History Now is an indispensable companion for art historians grappling with the changing shape of their field of study across thirty new and innovative essays by leading scholars written in compelling prose and accessible format."" - Professor Jo Applin, The Courtauld Institute of Art

Author Information

Geraldine A. Johnson is Head of the History of Art Department at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Christ Church, Oxford. She has published widely on sculpture from the late Medieval period to the present day, gender and the visual arts, the history of photography, and the historiography of Art History. She co-edited the prize-winning Picturing Women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy and edited Sculpture and Photography: Envisioning the Third Dimension. She is also the author of Renaissance Art: A Very Short Introduction. Most recently, she co-edited Photo Archives and the Place of Photography (Routledge, 2025) and she is currently co-curating a major exhibition at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum on art and the senses in the global Early Modern period.

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