The two mainstream ways of learning the history of art
PAUL JOHNSON
Art is, or ought to be, the most important concept to human beings after consciousness itself — or, in moral terms, conscience. It is essential to human happiness because it embodies the virtue of order, and society cannot function without order. Art came not only before writing but before speech (as opposed to voice-noises). Humans were producing high-quality art 40,000 years ago and, almost certainly, paying professionals to produce it. The expert artist came before the priest, in time. Granted the importance of art to human wellbeing, it is disturbing to see that most people know less about art than ever, and have less capacity to evaluate a work of art thrust before their unwilling gaze than any previous generation. This has happened despite the fact that there are more and better museums than ever before, more and better special exhibitions, an unprecedented flow of high-quality art books, and an explosion of art studies courses at universities. Yet impenetrable ignorance is growing, and this enables the art fraud, the 20thcentury phenomenon to which Picasso gave birth, to flourish mightily. What to do?
I still believe that the best way to combat ignorance and fraud is to teach art history as dearly and sincerely as possible. So I have, with enormous effort and some drudgery, published my own new history of art, with the specific and particular aim, over the last two centuries of the narrative, of exposing the element of fraudulence and disorder. However, there are two distinct ways of writing art history, both with merits and drawbacks. My method is the linear — a continuous thread of connected development flowing through art history from the 4th millennium BC onwards. This has one obvious weakness: it is impossible to link European cave art, the first painting of any quality, beginning about 40,000 sc and disappearing some time after 10,000 Bc, with the earliest quality art appearing in the ancient Near East from about 5000 to 4000 BC. I assume there were links but, if so, they have disappeared or have not yet been unearthed, so the line of advance is broken.
However, there is a grand alternative: what might be called the geographical method, in which we assume that all parts of the world have, often simultaneously and independently, developed their own art systems which have only interacted and influenced each other at a relatively recent date, during the last 2,000 years and especially in the last millennium.
This method has little of the excitement, logic and elegance of linear history. On the other hand it is much more inclusive. I therefore salute with enthusiasm a new and infinitely painstaking effort to teach this kind of art history in the form of a single mighty volume. It is called The Atlas of World Art, published by Laurence King Publishing at £75, and is available at bookshops and 71 Great Russell St, London WC1B 3BP. This impressive tome is the brainchild of King, who has been working on its logistics for nearly a decade. Editorially it is the work of John Onians, who has marshalled a team of 70 scholars to write it.
The book is a series of big double-page spreads designed to answer the question, 'What exactly was being produced in art, when and where?' The key elements, therefore, are specially drawn maps, of which there are 300 or more, the text being an explanatory accompaniment illuminated by illustrations of art objects, buildings and the like. The book's methodology is chronological, but the narrative is discontinuous, the text dashing about from one continent, country or religion to another. The maps are superb and most informative.
Personally I found it invaluable for filling huge gaps in my knowledge. For instance, what happened in central and south Asia between about 5000 and 500 nc? To what extent were the Indus civilisations influenced by the societies of the ancient Near East, through the medium of the two-way trade traffic across the Iranian Plateau? This is the kind of information the book supplies, concisely and graphically, drawing attention to littleknown works. I knew nothing of the Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro, near the Indus river, 200 miles or so north of what is now Karachi. This huge project, used for both routine public and ritual bathing, was built of brick and lined with bitumen. It provides evidence of a strong, healthy and urban society, perhaps a highly egalitarian one, with distinct artistic ideas about the design of big civic projects and a sophisticated technology for managing precious water supplies.
The Atlas highlights fascinating artefacts. Thus, while Alexander's successors were lording it in Pergamum and Alexandria, what was happening in Bactria, where the camels came from, north of the Hindu Kush? A silver tetralrachm provides an outstanding low-relief portrait of King Antimachus I, who flourished c.181 BC. It shows this grim and handsome ruler, smiling slightly and with tremendous eyebrows, wearing a traditional Macedonian
Kausia headdress (or 'a little round wickerwork hat' of the kind Beachcomber said Noah wore 'on the eve of the Deluge'). This is a wonderfully accomplished piece of numismatism telling us a lot about the penetrative power of Hellenistic culture.
In the section covering North America Al) 600-1500, I was surprised and pleased to find an excellent example of semi-abstract art in the shape of a formalised eagle's claw, carved from a thin sheet of mica. The text reads: 'Such objects served no practical purpose other than to attest to the skill of the carver and the status of the person for whom it was made.' Whether or not that assertion is true, the claw is an elegant object, most desirable to own. Status is often a key factor in art. For instance, the section on South America displays an Inca shirt in fine tapestry weave. The decorative pattern consists of 156 miniature shirt designs, assembled in rows and squares into one master design. The person entitled to wear this one master shirt was considered to be socially superior to all the lesser shirt-wearers whose designs were incorporated in his. What intrigues me is that the hierarchical concept there given visual form in fact produces a beautiful pattern. Did beauty lead and function follow, or vice versa? More food for thought.
North America, during what we would call the Early Modern Period, also provides a fascinating garment in the shape of the Chilkat Brown Bear Clan Coat. This is a species of aspective art, as I call it, here referred to as split representative, in which a figure (a bear) is depicted as if split and then laid out so that all its features can be seen simultaneously. Most archaic or primitive societies tend to use this approach, perspective art (what we actually see, as opposed to what is there) being a relatively sophisticated form of graphic presentation. However, the result is a wonderfully striking coat which might have been designed by Christian Dior had he decided to cock a snook at Vivienne Westwood.
None of these objects or buildings, however, is great art, although some might fairly be described as high art. The drawback of the geographical as opposed to the linear approach to art history is that it tends to get us into an undiscriminating habit of treating all art which is interesting and original as of roughly the same value. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is an infinite hierarchy of values in art, and the higher reaches can only be attained by a combination of a civilised environment, strong studio traditions and sheer genius.
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