Smith P., Wilde C. (eds.) A Companion to Art Theory

Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002. — 552 p. — (Blackwell Companions in Cultural Studies) — ISBN: 0-631-20762-7.This survey of art theory in the context of Western visual art consists of 41 original essays written by experts in the field. Following an extensive introduction on the formation of modern art theory, the Companion is organized chronologically so that readers can trace developments of visual art theory, from Classical and Medieval sources and modern conceptions of art as they have been theorized since the Renaissance, through to some current theoretical preoccupations. In addition to outlining and describing various theoretical positions, the book's chapters articulate some assumptions that underpin them and raise more general questions about the nature of theorizing about art. In this way the Companion provides both an introduction to main themes of Western art theory and a source for critical enquiry into the purposes, possibilities and limitations of theory in the context of artistic practice. The work can also be used alongside the three Art in Theory anthologies published by Blackwell, as a further art theory resource.Introduction: Alberti and the formation of modern art theory / Carolyn Wilde
Classical concept of minesis / Göran Sörbom
Medieval art theory / Hugh Bredin
Neoplatonist aesthetics / Suzanne Stern-Gillet
Renaissance art theories / Francois Quiviger
Touch, tactility, and the reception of sculpture in early modern Italy / Geraldine A. Johnson
Spiritual exercises of Leonardo da Vinci / Robert Williams
Academic theory, 1550-1800 / Paul Duro
Rhetorical categories in the academy / Caroline van Eck
Picturesque and its development / Andrew Ballantyne
Aesthetics of Kant and Hegel / Jason Gaiger
E.H. Gombrich and the tradition of Hegel / David Summers
German romanticism and French aesthetic theory / Wendy S. Mercer
Expression: natural, personal, pictorial / Richard Shiff
Reading artists' words / Richard Hobbs
Nietzsche and the artist / Michael White
Wittgenstein, description, and Adrian Stokes (on Cézanne) / Paul Smith
Modernism and the idea of the avant-garde / Paul Wood
On the intention of modern(ist) art / Fred Orton
Anti-art and the concept of art / Paul N. Humble
Marcel Duchamp's readymades and anti-aesthetic reflex / David Hopkins
Marxism and critical art history / David Craven
Walter Benjamin and art theory / Howard Caygill
Bakhtin and the visual arts / Deborah J. Haynes
Peirce's visuality and the semiotics of art / Michael Leja
Conceptual art / Charles Harrison
Barthes on art / Margaret Iversen
Foucault and art / Roy Boyne
Derrida and the Parergon / Robin Marriner
What consciousness forgets: Lyotard's concept of the sublime / Renée van de Vall
Deleuze on Francis Bacon / Ian Heywood
Feminisms and art theory / Marsha Meskimmon
Psycho-phallus (qu'est-ce que c'est?) / Mignon Nixon
Rules of representation / John Willats
Gombrich and psychology / Richard Woodfield
Hermeneutics and art theory / Nicholas Davey
Reciprocity and reception theory / Michael Ann Holly
Paradox of creative interpretation in art / Carl Hausman
Interdisciplinarity and visual culture / Charlotte Klonk
Against curatorial imperialism: Merleau-Ponty and the historicity of art / Paul Crowther
Institutional theory of art: theory and antitheory / Garry L. Hagberg