RELATION OF HISTORY AND ART

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 59, 11 March 1939, Page 26

RELATION OF HISTORY AND ART

Mr. R. H. Wilenski, Lecturer in the History of Art at the Manchester Unisity, in the course of a paper on art and the teaching of history, contended that art and history are essentially connected subjects. "But," he went on to say, "we must not think of the art of any time and place as all of one kind. Different categories in the body politic always call for and receive quite different kinds of art; and there have always been artists of various characters who have produced the different kinds of art required—for example, by the rulers of the State, the military, the j Churchmen, the intelligentsia, the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, the clerks, the artisans, the labourers. and the peasants. "The majority of the objects of art surviving from the past are those produced for the richer and more powerful classes, because these classes put the objects in or on permanent buildings or otherwise preserved them. The objects of art produced for the poorer categories have largely disappeared because they were generally of cheap and perishable materials and because the owners had no power to preserve them.

"The study of history leads inevitably to the study of art, because the historian, wishing to give a complete account of the body politic in any time and place, will wish to record what kind of art each category favoured or discouraged and in what ways the mutual relations of the categories determined those selections and rejections.

"On the other hand, the study of art leads inevitably to history, because the student who systematically examines the objects of art surviving from a given time and place and the documented facts about the lives, ideas, and intentions of the artists will be led to the study of the artists' environment —that is to say, to the study of the various categories in the body politic which the various artists served by j their productions. . ■ "The presence of a Department of thr History of Art (or its equivalent) in a school or university should be j thus of service to those concerned with ; the teaching of history, because it can furnish illustrative images, which will quicken the pupils' interest in history j and train their powers ol observation. "But if the study of art is to be of service in this way the teacher must! use the historical method of quiet examination of objects and facts and avoid the concept of art as an isolated aesthetic activity pursued by eccentric demigods in a no-man's land between heaven and earth. The teacher must avoid the thrusting of his personal aesthetic preferences on the student; for it is the business of the actual objects of art to arouse an aesthetic response in the students, and (except in the case of abnormally insensitive students) the objects will do this if they are in fact the work of artists of strong aesthetic appeal and if the students are allowed to examine them without prejudicial comments from the teacher 1/ . ,