Erwin Panofsky, Leo Steinberg, David Carrier: The Problem of Objectivity in Art Historical Interpretation Author(s): David Carrier Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 333- 347 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/431133 . Accessed: 24/04/2012 07:48

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http://www.jstor.org DAVID CARRIER

ErwinPanofsky, Leo Steinberg,David Carrier:The Problemof Objectivityin Art HistoricalInterpretation

My cheeky title was inspiredby an anonymous tive "as objectively as possible" and yet "when reader's complaint in a rejection letter: "and they ... compared ... their efforts ... their tran- what's worse, at one point Carrier even com- scripts differed to a surprisingextent." Under- pares himself to Panofsky." But why indeed standing"these limits to objectivity"may, Gom- shouldI not comparemyself to him, since doing brich suggests, help us understandnaturalistic that is not, absurdly,to imply that my work is images. Considerthe parallelquestion about the equally important,but indicates how the meth- limits of objectivity of interpretationin art his- odological problems posed by his writing are tory. A group of art historiansseeks to interpret also raisedby mine? In a long sequence of pub- the same artworkas objectively as possible and lished papersI have describedthe literarystruc- yet when we compare their texts, their inter- tures of art historians'writing which the histo- pretationsdiffer to a surprisingextent. Just as riographerHayden White calls the tropics of those Germanartists could comparetheir repre- discourse.' Just as successful painters have a sentations because they all sought to depict the style, an identifiablypersonal way of represent- landscape before which they stood, so we can ing what they depict; so the same is true, I compare the interpretationsof these art histo- argue, of art historians.But how is objectivityof riansbecause they are of the same artwork. interpretationin art history possible? An answer Each artist representing that landscape de- to this question must be consistent with two picted it in his or her own style. Analogously, I facts: 1) styles of artwritingchange over time; speak of the style of an art historian.This paral- 2) every interpreterhas theirown style. The aim lel appearsoccasionally in the earlier literature of art history is to interpreta workobjectively, to but its implicationshave not been spelled out.3 understandit-that is-as it really was intended Like a painter,an art historiancomes-perhaps to be seen. But if disagreements amongst art after some struggle-to acquire a style, which historiansare sufficiently serious, then it may be then can influence others, or be imitated. What impossibleto achievethat goal. The fact that art makes Poussin's evolution so interestingis that historiansdisagree says nothing about the pos- when he arrived in Rome at the crossroads of sibility of achieving objectivity in interpreta- 1630 many stylistic possibilitieswere available.4 tion. The real questions are: how serious are The dating of his early work is complex in part such agreements?;and, are they serious enough because he was subject to many influences. He to show that objectivity in interpretationis im- had not yet found his own style. After a certain possible to achieve?I answerthem by taking the date, however, he did, and then his evolution parallelbetween artists and art historiansas far proceededin a relativelyself-sufficient fashion. as it will go, or even, for this too is useful, too Comparehim to Gombrich, who, when he was far. young, was also subjectto many influences. He Like an artist, an art historianhas a style. At has explained how his rejection of both for- the startof the second chapterof Artand Illusion malism and Marxism, his critical response to Gombrich retells a story which reveals some- Riegl and his interestin psychoanalysisled him thing importantabout artists' styles.2 A groupof to form his style.5 Like Poussin, after a certain Germanartists seek to transcribethe same mo- point he found his style, and then his evolution The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism 47:4 Fall 1989 334 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism also proceededin a relativelyself-sufficient fash- clear, that did not seem especially disturbing. ion. An art historian'sstyle, like thatof an artist, Post-Panofsky, that work is a allegory whose may evolve. Svetlana Alpers's recent book on every element is related to that inscription. Far Rembrandtboth builds upon her earlier con- from being a merely naturalisticimage, it is a cerns and is recognizably different from her highly complex play of symbols. Pre-Panofsky, earlier work.6 A style of an art historian, like The Arcadian Shepherdsis an Arcadian scene; thatof a painter,may be imitated.Sydney Freed- the two versions contain the same words and berg has a style which appears in his book on express the same sense of nostalgia. Post-Pan- Parmigianino(1950). It is developed in his ac- ofsky, this change in the composition marks a count of the High Renaissance (1961) and re- dramaticchange in the meaning of the depicted fined in his Circa 1600 (1983).7 Werehe now to scene. Now the same words are very differently write in the style of Alpers, he would have interpretedby the artist in his two images, a abandonedhis style. revision which reveals a major change in the Just as only a few artists develop such a per- conceptionof an Arcadia. sonal style, so also in art history. Most art histo- Pre-Steinberg:The two Caravaggio's in the rians write in the style of theirmaster. There are Cerasi Chapel are puzzling, seemingly inept two different ways to understandthis situation. compositions. Prior to this century, Caravag- However interestingtheir individual works, no gio's reputationwas low; and although the re- artist or art historianwhose works are not in an vival of interestin his art led to a more positive individualstyle can be judged a master.Perhaps evaluation of these works, even some of his it is betterto have a bad style ratherthan none at admirersfound them not altogethersatisfactory. all, for that at least shows that your work is Post-Steinberg:These compositions are due to identifiably individual. To say an artist or art very intricatecalculations by Caravaggioabout historianhas an individualstyle indicates, then, the site in which they are set. Once we consider that they are an importantfigure. Minor artists the experienceof enteringthe Cerasi Chapeland and art historians work in the style of others; viewing them obliquely, then we see them en- greatones are influencedby earlierfigures in the tirely differently and understandin a new way creation of their own style. Alternatively, to how they are characteristicallybaroque. speak of styles may be less to use an honorific Pre-Steinberg:Michelangelo's Last Judgment term than to employ a convenientway of classi- is a very famous often quotedwork whose com- fying texts and artworks. Just as it is useful to position is not especially interesting. The scene describe some relativelyunknown artist's works of a last judgment is a familiar theme, and so as being in the style of Poussin, so it is useful to what is importantare the details of Michelan- identify an art historian'swork by saying that it gelo's image. Post-Steinberg: Michelangelo's is in the style of Alpers. The art critic often uses Last Judgmentis a compositionwhich links dis- this technique, identifying younger artists by tant figures in a remarkablyoriginal fashion; comparingand contrastingthem to well known and it is not a last judgment, but a work whose figures. To say thattheir work is akin to Mondri- theology is original and, in the counter-Refor- an's or Matisse's is not necessarily to imply that mation, which occurred soon after it was paint- they are equally good, but it does give some ed, was heretical.What fascinates Leo Steinberg sense of how to place their work. Talk about is the site specific relation of an image to the style provides an useful sense of expectation.9 spectator,an effect which is sometimes lost or Style is a pigeonhole, a way of identifying the hard to recapturein reproductions.Panofsky's novel by referenceto what is well known.10 interpretations,published in the 1930s, provid- How is this personal element in artwriting ed a framework which was soon adapted by consistent with the announced goal of art his- other art historians, becoming the established tory, objectivity in interpretation?I first pose methodology. Steinberg'sessay on Caravaggio this question by using well known examples I was publishedin 1959, and his workon Michel- have discussed in detail in my publishedpapers. angelo appearedmore recently. For this reason, Pre-Panofsky,Arnolfini Marriage seemed a much more is to be learnt by considering the marvelousnaturalistic image. If the meaningof responsesto his publications.Since a consensus the very small inscription was not altogether about the value of his work has not yet been Carrier Objectivityin Art Historical Interpretation 335

achieved, it would be premature to radically way of talking, one I readilyemploy in thinking divide the history of interpretationinto pre- and about my own interpretations.15 It underlines post-Steinbergianphases. 1I But what justifies the importance of making discoveries which here applying these terms to his interpretations change the way we see these pictures. But it is is that if they are accepted, it has the same effect also potentially misleading. Art historians do as Panofsky's. We come to see that well known discover facts, as when the documenteddate of pictures have been misunderstoodentirely by Caravaggio'sbirth was found. But to treatinter- earliercommentators. pretationsas discoveries of facts makes it diffi- If we accept these novel interpretationsof cult to understandhow original interpretations these works, the way we understandthem dra- are debated. If Panofsky discovered the facts, matically changes. A reader of Panofsky and then how could any reasonableperson disagree Steinbergmight have to think that the effect of with him? The fact that his interpretationswere these accounts is to undermine objectivity of debated indicates that something other than the interpretation.Since these four paintingsare fa- discovery of facts was involved. miliar works, it ought to seem surprising that Todayalmost everyone will agree that Piero's only now are they interpretedin highly original ass appearsas one of the singers and Arnolfini ways. 12 If Panofsky and Steinbergare correct, Marriage is symbolic. But since almost every- no earlierwriter understood the intendedmean- one sees the paintings this way, what is gained ing of these works. Just as it is surprisingto find by addingthat these are featuresof the artworks that a familiarperson or place has qualities we themselves? Some art historians have worried knew nothing about; so it is disconcerting to that my appeal to the consensus within the pro- learn thatthe establishedview of these artworks fession implies, unnecessarily,that these inter- is entirelymistaken. pretationsare not really solid. This is incorrect. Compare two other less dramatic types of Of course it is possible that in the future they, revisionistinterpretations. I often have seen Pie- like any interpretation,may be rejected. But ro's Nativity without noticing what Paul Bar- since nearly everyone now agrees that they are olsky has observed,that if thereare threeangelic plausible, what is gained by insisting that the instrumentalistsand two singers, that is because consensus is grounded in facts about the art- the ass in the backgroundcompletes the trio of works themselves? Steinberg's interpretations singers.'3 Since this is the sort of humor we raise interestingproblems precisely because they expect from Piero, this detail does not change are more controversial.If Steinbergdiscovered our sense of an entire work in the way that the truth about the Cerasi chapel Caravaggios, Panofsky's and Steinberg's accounts aspire to then how can any unprejudicedperson disagree do. Neitherare we here dealing with the familiar with him? If, rather,I describe his accountas an cases in which a marxist, Freudian,or feminist original, highly suggestive interpretationwhich applies recently developed theories to re-inter- gets us to see those works differently,then it is pret a familiarwork. On some, perhapsoverop- easier to understandwhy there is a real contro- timistic views of interpretationsuch frameworks versy about the value of his work. This focus providenovel ways of describingworks. 14 What upon how the consensus is achieved better per- Panofsky and Steinberg are saying, rather, is mits us to understandthe natureof objectivity in that the earlieraccounts fail to understandthese art history. works. Of course, such novel accounts are discon- Such original interpretationsraise an interest- certing only if we have reason to think they are ing epistemological problem. Once we see that correct. Burkeanconceptual conservatives think the ass is one singer in Nativity; that Arnolfini that the fact that an interpretationis original is Marriageis a symbolic image; and, if Steinberg sufficient reasonto reject it. Baxandallhas said: is correct, that the Cerasi chapel Caravaggios Properly read Vasari tells the story of Renais- are site specific, then we are naturallyinclined sance art. 16 But how we read Vasari depends to say that we have discovered facts about the upon a controversialact of interpretation.Even works themselves. The limitation of earlier in- conservatives cannot avoid this problem, for terpreters,we then think, is thatthey did not see they must acknowledgethat what they call tradi- these featuresof the paintings. This is a natural tion seems to involve constant revision of older 336 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism opinions. Woelfflin rejectedsome of the claims repeat. It is true that critics, artists and art deal- of his predecessor,Burckhardt; Winckelmann's ers promoteart which claims to be original, but view of the High Renaissancetakes issue with really is not. But this does not show that the Vasari, whose view of the quattrocentowould history of art has ended, and indeed it is hardto startle Alberti. Here, as in politics, the trouble think of any convincing philosophicalargument with appeals to traditionis that it is not easy to for this claim. 17 In art history, similarly, some determinewhen the traditionbegan. commentatorshave attemptedto argue that no Today some art historians criticize iconog- interesting new positions are likely to be pro- raphy for producing overly-elaborateinterpre- duced. It is hardto think that the fact that Stein- tations and urge that old master paintings are berg's claims are original itself constitutes an altogethersimpler than Panofsky and his follow- argumentagainst or for them. The real question ers would have us believe. Even if such revi- is: Are his argumentsconvincing? sionists would like to return to an older tradi- Here we come back to the problemsposed by tion, that itself is a novel interpretationnow that my claim that importantart historians have a iconography has, for half a century, been an style. Again and again, Panofsky shows that accepted methodology. Such a rejection of the understandingthe textual source of a picture traditionPanofsky established acknowledges, in determines its meaning. Repeatedly Steinberg part, the importanceof his claims. BecauseStein- argues that earlier interpreterswere mistaken berg's publications are recent, rejecting their because they did not take into accountthe site of claims is easier. If Panofsky was misguided, a work. Panofskyinterprets Bronzino's Allegory then most of the recent literatureon Flemish art by demonstratingthat, contraryto first appear- is conceptuallyconfused. But since Steinberg's ances, it shows the dangersof love, not its plea- studies of Caravaggio and Michelangelo have sures.18 Steinbergargues that Guercino's Saint not yet been as influential, it is possible to think Petronilla has been misunderstood by earlier he is wrong without taking issue with such a commentatorsbecause they failed to recognize body of literature.To draw a political analogy, thatit was paintedfor St. Peter's.19 A readerwho which is helpful in underliningthe institutional knew only their other essays and who looked at role of such disputes, if dismissing Steinberg's these paintings would have some idea of what accountof the Cerasichapel is, for an American they would say aboutthem. politician, like refusing to supportthe ERA, re- Considertwo more such examples jecting Panofsky'sview of allegory is like call- ing for a returnto prohibition. 1.From the standpoint of classicalcanons of represen- Of course, it may seem more startlingto learn tation, they must seem ignorant and crude. ... But from a text published in 1959 that our view of forgetthe prejudiceof classic style and look more Caravaggiois mistaken than it is to know that closely at the forms.How strongand sure are the fifty years ago Panofsky publishedhis account forms.20 of Flemish allegory. But this is simply because, all things being equal, recent changes are more 2. The subject ... looks up from his writing desk.... startling. Unless we believe thatat some point in His outrightglance implicates the mentalvision he the past the best methodology was discovered, has of his addressee.The picture(is) an incomplete the fact that a methodologyis traditionalshows situation,interacting with real space.21 little. And since the dominantmethodology of art history was developedonly recently,it would Meyer Schapiro's account of the Beth-Alpha be surprising if new ways of interpretingart- Synagogue mosaics identifies the virtues of a worksdo not continueto be developed.It is hard seemingly inept, historically marginal work. to imagine an interestingnon-circular argument Characteristicallygenerous, he praises what an showing that any traditionalmethodology is the historian concerned only with masterpieces best interpretativeapproach. Here again my par- would dismiss, as in discussing Fromentin'sart allel between art and art history is interesting. criticism he says that the "imperfections" a Some art critics believe thatthe historyof art has reader discovers in that text "are at times as ended. Everything has been done, they claim, instructiveas the perfect parts; they belong no and so henceforthartists are doomed merely to less to the personality."22Steinberg's account of Carrier Objectivityin Art Historical Interpretation 337 the Pontonno takes up his typical concern with Poussin keeps light and form severely distinct from the relation between depicted figure and spec- one another and gives almost no sensation of atmo- tator, with erotic relations between image and sphere. Claude ... creates a very palpable "atmo- their spectators. He writes: "I suspect that all sphere;"and this, irradiatedby light, tends to merge works of art ... are definable by their built-in with the forms.24 idea of the spectator."23It would be surprising to find these words in a text by Schapiro. It is not a fact aboutthe Campagnathat light and That Schapiro and Steinberg have an identi- form are, or are not, distinct. But it is a fact that fiable style may be worrisome for someone the Campagna can be depicted in these two who believes in objectivity of interpretation. styles. Analogously, perhapsit is not a fact that Looking at such different pictures as the van van Eyck and Poussin compose visual allegories Eyck, the Poussin and the Bronzino, Panofsky or that Caravaggioand Michelangelo create site finds that each is an allegory. Studying such specific works. But it is a fact thattheir work can diverse images as the Caravaggio, the Michel- be interpreted in the styles of Panofsky and angelo and the Guercino, Steinberg observes Steinberg. There is one obvious problem with that each is site specific. Is it the case that such this argument.Landscape painters depict scenes different artists working at different times in their style; art historiansoffer argumentsfor aimed at the same effect, and that this was their interpretations.Certainly it is true that unknown until Panofsky and Steinberg dis- Panofsky and Steinberg, unlike Cezanne and covered that? This might be true, but it is easy Gauguin, produce arguments.The whole appa- to think of another explanation for these facts. ratus of professional art history-the compari- Perhaps Panofsky and Steinberg so often find son illustrations,the detailedaccount of the ear- these similarities because of their style of inter- lier literature,the supportingarguments drawn pretation.Whatever artwork they interpret,this from literary sources contemporary with the is how they will describe it. They are thus like painting-mark this distinction. artists. WhateverCezanne depicts, he depicts Unlike artists, art historiansoffer arguments. in his style, which differs from Gauguin's. It is Steinbergcan be criticized for not being true to true that only Cezanne depicted Mt. Saint Vic- the facts; an artist normallycannot. But how is toire and only Gauguin representedTahiti. But the truthof an art historian'sclaims to be fairly the real difference here is stylistic, for Cezanne evaluated? When the disputants stand too far depicted even seemingly unCezannesque mo- apart, it is almost impossible for them to argue tifs in his style. The style here is a product of with one another.25In my writing I repeatedly the artist's treatmentof his motif, not of those returnto this question;where is the neutralpoint motifs themselves. Analogously, perhapsevery from which to evaluatecompeting claims? work that Panofsky interprets becomes Pan- One answer is that there is none. Panofsky's ofskyesque and all that Steinberg describes arguments convinced the audience who mat- become Steinbergesque. The styles of Panof- tered, the next generationof art historians, and sky and Steinberg, and not the facts about the so his work defined the dominantmethodology artworks,determine how they interpret.Just as of that discipline. Some art historians simply painters learn their favored motifs, so success- dismiss Steinberg and, leaving aside personal ful art historianslearn which worksthey should factors, we may expect that writing which chal- interpretin their style. Panofsky refused in his lenges some of the assumptions of established Early NetherlandishPainting to discuss Bosch. art history will meet resistance. But to speak of Steinberghas published accounts only on early "personalfactors" is too simple. His critics will Johns and Rauschenberg;he has not dealt with say: since his methodology is flawed, his argu- the more recent work of these artists. Here, ments are not worth detailed discussion.26Cer- perhaps they wisely refuse to deal with works tainly there is somethingpersonal in his interest to which their styles of interpretationwere not in images which appeal to the spectator'spres- well adapted. ence, just as his concern with eroticismin the art Claudeand Poussin, thoughthey both worked of many masters is personal.27But there is also from the Roman Compagna,depicted that place somethingpersonal in refusing to deal with these in quite distinct styles. aspectsof imagery,if indeedthey are present.In 338 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism interpretationthere is no escape from "personal the necessity of a personal response. No doubt taste," thoughit is truethat some tastes are more Steinberg'scritics are being dogmatic, but so, in tone with presentday art historians'dominant unavoidably,are all of us when we choose to concerns thanothers. attend to one writer's arguments and not an- When in the late 1950s, the young Jasper other's. Because I admire ArthurDanto, I read Johns replaced de Kooning as the dominantin- him sympathetically.Because I usually find Der- fluence in New York,there was felt resistanceby rida frustrating, I am a masochistic reader, many second generationabstract expressionists. thoughI haveborrowed from him. A readerwho These older artists refused to adopthis style, or finds Ruskin or Winckelmannstimulating will even to take his art seriously. Similarly,within not be disturbedby the silly things they say; an art history when older scholars now refuse to unsympatheticscholar will be unlikely to attend take an interest in novel methodologies they, closely to their interestingclaims. quite understandably,refuse to give up the style Just as a painterhas a personal style, so too of interpretationwith which they are familiarin does an art historian. Here it is useful to con- favor of approacheswhose value is difficult as sider parody,for it teaches us that when authors yet to estimate. have a style what they will say is predictable. How objectiveare such personaltastes? Stein- berg quotes an art historian who wrote: "Mi- It was withthe senseof a, for him, very memorable chelangelo's sex life is, quite frankly, none of somethingthat he peerednow into the immediate our business."28 As he convincingly indicates, future,and tried, not withoutcompunction, to take while this preconceptionreveals something about thatperiod up where he had,prospectively, left it. 32 traditionalart historians'methodology, it gives no reason to accept that limitationon inquiry.29 The reader of James will recognize in this fa- No doubt the passage of time makes it easier to mous parodythe Master'sstyle. In readingorig- see when "personaltaste" is not objective. The inal art historians what we expect, and usually modern reader of Roger Fry's appreciationof find, is that knowing their writings enable us to eroticism in Indiansculpture and his distastefor predictwhat they will say aboutnew works. baroqueart is awareof the influences shapinga Given what Michael Fried wrote about the man of his generation.30In fifty years, a more oppositionbetween theatrical minimalist art and measuredjudgment of Steinberg's importance modernismin the 1960s; his published work on may be possible. But that does not help us now eighteenth century French painting and his es- to assess his "personaltaste." Ruskin, famous says on Courbet: given that backgroundinfor- in his day, was neglected in Fry's era and now is mation, we can almost predict how in his most famousagain; Winckelmann,famous in his cen- recentlypublished book he will interpretThomas tury, remains somewhat neglected, though it is Eakins'sThe Gross Clinic. predictable that studies of the history of art historywill drawincreased attention to his work. Butthe primacyof absorptionin TheGross Clinic is A history of these changes in their reputation everywheremanifest ... a motif comparablein its would be analogousto a sociological accountof single-mindednessas well as in aspectsof its content the rise to fame of Piero, and the fall and revival to one of the most compellingseventeenth-century of the Carracci.31 images of collective engrossment. ... the probing of While we can explain why these changes oc- the open wound in Christ'sside in Caravaggio's cur, it would be overoptimisticto thinkthat there Doubting Thomas.33 are plausible ahistorical standardsby which to judge the argumentsof an art history or measure Just as studying Beerborm's parody of James the importanceof an artist. And since the repu- reveals the master's style, writing a parody of tation of these artists and art historians has Fried could be instructive,for doing that would changed, at what time, past, present or future requireworking out explicitly a characterization was the judgmentof their importanceobjective? of his style. Unlike James, Fried offers argu- Once we give up the pretensethat the test of time ments. Realism, Writing,Disfiguration has foot- providesan unproblematicway of judging an art notes; The GoldenBowl does not. But art histo- historian'spersonal taste, then we can recognize rians who find Fried's approachmisguided are Carrier Objectivityin Art Historical Interpretation 339 unlikely to be convinced by this scholarly inevitably imitations of the first such complex apparatus.34 interpretationappear. Only modern interpreters This discussion of style in art history can gain attemptto identify three mysterious figures in from considering how artists think about style. Piero's Flagellation and speculate elaborately Matisse said: about the meaning of the non-matchingmirror images in the two versions of Manet'sA Bar at I found... my artisticpersonality by lookingover my the Folies Bergere instead of simply thinking it earliest works. ... I found somethingthat was always an inept composition. The older accounts are the same and whichat first glanceI thoughtto be brief and lack footnotes; they say little about monotonousrepetition. It wasthe mark of myperson- Piero's three men; recent writers offer a bewil- ality whichappeared the sameno matterwhat states dering variety of mutuallyexclusive hypotheses of mindI happenedto havepassed through.35 about their identity. Once Flagellation and A Bar at the Folies Bergere have been subject to Is this not a highly suggestivedefinition of style, the first elaborate interpretation,other equally that personal element which makes the result, complex interpretationswill be offered. whateverthe starting point, seem to show mo- Once art history is written not by journalists notonous repetition? Ad Reinhardt produced nor other amateurs, but by professors it is un- "black square paintings that were very much avoidablethat the standardsby which such art- alike but, as they came from the same impulse, writing is judged will change. Like parents, they were not duplicatesof one another."36Some- professorsof art history reproducethemselves, thing like this is true of any artistor art historian which meansthat their researchtechniques must who has a style. Just as Matisse, though he be teachable. Institutionssuch as Art Bulletin, seems with each picture to start anew, always graduate students, and the other apparatusof ends up creatingsomething in his style; so does professionalizationmean that once lots of re- an art historianwho has a distinctivestyle. searchis done, it is inevitablethat major painters While I can only speculate why it is that will be studied in ever more detail and mono- Panofsky, Steinbergor other art historianswho graphsbe devoted to minor artists. Once some- have a distinctivestyle repeatthemselves, in one one seriously asks who are Piero's figures, then case I have privileged information about the these institutionsguarantee that there will soon developmentof a scholar who writes about art be an elaborateliterature on thatproblem. When history. Here we come to the point of my title. researchis thus institutionalized,post graduate While I would be almost the last personto assert students want thesis topics; younger professors that art historians have any special authority need to publish:and Slade lecturersneed to find when it comes to the interpretationof their own originalways to describe familiarworks. work, somethingcan be learned about this case These claims which I have made repeatedly because I, unlike Panofsky, Steinbergor Fried, now seem commonplace to me. But since art can offer additionalinformation about the nature historians, unlike literary critics, do not write of these repetitions which constitute my per- aboutthe institutionsof their discipline, it is not sonal style. obvious to me whether they share this view. I have only graduallycome to recognize that When an art historianrecently wrote that "today in very differentcontexts I was repeatedlyoffer- only one youngerscholar ... is workingfull time ing the selfsame argument.In studyingthe liter- on" CorradoGiaquinto (1703-1766) this seems atureon Manet, Piero, and otherartists I repeat- to me an inadvertentlycomic comment on aca- edly identified two concerns. First, the contrast demic specialization.37A century ago, nobody between the older, simpler seeming interpreta- was workingfull time on Caravaggio.Now that tions, and the more recent interpretationswhich so muchhas been writtenabout him, it is natural attributemore complex intentionsto the artist. to turning to relatively minor baroque artists. Only the modern interpretersfind van Eyck's Once one scholar is working full time on Gia- Arnolfini Marriage a highly complex allegory, quinto, soon her students will do more such describe the symbolism in Piero's Flagellation research. and speculateabout the meaningof the mirrorin Then there will be a majorGiaquinto exhibi- Manet's A Bar at the Folies Bergere. Second, tion, for just as research is governed by the 340 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism academic market, so exhibitions depend upon vague. The fact thatsome journals publishedmy the art market.In 1951 in the famouspioneering work and I was invited to give lectures gave me exhibition, the greater body of Caravaggio's reason to work out a detailed analysis. That known work was gathered in Milan. Although critics responded to it stimulated me to refine he had been seriously studied since WorldWar my arguments.39 one, only his exhibition really established his WhetherI describe the literatureon Manet or modern reputation.When in 1985 in New York Piero or CaravaggioI find the same structures. another Caravaggioexhibition was held, some Of course, had I studied the literatureon other of his works were judged too valuableto travel; artists I might arrive at different conclusions. and due in large part to stimulus of the art PerhapsI find the same structuresrepeated not market, a number of hitherto lost Caravaggios because they are there in the literature, but be- reappeared. A number of the attributionsby cause they are my creation. Just as Matisse's RobertoLonghi had been rejectedby the young- repetitions,which define his artisticpersonality, er specialists. One reason that a Giaquintoex- are to be understoodby studying his life; so my hibit is now likely is because few Caravaggios repetitions are better understood by knowing remain on the market, and his works are so somethingabout me as an author.A critic com- valuable that arrangingloans for exhibitions is plained that my "claim to self-consistency ex- difficult. There is a naturaltendency for curators cludes us from direct engagementwith" me.40I to look at the workof otherartists.38 am, I think, easier to argue with than Fried or The bibliography in the Milan catalogue is Steinberg,but what this critic is correctlyidenti- relatively brief, and a good half of the entries fying is the naturalresult of any artwritingwhich had appearedsince 1924, more than three cen- has a style.41Just as there is both a personaland turies after Caravaggio'sdeath. In 1951 it was a historical approach to understandingPanof- relatively easy to read all of the Caravaggio sky's and Steinberg'sinterpretations, so the same literature.The New Yorkcatalogue has a much ought to be true of mine. longer bibliography, and now only specialists Identifying this expectation may undermine can hope to masterthat literature, and so be able our belief in an art historian'sobjectivity. Since to do research on Caravaggio. At this point, it Schapiroand Steinberginterpret each workthey may be difficult to find new approachesto Cara- describe in their own style, the style of their vaggio. This is another stimulus to turn to a interpretationsis not true to the works them- relativelyunknown figure like Giaquinto. selves, but is an expression of their creative Which came first: the institutionsor this sort personalities.The same point can be made about of argumentation?This perhapsis an unanswer- my work. There is enough of a parallelbetween able question. Unless or until such argumenta- my artwritingand Panofsky'sand Steinberg'sto tion was produced, there could not be profes- justify the title of this article. Just as Panofsky sionalized art history; once it was produced, interpretsthe same way whetherhe studies van those institutionsguarantee that ever more elab- Eyck or Poussin; and Steinberg finds the same orate interpretationswill be produced. That so appealto the spectatorwhether he studies Cara- much has been writtenabout Piero's figures and vaggio or Michelangelo: so in the literatureon Manet'smirror means that anyone who wantsto these differentartists I find repeatedlythe same write aboutthem needs to say somethingnew. If structures.I too have a personalstyle. detailphotographs were not availableand if there Once Panofsky allegorized a number of art- were not journals and conferences devoted to works, and Steinberg demonstratedhow many such problems, then they would not be studied paintings appeal to the spectator'spresence, it intensively. Certainly such institutions do not was very hard to imagine them accepting any determineeverything. Just as some unsuccessful counter-arguments.They thenapplied their meth- painters keep on painting, making unsellable odology to other works. And yet, there are real artworks; so a scholar may write texts which unsolved problems with Panofsky's account of attractlittle attention. But in my experience, at ArnolfiniMarriage. Why is the man holding her least, the fact thatothers had some interestin my left hand in his left hand?If this is a naturalistic concerns made it easier to do such work. My image, then this is a left-handed, a morganatic initial ideas about art history's history were marriage; but if so, the painting cannot depict Carrier Objectivityin Art Historical Interpretation 341

the Arnolfinis who were not such a couple. This repetitions are better understood by knowing unresolved problem did not deter Panofsky or somethingabout me as an author. his followers from accepting his interpretation. If one style of analysis consists of offering Since he had found an exciting way of looking at "knock-down"evidence for one interpretation, the picturewhich explainedmany of the details, anotherinvolves demonstrating that every possi- probably only the developmentof a sweeping ble approachhas some interestand thatno single new analysis with the virtues of his account analysispresents the correctaccount. I am inter- withoutthis problemwould lead to the abandon- ested in all interpretationsof an artwork, the ment of Panofsky'sapproach. highly original accounts as well as those which, When Steinbergproduced his highly complex becausethey merely repeatcliches, exhibit com- account of the composition of Michelangelo's monplace ideas about a work. As an authorial Last Judgment, and then said that the alterna- personality I am always conciliatory, always tives are either to accept his plan or believe that willing to find some interest in a wide range of all the ordered features to which he has called points of views.43 At the same time, the un- attentionare merely accidental, the situationis avoidable consequence of being conciliatory is similar. Given those alternatives, many would that I am unwilling to privilege any single inter- choose to believe him, for we believe that order pretation.44 in art must have a cause. Of course, these may It was inevitablethat once literary critics ex- not be the only alternatives. We might find a tensivelydiscussed the problemsof relativismof wholly different order in the composition, or interpretation,someone would apply their argu- anotherexplanation for the order Steinbergob- ments to art history. Since art history has been a serves. But merely saying thatit is possible to do methodologicallyconservative discipline, it was this is uninteresting.42 predictablethat an outsider,the literary scholar Similarly, I doubt that one counter-example NormanBryson, would be the first to systemat- would convince me to abandonmy view of art ically applythe fashionablestructuralist and post- history's history, although certainly an accu- structuralisttheories. Analogously, it is unex- mulation of such examples would make me pectedthat another outsider, a philosopher,would skeptical. I claim that the development of a first develop a systematic account of the prob- system of highly complex interpretationsco- lems of relativism in artwriting. In ethics the incides with the rise of professionalized art problem of relativism is of central importance, history. A single seventeenth century proto- and nowadaysto contributeto that discussion a Steinbergiandescription of Caravaggioor pro- philosopherneeds to study a large literature.In to-Panofskyian account of Flemish allegory or artwritingthis is not the case, and so once the discussion of Piero's mysterious trio will not problemhas been identified, it is easier to make disturb me. If a counter-example is not dis- original claims. This was inevitable, since all cussed in the literature and is not influential, that was requiredwas to observe that what had maybe its very isolation supports my account been often said aboutrelativism in literatureand of art history's history. moralityapplies to artwriting. Those repetitionsin my texts ought to make a These observations, an antidote to authorial believer in objectivity of interpretationsuspi- narcissism, are a natural interpretationof one cious. Since in the literature on many artists passage in Steinberg'swriting. Explaininghow from differentperiods I repeatedlyfind the same he tendsto find "symbolicforms multi-storied," structures,maybe those structuresare not "in" he notes: that literatureitself, but are due to my authorial personality. Maybe I find the same structures I am consciousof belongingto a generation brought repeatedbecause they are my creation. If that is upon Freudand James Joyce. Ulysses and Finnegans the case, then it might be worth speculating Wakewere the pabulumof my teens, and I am always about why my personalityas writerleads me to ready to welcome another artist who conceives his repeat myself. Matisse's repetitions, which de- symbolic formsmulti-storied.45 fine his style, are understoodby art historiansby studying his life and the historical context in Anyone with the literary tastes of his genera- which his art was created. So too, perhapsmy tion, he implies, is likely to see old masterart as 342 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism he does, and while thatdoes not explain why he individualstyles, whattalking of objectivitymeans alone has systematicallydeveloped such an ap- is that they can contrast their diverse ways of proach, it does make his workseem less anoma- depictingthe selfsame scene. In art history,anal- lous. On my interpretation,which is likely to ogously, the way to understandwhat counts as differfrom Steinberg's,what follows is thatsince objectivityis to see what functionthat normative each future generation will approach the old ideal serves. Here I returnto what has interested master works with novel interpretativetech- me in my earlierpublications in which I formed niques, it is likely that in the new approachesto my personal style, the role of institutionsin art those paintingswill continueto be developed. A history.What is essential for modernart history generationbrought up on poststructuralismand is thatthe claims of an art historianbe debatable. Pynchonwhose pabulumwas Gravity's Rainbow Debate requires agreement about the rules of may write about Caravaggioin ways that Stein- debate. If generalagreement reigned, then there berg cannotanticipate. would be no reason to debate. If agreements Once we see how an interpretationhas both a were too extreme, intellectualintercourse would period and a personal style, what remainsof its be impossible. At any given time, art historians claim to objective validity? My conclusion is proceed by ruling out some positions as eccen- that the ideal of ahistorical, impersonalobjec- tric, while allowing that a certain range of ap- tivity is highly problematic.46Style is inescapa- proaches are acceptable. Once we see how an ble in art history, and if objectivityin interpreta- interpretationhas both a period and a personal tion demandeda neutralstyle, that would be an style, what then remains of the claim that an impossible goal. But just as epistemic skeptics interpretationcan be objectively valid? Every err by setting the standardsfor knowledge too text is in some period style, even if it is anachro- high, so thatwhat we ordinarilybelieve we know nistic. Every art historian has some authorian cannotsatisfy their standards,so an art historian personality,whether it is highly personal, as in who sets a standardof objectivity which no one the cases I have discussed, or bland and seem- can satisfy has not correctly understood ob- ingly anonymous.Every painting manifests some jectivity. period style, even if it is either in an outdated Nothing I have said about the institutionsof style or anticipatesa future style. Although not professionalizedart history is incompatiblewith every artist achieves a style, every painting can thinkingthat they provide good ways of getting be stylistically classified, if only in the sense at the truth about art. But the relation between that it is identifiable in relation to the styles of originality and truth is complicated. We can artists. The same is true of the texts of art understandwhy in 1960 the followers of de historians. Kooningseemed less interestingthan Johns who, Today, then, to employ Panofsky's method- however much he built on the past, had a very ology is acceptable, and it is possible to follow different style. But thinking of Steinberg as Steinberg.But art historianswho emulate Lacan breaking in an analogous way with tradition or Foucault, like one who composes ekphrases, seems to leave out one crucial point: unlike art, effectively admitthat they do not seek to be part art history claims to be true. No doubt I am of the ongoing dialogue within their discipline. tempted by this analogy because I first wrote Of course, they may have anothergoal, such as about art criticism, then about art history. But I changingthe terms of that dialogue. After Pan- am unrepentantabout yielding to thattemptation ofsky, the older accountsof van Eyck seem to be for it suggests an original way of answering of merelyhistorical interest; if Steinbergis equal- these questions about the apparentconflict be- ly successful in attractingfollowers, in the fu- tween objectivity of interpretationand the cru- ture his view that art history remainedtoo long cial role of personalstyle in art history. tied to an outdated methodology may also be At the start I asked: is objectivity in art his- commonplace knowledge. At present, there is tory possible? This parallelbetween art and art little audience within art history for writings history shows that we would do well to change borrowing from Foucault or Lacan.47 No one the question. We shouldask: whatfunction does can altogether avoid such institutional pres- objectivity serve? In Gombrich'sexample, for sures, but once individualscease to be graduate the Germanartists doing the same scene in their students and become professors, then they are Carrier Objectivityin Art Historical Interpretation 343 in a position to change the standardsof dis- distinguishedart historians employ Panofsky's course.48 methodology.And yet, just as it is hardto imag- Such change may not occur even when a pro- ine muchof a futurefor paintingunless someone fessor becomes well known. In his book on after de Kooning could be as radically original Frenchpainting and the revolutionof 1848 Tim as he was, so it is unclear whether art history Clark mentions Lacan in the bibliographybut would continue to be interesting if Panofsky's not in the body of the text.49 Although Clark's iconographicapproach was the model forever.In style of argumentdraws heavily on Lacan, that surveyingthe recentaccounts of the threemen in has not, I think, been appreciatedamong art Piero's Flagellation, for example, it is hard to historians,who are, understandably,unprepared avoid feeling that they are minorvariations on a to find Lacan a congenial influence. This por- familiartheme.52 tion of Clark's methodology has not been imi- Some people have feared that my interest in tated much. But, of course, this situationcould innovationand this focus on the institutionsof change, and in anotherdecade references to Fou- art history means that I give up the possibility of cault and Lacan may be as common in the Art giving rationalstandards for evaluationof argu- Bulletinas are footnotesto Panofsky.50 mentation.This is not true. When acceptedstan- When a new iconographic account is pub- dards of argumentationchange, rational argu- lished, there are generally agreed upon stan- mentationplays an importantrole in thatprocess. dards for judging such a text. The work may be While I am skeptical about providing any ahis- skilled or inept, but it employs well established torical standards,I believe that my focus on the strategiesof argumentation.By contrast, when consensus within the profession provides the Clark, Fried or Steinbergproduces work which necessary,and only possiblejustification for ob- rejects the accepted methodologies, the critical jectivity. Some aestheticiansbelieve thatthe test responses tend to be radically divided. A few of time determinesthe importanceof a painter.53 reviewers admire their originality; others are Similarly, it might be urged, the test of time hostile, bewildered,or angry.51 The same is true determinesthe strengthof a methodology. It is in painting, for it is hardfor establishedpainters because I am interestedin argumentationthat I to understandwork which rejects the accepted rejectthe claim thatthis test providesany way of familiarstyles. The abstractexpressionists were understandingthis process. In studying the his- at first, in the 1940s, scorned and then widely tory of taste and of art history we can recordthe imitated;and when in the 1960s their style was results of this process of study, which we then radicallyrejected by Johns and the minimalists, try to understand.In dealing with the immediate many felt that somethingessential had been lost. present, we collectively determinethe consen- In this decade, this situationhas been repeated, sus. The test of time is undulyoptimistic, imply- as many of those minimalists detested what is ing that the best artworks and best methodol- fashionablycalled postmodernism.But Ameri- ogies will necessarily triumph. For workingart can art differs not in this rapidityof innovation critics appealto the test of time is useless; what from Italian painting from 1480 to 1520, or they must provide right now is an evaluationof Frenchart between 1860 and 1907, which is not new works. Similarly,art historianswho ask that to urge that its quality is equally high, but mere- we wait to see whether some original meth- ly to observe that typically stylistic changes are odology passes the test of time refuse to partici- rapid. pate in the debatewhich may change the consen- Paintersare expected to innovate;and unlike sus within theirdiscipline. art historians, artists do not aim to produce Certainly evaluatingsuch revisionist work is truthfulinterpretations. Still, the similaritiesbe- tricky.Consider two examples. The responsesto tween art and art history are more important NormanBryson are interesting.While some crit- than these differences. In art, as in art history, ics focus on his errors, other scholarsnow men- once a style is established, it is readilyimitated. tion his workin footnotes or borrowfrom him.54 De Kooning's great achievement, like Panof- If his work is found to provide exciting ways of sky's, was to create a new style; but the workof describingfamiliar artworks, then art historians their followers is inevitablyless exciting. Inter- are likely to be charitableabout his errors. Sid esting artists work in the style of de Kooning; ney Geist's recent InterpretingCezanne offers 344 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism elaborateargumentation which, I predict, is un- is that radical change is likely to occur again. I likely to be taken seriously.55He argues that aim to providean historicalperspective on those Cezanne's paintings are filled with hidden im- changes. We may accept Gombrich'sclaim that ages which tell us about that artist's personal there is no "neutralnaturalism," no single best life. For example, The Railroad Cuttingdepicts way of depicting nature as it really is, without the womb of the painter'spregnant wife, with thereby rejecting the claim that a naturalistic the hut standingfor the fetus; The Black Clock image may be true to the scene it depicts. Analo- celebratesthe birth of Cezanne's son, the prox- gously, though there be no neutral interpreta- imity of the clock, a symbol for Cezanne, and tion, no single best way of interpretinga picture the inkwell, standingfor Zola, hinting that their as it really is, still some art historians'accounts relation "probablyhad homosexual overtones" can be true to the pictureas it is. Gombrichtells while the lemon stands for Mrs. Cezanne. Like the history of naturalisticpainting. I want to tell Bryson, Geist argues, but since I cannottake his the story of art history's history. This paper is startingpoint seriously, and find his conclusions one small part of that story. My claim is that absurd,his argumentationseems to me not worth objectivity in interpretationis consistent with muchdiscussion. Because Geist's interpretations such radical changes in standardsby which in- are all too easy to imitate, and so predictable, terpretationsare judged.56 they are dull. He is not worth arguing with, except insofar as his book tells us something DAVID CARRIER about the methodology of art history. Bryson, Departmentof Philosophy by contrast,is for me worthtaking seriously, for Carnegie Mellon University his books suggest novel ways of interpreting Pittsburgh,PA 15213 familiarworks. I state this contrast with dogmatic brevity. And yet, leaving Bryson aside, what is the dif- 1. My essays on the history of art history, forthcomingin ference in kind, an art historiansympathetic to a book, include: "Art and Its Preservation,"The Journal of Geist might ask, between his account and those Aesthetics and Art Criticism 43 (1985): 291-300; "Manet and His Interpreters,"Art Historic8 (1985): 320-335; "Paint- of Panofskyand Steinberg?Like Panofsky,Geist ing and Its Spectators," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art offers entirelynew approachesto familiarworks Criticism 45 (1986): 5-17; "Ekphrasisand interpretation: which, if accepted, radically change our esti- two modes of art history writing," The British Journal of mate of those paintings. Like Steinberg, Geist Aesthetics 27 (1987): 20-31; "The Transfigurationof the rejects the accustomed interpretations,employ- commonplace: Caravaggio and his interpreters," Word& Image 3 (1987): 41-73; "Naturalismand Allegory in Flem- ing a novel methodology which is sure to be ish Painting," TheJournal ofAesthetics andArt Criticism45 criticized by conservative art historians. If the (1987): 237-249; "Piero and his Interpreters:Is there prog- past is any guide, one importantdifference be- ress in art history?," Histori and Theore 26 (1987): tween Bryson and Geist is that Bryson offers 150-165; "Gavin Hamilton's Oath of Brutus and David's Oath of the Horatii: The Revisionist Interpretationof Neo- techniqueswhich other art historianscan apply, Classical Art," The Monist 71 (1988): 197-2 13; Tropicsof imitateand criticize; while Geist does not. This Artwriting;Winckelmann, Pater, Morelli and Freud," His- is not to urge that Bryson is as important as tory of the Human Sciences 2 (1989): 19-38; and "Circa Steinberg, Fried or Clark, but only to point out 1640, " New LiteraryHistory, forthcoming. the ways in which unorthodoxwriters do chal- 2. E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion. A Stud! in the Psv- chologv of Pictorial Representation(Princeton University lenge the consensus. Otherhistorians of art his- Press, 1961), pp. 63-65. The story comes from Woelfflin. tory might disagree entirely with my judgment 3. See Meyer Schapiro's subtle characterizationof Eu- of the relativeimportance of Bryson'sand Geist's gene Fromentin'sThe Old Mastersof Belgiumand Holland: work, which perhapsappears overly confident. Furtherdiscussion of such examples provides just as an Impressionistpicture ... has a composition within one way of extending my account of the evalua- its seeming randomness, so in this apparentlyunplanned, unsystematicwork ... there is a structure,a large antithesis tion of argumentationin art history. that underlieseven the evaluations, shaping the latter into a If objectivity in art history consists in agree- dramaof judgment. mentabout standardsof debate, then the present methodology may be radically revised. If his- Meyer Schapiro, "Fromentinas a Critic," Partisan Review tory has anythingto teach us about the future it 19 (1949), p. 36. Whatno doubtmakes this a naturalparallel Carrier Objectivity in Art Historical Interpretation 345

to draw is Schapiro's comparison of Fromentinas painter 12. When Steinberg writes about Picasso's Les Demoi- and artwriter. selles d'Avignon ("The Philosophical Brothel," reprinted 4. See my "Poussin. The EarlyYears in Rome. The Kim- with additions, October44 (1988): 17-74) the situationmay bell Art Museum, Fort Worth," Arts Magazine (March be different. Since there is less literatureon that painting, a 1989): 63-67. novel interpretationneed not deal at as much length with 5. See my "Gombrichon Art Historical Explanations" earliercommentaries. Leonardo 16 (1983): 91-96. 13. Paul Barolsky,"Piero's Native Wit," Source2 (1982): 6. Svetlana Alpers, Rembrandt's Enterprise. The Studio 21-22. and the Market(The Universityof Chicago, 1988). 14. See Richard Woliheim, Art and its objects (Cam- 7. Sydney J. Freedberg, Paramigianino. His Worksin bridge University Press, 1980), sec. 39 and Supplementary Paintings (HarvardUniversity Press, 1950); Paintingof the Essay 4. For example, MarianneNovy's Love's Argument High Renaissancein Romeand Florence (New York:Harper uses a modern frameworkto better understandhow Shake- and Row, 1972); Circa 1600. A Revolutionof Style in Italian speare's audience responded to his plays, in ways she can Painting(Harvard University Press, 1983). now articulatebetter than they could. (MarianneL. Novy, 8. Here I draw on the very importantargument of Alex- Love's Argument. Gender Relations in Shakespeare (The anderNehamas, Nietzsche. Life as Literature(Harvard Uni- Universityof North CarolinaPress, 1984). versity Press, 1985). 15. The argumentin this paragraphI owe to Alexander 9. For example, identifyingthe art historianLawrence D. Nehamas's critical response to my "Pale Fire Solved" in Steefel as a studentof Meyer Schapirowhose thesis was on Acting & Reflecting ed. Wilfrid Sieg (Dordrecht: Reidel, Duchamp,permits us to anticipatewhat he will say aboutold 1990):forthcoming. master art. (Steefel's essay on Duchamp is reprinted in 16. In personalcorrespondence, responding to a draft of Marcel Duchamp in Perspective, ed. J. Masheck [Engle- my "Pieroand his Interpreters." wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,1975], pp. 90-106.) Since 17. Fora discussion,see my reviewof HansBelting, The End a painted shadow plays a major role in Duchamp's last ofthe HistoryofArt?, Historyand Theory37 (1988): 187-199 painting, it is not surprisingthat his contributionto Poussin which takes issue with ArthurDanto's well known presenta- studies is "A Neglected Shadow in Poussin's Et in Arcadia tion of this claim, an importantinfluence upon my work. Ego" (ArtBulletin 57 11975], p. 113) nor thathis accountof 18. Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology. Humanistic a Flemish quattrocentowork deals with the same problemas Themesin The Art of the Renaissance (New York: Harper Duchamp'smasterpiece, TheLarge Glass. and Row, 1962), pp. 86-90. 19. Leo Steinberg,"Guercino's Saint Petronilla,"in Stud- Insofar as the pattering of the upper half of the painting ies in Italian Art and Architectureed. H. Miller (MIT Press, suggests a more abstractmode of relationshipsand the lower 1980), pp. 207-234. half a naturalhuman event, the relationbetween above and 20. Meyer Schapiro, "Ancient Mosaics in Israel: Late below suggests a transformationof schematic, didacticrela- Antique Art-Pagan, Jewish, Christian," reprinted in his tionships above into an embodied, "incarnated" reality Late Antique, Early Christianand Mediaeval Art. Selected below. Papers(New York:George Braziller, 1979), pp. 28-30. 21. Leo Steinberg, "Pontormo'sAlessandro de 'Medici, ("An Unnoticed detail in Petrus Christus'sNativity in the or, I Only Have Eyes For You," Art in America 63 (1975), National Gallery, Washington," Art Bulletin 44 11967], p. 65, ft. 12. p. 237.) This account could apply word for word to Duch- 22. Schapiro, "Fromentinas a Critic," p. 28. amp'swork. 23. Leo Steinberg,"Other Criteria" reprinted in his Other 10. But it is true that we criticize an artist or art historian Criteria. Confrontationswith Twentieth-CenturyArt (Ox- by complainingthat he lacks a style of his own. An interest- ford UniversityPress, 1972), p. 81. ing example of an artist said to be minor because he is 24. Michael Kitson, "The Relationshipbetween Claude withouthis own style is SebastienBourdon. He "was capa- andPoussin in Landscape," Zeitschriftfuer Kunstgeschichte ble of imitatingalmost any style ... but he neverevolved one 24(1961), p. 143. of his own." AnthonyBlunt, Art and Architecturein France 25. For example, an analytic philosopher has a difficult 1500-1700 (Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin, 1973), time arguing with Derrida. See my "Derrida as Philoso- p. 312. Thisjudgment which I will elsewhere arguedeserves pher," Metaphilosophy16 (1985): 221-234 and my review to be questioned has, by becoming a cliche, perhapshin- of his The Truthin Paintingin TheJournal of Philosophy 85 dered art historiansfrom really looking at Bourdon'swork. (1988): 219-223. See the brief account in Pierre Rosenberg, France in the 26. See Charles Dempsey, "Mythic Inventionsin Coun- GoldenAge. Seventeenth-CenturyFrench Paintings in Ameri- ter-ReformationPainting" in Rome in the Renaissance. The can Collections (New York:The MetropolitanMuseum of City and the Myth, Binghamton,ed. P.A. Ramsey (Oxford Art, 1981), pp. 226-23 1. UniversityPress, 1982), p. 67. 11. Many traditionalart historiansare dismissive, as the 27. See his essays on Picasso reprintedin Other Criteria pre-Panofskianart historians were unwilling to accept his and in "The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in approach;other younger writers borrow from his general ModernOblivion," October25 (1983): 1-222. approach,while questioning details. See, for example, the 28. Leo Steinberg, "Objectivityand the ShrinkingSelf," recent sympatheticcommentary on anotherone of his inter- reprintedin his Other Criteria,p. 315. pretations of a site-specific work: Craig Harbison, "Pon- 29. A similar example occurs in a recent monographon tormo, Baldung, and the Early Reformation,"Art Bulletin Matisse, which after telling us what a readerof the earlier 66 (1984): 324-327. literaturecould only suspect, that he "often had intimate 346 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism relationswith his models," then indicatesthat these relations 42. Here I drawon the argumentof Nehamas, Nietzsche: will not be discussed "except in the few instanceswhere the Life as Literature,pp. 63-64; the claim that a better inter- personal relationship seems to have directly affected his pretationof romanticismthan M.H. Abrams'saccount could work."Jack Flam, Matisse. TheMan and His Art. 1869-1918 be writtenis uninterestinguntil thatactually is done. (Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 12. What is genuinely 43. But rememberthat for me an author-here I follow revealing is less this gossip than that Matisse was very other authors: Foucault, Barthes and Nehamas-is a fic- concernedto control personalgossip. tional persona. I am not offering an accountof my personal 30. See Roger Fry, Last Lectures(Boston: Beacon Press, psychology. For discussion, see my "Art without its art- 1962): ch. 9 and his "The Seicento" reprintedin his Trans- ists?" TheBritish Journal of Aesthetics22 (1982): 233-244. formations. Critical and SpeculativeEssays on Art (Garden 44. The reviewer of my Artwriting who remarks that City, N.Y.: Doubleday& Company,1956). "Carrieris murderouslyquick to dismiss his central fig- 31. See Frances Haskell, Rediscoveries in Art. Some ures." (The Print Collector's Newsletter 19 [1988], p. 30) Aspects of Taste, Fashion and Collecting in England and understandsone implication of such relativism even while France (Cornell UniversityPress, 1976). she or he fails to acknowledge that I express my admiration 32. Max Beerbohm, "The Mote in the Middle Distance," for everyone who is such a centralfigure in my history.But I reprintedin The Questionof HenryJames, ed. F.W. Dupee am less charitablethan FredricJameson, in whose Hegelian (New York:Henry Holt and Company,1945), p. 40. analysis even his ideological opponents, even such feeble 33. On Fried'searlier work, see my Artwriting(The Uni- reactionariesas Hilton Kramer,nevertheless have their es- versity of MassachusettsPress, 1987), ch. 3; on Eakins, see sential role. See FredricJameson, "The Politics of Theory: Fried's Realism, Writing,Disfiguration on ThomasEakins Ideological Positions in the PostmodernismDebate," New and Stephen Crane (The University of Chicago Press, GermanCritique 33 (1984): 53-65. 1987), p. 44. 45. Steinberg,Other Criteria, p. 320, my italics. 34. Fried'sresponse to Linca Nochlin'scritical comments 46. Every text is in some period style, even if it be about his "Courbet's'Femininity'" are interesting. In what anachronistic.As when a contemporaryart historiancom- he calls "a conflict of interpretations-and ultimately of poses ekphrases. For such modern ekphrasis, see Norman approaches"what commentatorcould be fairto both parties? E. Land, "On the Poetry of Govanni Bellini's Sacred Alle- Forhis essay and hers, see SarahFaunce and LindaNochlin, gory," artibus et historiae 10 (1984): 61-66. His awareness CourbetReconsidered (Yale UniversityPress, 1988), quota- of the institutions of contemporaryart history, he informs tion, p. 53. me, which led him away from writing, as he originally 35. Quoted in Jack D. Flam, Matisse on Art (New York: desired, in an entirely anachronisticmanner. He like me E.P.Dutton, 1973), p. 31. admiresAdrian Stokes, an outsider to the world of profes- 36. Arthur C. Danto, The Transfigurationof the Com- sionalized art history. monplace. A Philosophy of Art (HarvardUniversity Press, 47. A young Poussin scholar discusses Foucault, but he 1981), p. 204. This account, which grounds style in what has a marginalplace in her importantunpublished disserta- Danto calls the "artistic source," the personality of the tion. (Sheila McTighe, The HieroglyphicLandscape: "Lib- artist, is not altogethersatisfactory; here I have found Rich- ertinage" and the Late Allegories of Nicolas Poussin [Yale ard Shiff, Cezanneand the End of Impressionism(The Uni- University, 1987].) versity of Chicago Press, 1984) suggestive. 48. The readerfamiliar with Steinberg'sstyle may suspect 37. George Hersey, A TasteforAngels. NeapolitanPaint- that his doctoraldissertation, now publishedas Borrominis ing in North America 1650-1750 (Yale University Press, San Carlo Alla QuattroFontane. A Study in Multiple Form 1987), p. 289. and ArchitecturalSymbolism (New Yorkand London: Gar- 38. Much might be learnt both about these changes in land Publishing,Inc, 1977) shows thateven he was forcedby Caravaggio'sstatus and the natureof the artworldin which those pressuresinto somethingof a compromise. our art historianswork througha contrastof the catalogues. 49. T.J. Clark, The Absolute Bourgeois. Artists and Pol- The Milan cataloguehas one hundredfifty pages of text and itics in France 1848-1851 (London: Thames and Hudson, black and white full scale illustrations of the paintings. 1973). At that date, Lacan'sbooks had not yet been trans- Mostrea del Caravaggio e dei Caravaggeschi (Florence: lated, and so perhapsit was not unexpected that commen- SansoniEditori, 1951). The New Yorkcatalogue, TheAge of tatorshad little to say aboutthis aspect of Clark'swork. Caravaggio (New York:The MetropolitanMuseum of Art, 50. See my review of NormanBryson, Calligram.Essays 1985) has morethan three times as many,much largerpages, in New Art Historyfrom France, The Journal of Aesthetics and many color reproductionswith a numberof details. and Art Criticism47 (1989): 286-287. 39. See the critical discussion by RobertGrigg, "Flemish 51. My account here draws on Steinberg's "Contempo- Realism and Allegorical Interpretation"and S.J. Wilsmore, rary Art and the Plight of its Public," reprintedin his Other "UnmaskingSkepticism about Restoration," The Journal of Criteria; I differ from him in the way I apply this same Aestheticsand Art Criticism46 (1987): 299-300, 304-306. argumentto art history,including his work. 40. I quote from Donald Brook's review essay on my 52. See my "Piero and his Interpreters."Even such a Artwritingforthcoming in Leonardo. My reply will appear major account as Carlo Ginzburg'sThe Enigma of Piero is in the samejournal. but a highly refineddevelopment of themes developedearlier 41. His review suffers from the same difficulty, for after in briefer accounts; see my review, Art Journal 46 (1987): making inaccurate remarks about my text, he goes on to 75-79. criticize semiotic theories of representationand presents 53. See my critical review of Anthony Savile, The Testof what we might expect from his earlier publications, a de- Time, TheJournal of Philosophy81 (1984): 226-230 and my fense of Gombrich'sposition. Artwriting,pp. 38-40. Carrier Objectivityin Art Historical Interpretation 347

54. See, for example, Malcolm Bull, "The Iconography the philosophydepartments of CentralMichigan University of the Sistine Chapel ceiling," Burlington Magazine 130 andThe Universityof Houstonand for the art history depart- (1988), p. 599, ft 10; Linda Nochlin, "Watteau:Some mentsof The Universityof Texas, Austin, as CairnLecturer, Questions of Interpretation,"Art in America 73 (1985): and Brown University.I am most indebtedto the faculty and 73-80 and my Artwriting,pp. 82-87. graduatestudents for their comments; and to Paul Barolsky, 55. Sidney Geist, InterpretingCezanne (Harvard Univer- Arthur Danto, Norman Land, Marianne Novy, Mark sity Press, 1988); see my review of that, Arts Magazine Roskill, Richard Shiff, and Leo Steinbergwho generously (February1988): 111-112. criticized anotherearlier draft. 56. This is a heavily revised version of a papergiven for