Art History. The Key Concepts

Routledge, 2006. — 361 Pages.This book is designed specifically for use by students and scholars of art history and visual culture. It is intended as a reference source for those involved in teaching and learning (on either side of the fence, as teacher or pupil) and as an aid for those carrying out research activities. These two areas overlap considerably: ‘research’ isn’t just the province of PhD students or professional academics or museum curators. Any student – of any age – trying to answer an essay question, or preparing a presentation for a seminar, or following up notes
made after attending a lecture or reading a book, is engaged in a research task too. Art History: The Key Concepts, if it is to succeed as I intend and hope, will help people in all of these situations. Each entry provides: (1) the basic definition of a term; (2) an exploration of some of the complexities of its development, function, and significance; (3) some illustrative historical or contemporary examples of artworks or items of visual culture related to this concept; and (4) some bibliographic references that will enable the reader to follow up the term and the ways in which it has been used in actual research and scholarship. After consulting an entry the reader should feel confident that they could use the term appropriately themselves and have some insight into its range of meanings and contexts of application.