Theories of Art

This second book in Moshe Barasch's series on art theory surveys the development of the field from the early eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. During this period theories of the visual arts, particularly of painting and sculpture, underwent a radical transformation, as a result of which the intellectual foundations of our modern views on the arts were formed. Because this transformation can only be understood within the context of cultural, aesthetic, and philosophical developments of the period, Barasch surveys the opinions of the artists, as well as the doctrines of philosophers, poets and critics. He thus traces for the reader the entire development of modernism in art and art theory.

Moshe Barasch is Jack Cotton Professor of Architecture and Fine Arts at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of numerous books on art, including The Languageof Art: Studies in Interpretation (1997) and Icon:Studies in the History of an Idea (1995).

I. The Early Eighteenth Century; 1. Introduction; 2. The Philosophers; 3. Antiquarians and Connoisseurs; 4. The Artists; II. Beginnings of the New Age; 1. Mengs; 2. Winckelmann; 3. Diderot; 4. Reynolds; III. Unity and Diversity in the Visual Arts; 1. Introduction; 2. Reconstructing the Unity of the Arts; 3. Merging the Arts; IV. The Symbol; 1. Winckelmann; 2. The Science of Mythology; 3. The Symbolic Landscape; 4. Color Symbolism; V. The Artist; 1. Philosophers and Poets; 2. The Painters; 3. Positivism; 4. Facets of Realism; 5. The Great Masters; Bibliographical Essay; Index