This is a writing-centred course that seeks to provide an overview of the history of art history. Its main subject will be therefore art history as a specific field of research in the attempt to understand its epistemological boundaries as well as its ramified network of connections with other disciplines, such as Literary Criticism, Anthropology, Semiotics, Social History, Philosophy, Gender Studies, and Film Studies. The course will survey the various methodological approaches to art history in an interdisciplinary way, starting with a close examination of traditional art historical tools and concepts of analysis: style, form and iconography. It will explore art history as a literary genre since the sixteenth century and as an academic discipline from the nineteenth century until the so-called "linguistic turn" in the 1960s.
Listed on this page are key reference resources that provide a general overview of a topic or help identify synonyms, related terms, or basic data. These sources often include references and lists of further readings.
Dictionary of Art
Encyclopedia of Aesthetics
New Dictionary of the History of Ideas
The Oxford Companion to Western Art by 