Laura Arias Serrano. [The sources of art history in the contemporary era]. Part One

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Laura Arias Serrano
Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea [The sources of art history in the contemporary era]

Barcelona, Ediciones del Serbal, S.A, 2012, 759 pages

Review by Francesco Mazzaferro. Part One

Fig. 1) The reasoned bibliography authored by Laura Arias Serrano in 2012 and published by Ediciones del Serbal in 2012

Laura Arias Serrano (1956,-), Professor of History of contemporary art at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, has delivered to us an amazing reasoned bibliography dedicated to history of art sources in the last three centuries. Curiously, there are not many such publications across the world and it is absolutely fair to pencil this work as a significant symbol of the particular fortune of the studies about art literature in the Iberian world since the second half of the twentieth century.

The volume was published in 2012 in Barcelona by Ediciones del Serbal, a publishing house specialized in the field of arts and culture. Let's say immediately that a review that would really give credit to the volume is impossible. I have read the 750 pages of the work with great enthusiasm, as they suggested me an infinite number of ideas. In fact, they offer a complete and well-organized picture of the publications and other available materials to the Spanish-speaking public, exactly on the theme to which this blog is dedicated. For those like me who tried to ‘digest’ this book as a contribution to design the history of art literature, the only flaw is that - by the authoress' own admission - Ms Arias Serrano always included in her bibliography 'merely' the latest edition of the texts, and therefore did not analyse the editorial history of the publications (for example the sequencing of new editions, reprints and translations after the publication of the original) [1]. But perhaps it is right so, as doing otherwise would have brought the size of the volume to exceed a thousand pages.

The first 122 pages are dedicated to the science of sources of art history (Aproximación teórica a las fuentes - A theoretical approach to sources). It is followed by five hundred pages of reasoned and richly commented bibliography (Las fuentes en su contexto histórico), which offer us a precise image of the scientific literature available in the Spanish-speaking world about:

- Aesthetic and historiographic texts

- Theoretical texts of the artists

- Theoretical writings on architecture

- Art magazines

- Sources of a technical and scientific nature

- Bibliographic sources

- Literary sources i.e. sources of pure invention

- Art criticism. Museums, collecting and the art market

- Catalogues, inventories and other documentary sources

- Artistic and iconographic descriptions

- Unwritten sources: graphics, physical and audiovisual materials

For each of these sections the materials are presented in chronological order, starting from the XVIII century until today. And here it must be said that the authoress used a periodization well known in continental Europe, but foreign to the Anglo-Saxon culture, where everything that is relatively recent is always modern or even contemporary. As the English terminology is today prevalent in the art world, one needs to build a concordance table. Generally, modern art  indicates what coincides with or follows the birth of impressionism, while contemporary art distinguishes the production of the most recent decades. In the work of Lucia Arias Serrano, however, “modern” refers to the historical phase from the XV to the first part of the XVIII century (from the discovery of the Americas to the end of the Ancien Régime), while we are still part of a continuous period (the “contemporary” era) which begins with the Enlightenment and the French revolution and has not yet ended.

A theoretical approach to sources

The first part of the volume is divided into three chapters. The first is dedicated to sources and techniques of study of sources by critics. The second discusses the sources and their types. The third details the role of sources in the development of art criticism. I will focus in particular on the first two chapters, because they explain the categorization chosen by the authoress for the reasoned bibliography.

The sources and their study

Definition

There can be no historiographic investigation of any kind - so the book opens - without sources. However, for the history of art (compared to other historiographic disciplines) the study of sources has specific characteristics. Laura Arias Serrano in fact observes, inspired by Hermann Bauer (1929-2000), German scholar of the historiographic method on fine arts issues, that while in the case of history in general the sources may document events which are no longer observable, sources of art history most often refer to existing and observable works of art. And here botthe authoress and Bauer are perhaps too optimistic: if from the XVIII century onward most of the works still exist (but we must not exceed in optimism: much has been destroyed because it was considered not beautiful anymore, or for degradation or because of wars), most of the artworks of previous centuries have actually been lost.

The definition of 'source' adopted by the authoress is broad. However, there is a condition that must be applied to each of them: a source must be a contemporary evidence to the production of the artwork. “Based on what has been said, it is clear that when we talk about sources, we are referring to all that set of information, which is contemporary and close to the era in which the artistic event we study took place. The sources are therefore - in addition to the work of art itself - the opinions or writings of the artists or the writings of contemporaries, without forgetting all those documents that bring us regulatory or legal information, and which serve to corroborate some specific data on the topic of study. Needless to say, the requirement of contemporaneity does not prevent the researcher from exercising a rigorous critical effort on all these sources to control their value and authenticity” [2]. All more recent texts belong instead to the category of 'bibliographic material' [3].

In this first part Laura Arias Serrano refers to very general concepts (which she refines and modifies in the following chapter). According to Bauer, the work of art is the primary and original source, which "has value in itself and exists independently of the rest of the sources" [4]. The latter ones (using the terminology of Professor Mireia Freixa [5], famous living scholar of modernism in Spain) are by definition complementary sources [6]. Each investigation must therefore always start from a formal study of primary sources, "identifying them in terms of time and space" [7]. For this identification, the documentary approach based on sources (first of all archival images, such as drawings and photos, and then other materials, such as inventories, catalogues, documentary and bibliographical references, etc...) according to Ms Freixa can assist, but never “replace the enormous amount of information offered by a work of art preserved in situ, whose direct examination can bring new data such as changing an attribution, defining a school or establishing a new chronology” [8]. There is therefore - as in the era of the great connoisseurs of the nineteenth century - an emphasis on first-person visual examination (the so-called ‘autopsy’, even if this technical term is not used here) of the work.

Once the work has been correctly identified, it is possible to proceed to its "contextualization and interpretation (...) by consulting all the sources of its environment: treatises, philosophy, thought, politics, economics, etc... which are part of the mentality of an era and can decisively influence the configuration of the work, thus helping to clarify the role of the artistic object in relation to the historical process” [9].

Fig. 2) Three works of art history theory cited by Laura Arias Serrano. From left to right: (i) The introduction to the history of art. Theoretical foundations and artistic languages, edited by Mireia Freixa and other authors (1990); (ii) How to study contemporary art, by the Italian Enrico Crispolti, here in the Spanish edition (2001); (iii) Theory of art by Gonzalo Borras Gualis (1996)

Adopting the idea that sources are simply complementary tools may obviously present a danger, notably to devalue their importance. This risk is mitigated - also thanks to the teaching of the Italian Enrico Crispolti (1933 - 2018), theorist of the study of contemporary art - by the consideration that conducting an art history research ignoring the sources has become inconceivable starting after the publication of the manual by Julius von Schlosser (1866 - 1938), which adopted heuristic, critical and hermeneutic tools typical of classical philology. And yet the authoress was mainly inspired by Johann Gustav Droysen (1808-1884), a German hermeneutic scholar chronologically prior to Schlosser. Droysen had theorised that, in order to place the works of art in their historical context, three steps must be taken:

"- The search (...) of documents, materials or sources (...), which is called the heuristic.

- The critical study of the material, or the criticism.

- The interpretation of this material, which is called hermeneutics” [10].

Heuristics allow to identify "remains, monuments and sources". The remains (in German Überreste, in Spanish Restos) are those objects (works of art, writings, documents, etc.), ways of thinking and conditions that derive directly from the past, but are still present and are being used in our day. Monuments differ from the first because they still exist physically, but have no present use anymore. The sources - in this definition by Droysen, which dates back to the mid-XIX century - “are the representations or memories, written down, that are held of the past. Those who wrote them meant to communicate previous processes or events, thus avoiding them being diluted in oblivion” [11].

Fig. 3) The Spanish versions of the major texts of two great German scholars. Left: Istorica (Lessons about the Encyclopaedia and the Methodology of History by Johann Gustav Droysen (1857-58), 1983: The artistic literature by Julius von Schlosser (1924), 2007.

The second step - the critical study of the material obtained by the scholar through the heuristics - allows us to evaluate its quality: is it reliable and does it allow us to answer our questions? [12]. The criticism of "remains, monuments and sources" can and must focus on different aspects: authenticity, the right historical sequence, the correctness of the content. Once the reliability has been verified, the material must be ordered critically. Sources can indeed lead to serious distortions, especially when they emphasize aspects that are not true. Quoting Bauer, the authoress noted that "the study of sources is the doctrine of the use of news in order to clarify an object. The criticism of the sources is the verification of the value and the expressive force of this news” [13].  Also according to Gonzalo Borras Gualis (1940-2019), another Spanish art theorist cited by the authoress, the relationship between written text and art work must be "carefully corroborated and crossed with other sources of information" [14].

Fig. 4) Two other classics of German culture mentioned by Laura Arias Serrano in their Spanish version. Left: Hermann Bauer's Historiography of Art (Spanish edition 1980). Right: Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method (1960) in one of the many Spanish translations (here i2017).

The third and final stage is hermeneutics, the moment of interpretation. Here, both in the wake of Bauer as an art historian and of Hans Georg Gadamer (1900 - 2002) as a philosopher (with his "Truth and method" (Wahrheit und Methode, 1960), the approach of the Spanish scholar is that of a faithful, neutral study, where the analysis of a text (be it written or audiovisual) can never replace it: the scholar cannot interpose himself between the text and the reader.

Sources and their typologies

Now let's move on to the second chapter. Compared to Schlosser's handbook, Laura Arias Serrano feels the need for a respectful methodological revision. The Austrian scholar - cited here in the Italian translation of 1935 - wrote in 1924: “The very concept of the science of sources needs a limitation: here we mean written, secondary, indirect sources; above all, therefore, in the historical sense, literary testimonies, which refer in a theoretical sense to art, according to the historical, aesthetic or technical side, while the impersonal testimonies, so to speak, inscriptions, documents and inventories, concern other disciplines and can here only be an appendix matter” [15]. It is an approach in line with the way of thinking of a hundred years ago, and which can also be explained by the fact that Schlosser's investigation ended, chronologically, exactly where the volume of the Spanish scholar starts.

New literary genres that imposed themselves in the XIX century (like the novel), the diffusion of programmatic posters of artists and writers, the diffusion of new photomechanical printing technologies and finally the opportunities offered by the new media are some of the reasons that impose a revision of Schlosser’s views. In fact, if his method had the merit of having systematically organized the study of the sources, it has become substantially ineffective if applied to the last three centuries.

What alternative to adopt? The authoress proposes to travel along three directions in parallel.

• A classification based on the type of information contained in the source.
• A second criterion, based on the "origin or authorship of the source” [16].
• A third criterion, centred on the "physical nature" of the source [17].  

The content of the sources

The authoress identified seven categories: (1) theoretical sources; (2) technical-scientific manuals; (3) historical and biographical sources; (4) literary sources or sources of pure invention; (5) critical sources; (6) artistic and iconographic descriptions; (7) sources of a documentary, regulatory or legal nature.

1)     Theoretical sources

All texts of a treatise nature belong to this group, as they share “a normative or speculative purpose, and are aimed more at theorizing on an assumption than on aspects of practical application” [18]. The themes can be the most varied: "Aesthetics, drawing and painting, iconography, urban planning, gardening, sculpture and plastic, drawing and painting, iconography, antiquity, historiographic sources, etc.” [19]. As from the XX century, theoretical sources evolved in the form of proclamations and manifestos (also due to the effect of the avant-gardes), but also in "dialogues, essays, academic speeches, conferences, conference proceedings and texts of exhibition catalogues..” [20]. If the purpose remained a broad discussion on a specific topic, the tone became more personal than in treatises. Finally, among the new emerging theoretical sources, encyclopaedias and dictionaries on general topics should be mentioned.

2)   Technical-scientific manuals

The form may be the same as the previous one, but with the specific characteristic of pursuing a practical purpose, often concentrated on specific questions: “Perspective, arithmetic, geometry and proportions; anatomy, physiology, biology or psychiatry; optics and chromatism; typography; calendars; geology or ethnology; territory, urban planning or architectural construction; military engineering and fortifications; carving, modelling and casting techniques; ceramics, goldsmith's art, glass art, etching and printing; scenography and theatrical techniques” [21].

3)   Historical and biographical sources

This is historiographic documentation, often on specific facts, which serves to contextualize research of a more strictly artistic nature. Particularly important are the biographies of "characters linked to the world of art (artists, patrons, clients ...). The biographies of the artists, the autobiographies or their memoirs stand out for their importance; among the sources of a more personal nature, fundamental are the letters or correspondence, both official and informal, and personal diaries, such as interviews with artists, family members or friends” [22]. The authoress also reports on the artists' dictionaries.

4)     Literary sources or sources of pure invention 

They are purely literary works written by artists, to whom belong not only "poetic, dramatic, narrative (novels), religious (mythology, religion and periegetics), esoteric and philosophy texts” [23], but also oral traditions. Then there are intermediate forms, such as "The artist's novel", studied by Francisco Calvo Serraller. In this case the artist is the protagonist of novels written by writers, where the fictional action can be more or less faithful to reality.

Fig. 5) Two works by Spanish scholars mentioned by Laura Arias Serrano. Left: The artist's novel: Fictitious images and social reality in the formation of contemporary artistic identity, 1830-1850 by Francisco Calvo Serraller (1990). Right: Theory and methodology of art history by José Fernández Arenas (1982)

5)     Critical sources

These are all the texts where an evaluation on art is expressed, starting from the criticisms of the Parisian Salons of the early XVIII century. When the market on the one hand and the general public on the other stormed into the art world, the existence of independent criticism became fundamental. Specialized magazines were created, while the language became more understandable and personal at the same time.

6)     Artistic and iconographic descriptions

The former include (real or imaginary) travel guides, descriptions of artworks and monuments (including their restoration and reopening), the narration of visits by famous people, the commemorations. The latter range from “image descriptions to suggestions on the imagination” [24] and include "moralizing iconographic representations, compilations, catalogues or typological repertoires, and illustrated pedagogical literature” [25].

7)     Sources of a documentary, regulatory or legal nature

They are all official documents (often deposited in historical archives), such as notarial protocols (sales and purchases, testaments, donations, inventories), cadastral documents, inventories and catalogues of collections and museums, ledgers and accounting records, public competition documents, war damage reports, etc. Usually - Laura Arias Serrano added, citing José Fernández Arenas (1930-2015) - the documents must follow artworks chronologically in order to help confirm working hypotheses that derive from the interpretative analysis (the rule is: "first the monument then the document” [26]). The authoress underlines the need to consider archival research as a subsidiary discipline, and not as a central part of the history of art (which must be based primarily on the artworks).

The origin of the sources

In principle, the closer a source is chronologically to the origin of a work, the more credible it is. "This proximity completes and enriches the previous criterion (the content)” [27].

Fig. 6) Four studies on the method cited by Laura Arias Serrano. From left to right: (i) Research techniques and documentation. Rules and exercises, by Javier Lasso de la Vega (1980); (ii) How to write about art and architecture by Juan Antonio Ramirez (1999); (iii) Degree thesis and scientific research work: general methodology and documentation by Restituto Sierra Bravo (1986); (iv) How to write a thesis by Umberto Eco (1977), here in the Spanish version of 2001.

Here the authoress presents two different criteria of discrimination, which are used differently by critics. First, Arias Serrano differentiates between primary and secondary sources, and then between direct and indirect sources. Importantly, the concept of 'primary source' used here is different  from that categorized by Mireia Freixa and Hermann Bauer (see above), who considered the work of art itself as the only primary source. Other Spanish scholars, such as the archivist and librarian Javier Lasso de la Vega (1892-1990), the sociologist Restituto Sierra Bravo (1923-) and the art historian Juan Antonio Ramírez (1948 - 2009), used equally divergent definitions. Among foreign scholars, the authoress cites the conceptual framework - also divergent from all the others - used by Umberto Eco (1932 - 2016).

1) Primary or secondary sources

In the absence of uniform criteria, Laura Arias Serrano therefore proposes her own definition.

According to the authoress, all primary sources originate from the artist or from the restricted circle of her knowledge. They therefore include (but are not exhausted by) the same works of art. They also encompass "the information provided by the protagonists of our investigation: the artist and his environment; above all, and as regards the artist, his oral or written declarations, his theoretical texts, work notes, publications, literary or inventive writings, letters, iconographic descriptions, critical comments on the colleagues' creations, drawings or sketches, etc.” [28]. The sources that derive directly from the artist "tell us about the ideology and psychology of the author” [29], even if they “must be cross-checked” [30]. The writings of contemporaries who are part of the same circles should also not be excluded: "family members, friends, patrons and other supporters, other artists, theorists, aesthetics scholars, art critics, writers” [31]. Contracts with assignments and sales, other legal documents, but also "catalogues, inventories, illustrated or audiovisual reports that add written, graphic or sound information about his work” [32] are also primary sources.

According to Laura Arias Serrano, the definition of primary source even extends to "sources of inspiration for the artist” [33]. Here we mean "the tradition of the workshop” [34] as well as “written testimonies drawn by an artist or client who could influence the work” [35], but also “how a pictorial formula of a particular pictorial treatise can influence a painting” [36] or how “literature itself (the novel or poetry) can serve as a stimulus for the artist, both through his illustrations and his contents” [37]. The conditions to which artists are directly exposed (wars, epidemics) are also primary sources.

Instead, secondary sources are those which originate from other scholars (and therefore belong to critical literature), even when they date back to the same historical period. They can be general texts on the time, or on art issues or specific on the life and production of the artists. Critical third-party studies of primary sources, such as scientific analyses of artists' writings, also belong to secondary sources.

2) Direct or indirect sources

The distinction between direct or indirect sources is different from the previous one. There may therefore be authors (we will see Bauer and Crispolti) who have their own definition of primary / secondary sources and direct / indirect sources.

Bauer, for example, spoke of direct sources when - in addition to being contemporary - they make precise reference to the object of study: a letter from a painter is a direct source when it documents the beginning or the conclusion of a painting, helping focusing the historian's attention on the artwork, while it is indirect when it documents his more general opinions on art, his experience and his inspiration, without adding information on the artwork in question. For Crispolti, the artworks are the only direct sources, while every other source is always indirect.

The physical nature of the source

Laura Arias Serrano identifies four categories: (1) written sources; (2) graphic sources; (3) tangible or material sources and (4) audiovisual sources.

End of Part One

Go To Part Two 

NOTES

[1] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea, Barcelona, Ediciones del Serbal, S.A, 2012, 759 pages. See note 1 at page 17.

[2] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 22.

[3] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 23.

[4] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 31.

[5] Laura Arias Serrano quotes in particular: Introducción a la historia del arte. Edited by Mireia Freixa, Eduard Carbonell, Vicenç Furió, Pilar Vélez, Fredereic Vilà, Joaquín Yarza. Barcellona, Barcanova, 1990, 331 pages.

[6] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 24.

[7] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 25.

[8] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 26.

[9] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 26.

[10] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 27.

[11] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 29.

[12] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), pp. 29-30.

[13] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 31.

[14] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 31.

[15] Schlosser, Julius von - La letteratura artistica. Edited by Filippo Rossi, Florence, 1964, 792 pages. Quotation at page 1.

[16] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 41.

[17] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 41.

[18] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), pp. 41-42.

[19] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 42.

[20] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 42.

[21] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 42.

[22] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 43.

[23] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 43.

[24] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 44.

[25] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 44.

[26] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 48.

[27] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 48.

[28] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 48.

[29] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 48.

[30] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 48.

[31] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 48.

[32] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 48.

[33] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 48.

[34] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 48.

[35] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 48.

[36] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 48.

[37] Arias Serrano, Laura  - Las fuentes de la historia del arte en la época contemporánea (quoted), p. 48.