Is Art History?

To be served so generously by this august historian is a most gratifying experience. Her writing is so forceful, so confident—but also so funny. -- Charles M. Schulz * The Brooklyn Rail * The discipline of art history today is far more inclusive, more cognizant of social history, and less prone to normative aesthetic judgments—changes Svetlana Alpers helped bring about. -- Susan Tallman * The New York Review of Books * ... [Svetlana Alper's] words offer pleasure and instruction to anyone who cares about art, and above all, [make] them wonder whether their ideas about it can be usefully examined. -- Barry Schwabsky * Art in America * This is a book of classic essays (this is a book of ceaseless questions) by one of the great art historians of our time. Beware: At the start, the collection offers up a quixotic self-categorization of its contents: articles, catalogue essays, book and exhibition reviews, lectures, commemorations, conversations. But over the course of a lifetime of writing, the author of 'The Art of Describing' betrays a restless intelligence that refuses to be categorized. Alpers insists that we treat the work of art, every work of art, in the same way: beyond received ideas, each according to its specific ‘mode.’It is her great lesson. -- George Baker * UCLA Department of Art History * Svetlana Alpers's groundbreaking 'Is Art History?' shows that art can shape historical understanding through its visual and material processes. Alpers's book provides a unique prospective and shows that the future is sometimes invented with fragments from the past. -- Hans Ulrich Obrist This book quite literally opens our eyes to the wide range of art and artists discussed in it, and does so with an unflinching probity that provides deep insights into the ways in which art is intrinsically related to the human condition. Svetlana Alpers’s writing is pithy and incisive, impressively erudite but never pedantic, as she illuminates both individual works and broad art historical concepts with a unique combination of energy, passion, and clarity. -- Jack Flam * President & CEO, Dedalus Foundation * Svetlana Alpers is an extraordinarily important art historian best known for her publications on Dutch painting, including 'The Art of Describing' (1983), and her contribution to the 'New Art History' as founding co-editor of the scholarly journal 'Representations.' What is much less well known is the extent to which she has gone on writing and thinking about the nature of art, the act of looking and museums, and about contemporary art and photography since she moved from Berkeley, California to New York in 1999. 'Is Art History?' assembles examples of her writing, including reviews and memoirs, from her full career, starting with Vasari in 1960. Every piece is thoughtful, original and frequently unexpected. -- Charles Saumarez Smith * Former director, National Gallery, London * At a time when writing about art is done with the same irresponsible ease and rhetoric as defending unjust wars, Svetlana Alpers is a must to read if you care about history and about art. -- Marlene Dumas Svetlana Alpers is an artist's art historian. Her wonderful writing goes from the canvas or the line, outwards. Starting with the making and expanding on to the meaning that accrues through the making. -- William Kentridge