1 Where Does Art Come From? An Introduction
Where does art come from? This is the type of question that we don’t often consider carefully because it feels so simple. Duh… art comes from where it is made! You’re probably asking why a textbook about art history even asks this question (and, perhaps, why it is written so informally; for that refer to “How to Read this Book”). The question is actually really important when you want to consider all art, not just some of it. We’ve got to question what we have been taught about what ‘art’ is and/or is allowed to be. This requires understanding the history of art history.
An admittedly very brief and condensed history of Art History
The title of ‘first art historian’ usually goes to Giorgio Vasari, an Italian artist and architect who wrote Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (Vasari 1550, 1558) but this is debated (see more below). From the title of Vasari’s book, you already get a picture of what his art history was like. He offered biographies of famous painters, sculptors, and architects who worked during the Italian Renaissance (a French term that was given to this period after Vasari’s time but reflects his use of the Italian term rinascimento, meaning ‘rebirth’). He praised the artists who achieved what scholars today call realism and/or naturalistic representation (rendering of subjects very close to the way we see things in real life). These ideals were adopted from ancient Greek and Roman (i.e. Classical) artists. This came in contrast to subsequent Medieval artists, whose work was “shapeless and clumsy,” according to Vasari (1550). After the Medieval period, the Renaissance was the ‘rebirth’ of Classical ideals, intellectualism, and visual style.
Vasari is pretty clear about what types of art interest him. One big distinction made early on in art history was the difference between ‘art’ and ‘craft.’ Paintings, sculpture, and architecture were classified as art while objects like ceramic vessels, baskets, or beaded jewelry were crafts. A related distinction created by later art historians contrasts high art and low art. High art requires more and scarcer resources to produce than baskets or pottery, and appeals to the so-called higher classes of society (those with wealth, power, and prestige; we’ll expand on this in “Why Do They Have More Than Us?”). Low art primarily features commonplace and cheap materials. High art is primarily function-less, and therefore only made to be admired and contemplated. There are exceptions, like highly decorative porcelain dinnerware that adorned lavish tables and served tasty meals! Low art is primarily functional, such as a basket used to transport many small things at once but happens to have interesting visual qualities. Low art that has strong cultural resonance for lower status people, sometimes called the ‘common folk,’ is often labeled ‘folk art.’
Any guesses who the high status people associated with high art were when art his