Introduction
Art is a complex aspect of human life, the study of which is followed by many questions. It is especially urgent in regard to the history of art, its development and evolution, and the influence of the surrounding world. The history of art is problematic to study as it formulates the research of aspects containing inaccurate information. In other words, the large amount of time that has passed since the early epochs makes it challenging to study the early periods of art under the diachronous approach. However, in his article “Is Art History Global?,” James Elkins offers a detailed analysis of the current issue. The purpose is to analyze the argument, questions, and pieces of evidence provided in the article by James Elkins.
Discussion
Due to a large number of inaccuracies in the history of art, it is often criticized because of subjective information. However, the paper by James Elkins raises relevant questions, including such aspects as the form of art history worldwide. In addition, the work examines whether art is becoming global, that is, the degree to which a form of art history is recognizable where it is practiced. James Elkins analyzes whether the concepts, goals, and methods of Western art can be applied to the study of art outside the US and Europe. In addition, the author raises the problem of the existence of alternative models of the history of art that would be compatible with the existing ones. The article indicates that today the question of the form, boundaries, and limits of art is topical, as well as the future of craft.
As an argument, James Elkins presents reflections that the prospects for world art history are a pressing issue. This is due to the fact that there are many different methods regarding approaches to the study of this discipline. In addition, the author argues that multiculturalism leads to compromised relativism, and visual culture is unstable. The article argues that it remains unclear how the history of art can be related to neighboring disciplines. At the same time, considering it as a separate aspect gives rise to many problems, for example, the subjectivity of information. Besides, after suggesting that the history of art should be considered separately from the visual disciplines, it was concluded that these two aspects would, in any case, be intertwined.
As one of the pieces of evidence, Summers’ work Real Spaces was cited, which discusses and structures the most complex notions regarding the history of art. James Elkins covered major aspects of the book, such as Real, Spaces, Western Art History, and Western Modernism. As a result, the author came to the conclusion that Summers’ realism is expressed through the classical rhetoric of modern empiricism. Spaces include metric, personal, social, spectator, and virtual ones. In addition, evidence was Summers’ fact that all art has universality. In this regard, James Elkins concluded that it was necessary to answer the question of whether a given universality could make effective contact with the particular ways in which it was established.
Conclusion
To conclude, the pieces of evidence given in the article are relevant and convincing, as they correlate with the tasks of the article. Namely, it helps in the effective analysis of such concepts as the boundaries and forms of the history of art and the methodology of its study. Moreover, it helped the author conclude that art’s history could have a more clearly defined structure if it remained committed to discipline and Western models. Finally, it is necessary to develop methodologies in the aspect of conceptualization of the future history of art.