Reconceiving Connoisseurship

Carol Strone has an excellent article in the Fine Art Connoisseur titled Reconceiving Connoisseurship. The article is not posted on the Fine Art Connoisseur website, but I was able to get a copy of the article and permission to post it on the Appraisers Post site. It is in one of the Featured Article boxes, with the ability to open, download or email. Carol discusses how true connoisseurship (outside of authentication) has been a lost academic process for nearly 40 years and has seen much erosion . But, Strone now believes the time is right for a rebirth of true connoisseurship which will advance our material culture.

Strone writes

Add to this the contradictions between connoisseurship and contemporary art. Old-school connoisseurs, who favor “masterpieces” of the past over “mediocrities” of the present, are much to blame in alienating the contemporary art world. Traditional formalist stylistic analysis of visual elements likewise excludes contemporary art objects that have more to do with ideas than with how well something is rendered. When the artist’s hand is absent from ready-mades or commissioned objects, attribution and craft matter little, and conventional connoisseurs have trouble adapting their skills to other purposes. In cases of performance, “process-oriented,” and “instruction-based” art, for which no physical object even exists in a post-medium age, object-based connoisseurship is left out in the cold. (Marcel Proust was prophetic when he said that “Museums are dwellings that house only thoughts.”) Connoisseurship recedes, too, as contemporary notions of visual “culture” usurp “Art with a capital A.”

Other, more benign, factors are eroding connoisseurship. Scientific aids (e.g., x-radiography) are now widely preferred to the naked eye, though connoisseurs must interpret the data. Much of the world’s art can be seen, moreover, in lavishly illustrated books and highresolution digital images on the Internet. In violation of the philosopher Immanuel Kant’s acquaintance principle, we increasingly forgo first-hand experience of the actual works on which connoisseurship depends. Yet no matter how fine, a reproduction can never exactly reproduce color, texture, scale, or volume. In art pilgrimages, cameras replace sketchbooks, minimizing mental and visual engagement before moving on to the next must-see work. Our time-pressed, shortcut oriented society stunts our eye. Probing physical, psychological,
and emotional experiences of art are rare for all but the most purposeful art lovers.

It is a very thought provoking article, and I highly recommend all AW Blog readers to visit the Appraisers Post and read the article. Click HERE to read Reconceiving Connoisseurship.