What is the purpose of art history?

by Federico Giannini (Instagram: @federicogiannini1), published on 02/05/2012
Categories: Opinions / Disclaimer
An article on the function of art history: what is art for? Federico tries to give his answer by giving some concrete examples.

Mais ne conviendrez-vous pas que
la Peinture est également inventée pour l’agrément et pour l’utilité?
(But don’t you agree that painting
was invented for both pleasure and utility?)1
Ã?tienne La Font de Saint-Yenne

Lately there is a feeling that art (and particularlyancient art) has been reduced to pure entertainment, to a mere divertissement for acculturated people (although this assumption is not always true, i.e., that only educated people are interested in art) who find in art and art history a means of escapism that requires no effort to understand the messages that works of art are meant to provide us with. And usually, if we take a trip to forums where art is discussed (admittedly increasingly rare) or to Facebook, we will notice that if an ancient work of art is mentioned, most of the comments will be focused on the “aesthetic” value of that work, on the immediate reactions it elicits in those who admire it.

More than an impression, a certainty: the reading of ancient works of art seems to stop at a level of “beautiful-ugly-wonderful-etc.” which from a certain point of view one can obviously understand (I am the first to say thatart gives emotions, and evidently if in front of a painting I did not feel these feelings, I might not even be here on Windows on Art together with Ilaria and the other guys on the team telling about art), but this is a plane of reading that consequently leads to the other side of the coin, which is the turning of all attentions toward those few and proclaimed “star masterpieces” while throwing into oblivion an almost endless multitude of works of art deserving of the same attention that is usually given to a Caravaggio, a Michelangelo, a Raphael and so on.

But that is not what I want to talk about: let us return to the reading of the work of art. Therefore, I would like to start from some considerations of Tomaso Montanari expounded in the conference Conoscere l’arte per difenderlameglio2 and in his book A che cosa serve Michelangelo?, to which it will be worth devoting an article soon anyway. Montanari says that art "serves the publicutilitas, serves the bonum commune (the “common good,” we would say today), serves the universal."3 Art history therefore serves everyone, it serves to instruct and to educate, it serves to convey messages and to make us better citizens and men.

One will wonder, however, in what way, factually, art can come to achieve the goal of serving the publicutilitas. To explicate this concept (I am firmly convinced that art belongs to everyone and that in order to understand it there should be no barriers of language, course of study or so on because everyone is required to come into contact with art, especially ancient art) I would like to propose a few concrete examples starting precisely from current events and from that artist who perhaps more than any other manages to capture the attention of the general public, namely Leonardo da Vinci.

The Battle of Anghiari (leaving aside any reference to the events that have lately affected the work) presents us with a horse fight between Milanese and Florentine soldiers to depict the clash that took place in 1440: the faces of the soldiers are almost deformed by the anger that one expresses toward the other, an anger that makes them look more like two horses biting each other than like human beings. This is because for Leonardo, war is a "most bestial madness"4 and being such it can only make men resemble beasts. We therefore derive the image of a Leonardo who with his work wants to express his opposition to war, and even if this might seem excessive to some, art nevertheless has the merit of conveying an idea and above all of stimulating a discussion on topics that may also be topical.

Take then, for example, Michelangelo Buonarroti’s David, perhaps the highest example of the trivialization of art, a work that in addition to being a masterpiece of technical skill (Michelangelo pulled it out of a very large block of marble that had already been rough-hewn and in front of which two sculptors had surrendered and attempted to make the David from that block, Agostino di Duccio and Antonio Rossellino) and a beauty difficult to surpass (during Michelangelo’s funeral oration in 1564, Benedetto Varchi argued that the David had surpassed every sculpture in ancient Rome5), it is also a work that stands for high civic and moral values.

This is because the David, finished at a time when Florence (after the expulsion of the Medici) had become a Republic, had ended up transforming itself into the very symbol of the Republic and of freedom winning against tyranny. And such a “transformation” was possible because "probably the greatest symbol of freedom at that time was the shepherd slayer of Goliath and savior of his people, the young David with his sling."6David is thus freedom winning against enemies and oppressors, and in this case art history serves to express and share a very high value.

It could be said that it is easy to find meanings in such well-known and celebrated works... but even lesser paintings or sculptures (and then why limit ourselves to paintings or sculptures? Even works of goldsmithing, furniture, textiles... ) have something to tell us. As a final example, I take a work that is geographically close to me. Driving along the stretch of the Aurelia between Castelnuovo Magra and Sarzana, one notices on the left a small church with a sober facade, a church that, seen like this, might say nothing but which in fact houses one of the greatest masterpieces of seventeenth-century Liguria,St. Lazarus Asking Our Lady for Protection for the City of Sarzana by Domenico Fiasella.

This painting tells us about the way in which centuries ago art served to take on the anxieties of man who turned to supernatural entities (in our case, the Madonna) for benefits (here, protection for the city of Sarzana), and art was considered a kind of means to get to God, the Madonna, the saints, and so on. And if that was the role of the painting in ancient times (and it certainly still is nowadays for those who believe in it), today this work has become a witness to a way of life, a witness to an era, to the way of thinking of a civilization (since these paintings offered as a vow to the deities were very often produced): art thus serves to keep alive the memory of an ancient culture... and no one forbids us to make comparisons with today’s culture.

We could go on for hours listing works, because each work has something different to tell, and each work has its own function and purpose, and it would be simplistic to think that the only purpose of an ancient work of art is to provide delight to the beholder. Also by understanding what the history of art is for we can help save it, because by understanding art we also automatically absorbrespect for art, a necessary condition for its protection and defense, and as long as this is lacking we will increasingly witness the trivialization of a few masterpieces and at the same time total disinterest in an art that is snubbed by most but is an important and indispensable part of our cultural landscape. I wanted to write this post a few days after the opening of our site somewhat also to make clear the goals of Windows on Art and to make manifest the meaning of our work.

Notes

1. Ã?tienne La Font de Saint-Yenne, Sentiments sur quelques ouvrage de Peinture, Sculpture et Gravure, 1754 ↑
2. The entire talk by Tomaso Montanari can be found at this link ↑
3. Minute 00’56" of the video ↑
4. Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise on Painting ↑
5. Let Rome have its Marforio, keep Rome its Tiber, boast Rome or Greece of its Apollo, its Laocoon and its Nile of Belvedere, glorify itself of its giants of Montecavallo, esteem itself beautiful, call itself rich, repute itself happy, preach itself blessed with its arches, its columns of Trajan, its statues and its colossi. Take away at last all her sculptures, and leave to us our Davitte alone, for Rome will have greater cause to envy Florence, than Florence to bring envy to Rome, and the Arno so much greater than the Tiber its brother, with respect to the glory of these arts, as he is less in respect of the waves. ( Benedetto Varchi, Funeral Oration of M. Benedetto Varchi. Made and recited by Him publicly at the funeral of Michelagnolo Buonarroti in Florence, in the Church of San Lorenzo. Address to the very MAg. & Reverend Monsignor M. Vincenzio Borghini Prior of the Innocenti, Florence, Giunti, 1564 ↑
6. Charles Seymour Jr., Michelangelo’s David: a search for identity, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967 ↑

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