Art History Now

Geraldine A. Johnson is Head of the History of Art Department at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Christ Church, Oxford. She has published widely on sculpture from the late Medieval period to the present day, gender and the visual arts, the history of photography, and the historiography of Art History. She co-edited the prize-winning Picturing Women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy and edited Sculpture and Photography: Envisioning the Third Dimension. She is also the author of Renaissance Art: A Very Short Introduction. Most recently, she co-edited Photo Archives and the Place of Photography (Routledge, 2025) and she is currently co-curating a major exhibition at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum on art and the senses in the global Early Modern period.

"The past half century saw the rise of a radical Art History that challenged the underlying assumptions of traditional art historical practices. For the interested but uninitiated student, such a dizzying and heterogeneous range of theories and histories can be baffling. This innovative and critically-edited volume of essays by experts and younger scholars will be an indispensable companion in negotiating this complex but immensely rewarding subject."Professor Partha Mitter, University of Sussex"With thirty essays by over thirty authors, this anthology provides a panoramic view of Art History as it has been shaped by traditions and reconfigured by contemporary concerns and critical challenges. The range of approaches, of voices, and of perspectives creates a complex picture of the current state of the field, widely defined and definitively explored. The collection presents a comprehensive and compelling guide to the diversity and relevance of art historical inquiry in our time."Professor Patricia Lee Rubin, The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University"In recent decades the disciplinary borders of Art History have become ever more elastic, interdisciplinary, and fluid. This important collection of essays serves as a necessary guide and exciting provocation for students, teachers, and researchers alike. Art History Now is an indispensable companion for art historians grappling with the changing shape of their field of study across thirty new and innovative essays by leading scholars written in compelling prose and accessible format."Professor Jo Applin, The Courtauld Institute of Art

• Introduction: Art History Then…and Now Part I: The Objects of Art History 1. Material: Engaging with the Stuff of Art 2. Architecture: Constructing Global Histories 3. Photography: Between Discipline and Indiscipline 4. New Media: Time Comes Again 5. Performance: Art is Alive 6. Reproductions: Art History’s Images 7. Frame: Border, Boundary, Limit 8. Technical Studies: Where Science meets Art Part II: Art Historical Concepts 9. Artist: Functions and Forms of History and Subjectivity 10. Beholder: Absorption, Objectification, and the Reconstitution of Subjectivity 11. Museum: When is a Museum? 12. Canon: A Chinese Laocoön and the Process of Canon Formation 13. Periodization: Must We Divide (Art) History into Periods? 14. Modernism: Critical Genealogies and Contemporary Possibilities 15. Orientalism: Post-Colonialism, Time, and the Image 16. Visual Culture: Not Just Another Name for Art History 17. The Senses: The Sensory Revolution and Art History Part III: Approaches to Art History 18. Connoisseurship: Invention, Abandonment, Reinvention 19. Form and Formalism: Problematic and Inevitable 20. Iconology: Method and Movement 21. Social Art History: The Doing and Un-Doing of a Discipline 22. Psychoanalysis: The Art of Trauma 23. Gender/Sexuality: Sexual Difference and the Structure of Art (History) 24. Race/Ethnicity: The Practices of Difference and the Politics of Marginality in Art History 25. Global Art History: Post-Colonial Origins, De-Colonial Futures 26. Anthropology: Playing with Dolls – Art, Effigy, Agency 27. Environmental Approaches: Expanded Perspectives, Differential Positions 28. Disability Studies: Institutional Critique and Disability Art as an Heir to Art’s History 29. Neuroaesthetics: Is it just Brains, Beauty, and Babel? 30. Digital Approaches: Do We Really Need Digital Art History?