Art History and Its Methods

Rating:
Summary: A *Critical* Anthology
Review: Fernie's book is indeed a little gem, a compilation of most of the major players and critical thinkers that shaped the discipline of Art History as we know it today. The format is user-friendly, with an excellent table of contents, select bibliography, and index. The glossary in the back provides definitions that are indispensable for beginners and masters alike. His intros are succinct; they provide a historical context, and distill most of the main points of each reading into a short, interesting, and easy to digest summary.

The selected texts provide the reader with a good definition of some of the historical and contemporary differences between different schools of Art History and Art Criticism. The methods provided in this book are applicable to any humanistic discipline. While not totally comprehensive, the material presented does give an excellent starting point for further excursions into art historical methodology.

That said, Fernie does allow some of his own biases and methodologies to colour some of his introductions, and the selections of representative texts. The critical thinking of his readers needs to be applied to these aspects of the book, as much as the texts presented. However, all in all this is an excellent "History of Art History". I reccomend this book highly to "students" (of any kind) interested in a higher understanding of art, art criticism, and historiography.

Rating:
Summary: A great idea, but a disappointing book
Review: I bought this book because I wanted an anthology of "the best," classic articles on a variety of fields and from a variety of critical viewpoints, hoping to use it for my introductory art history course. But not only could one quarrel with the choices here, but the articles are abridged almost to the point of incomprehensibility and the footnotes are left out. This makes the collection unrepresentative of what it purports to be about, and useless in the classroom.

Rating:
Summary: A great idea, but a disappointing book
Review: I bought this book because I wanted an anthology of "the best," classic articles on a variety of fields and from a variety of critical viewpoints, hoping to use it for my introductory art history course. But not only could one quarrel with the choices here, but the articles are abridged almost to the point of incomprehensibility and the footnotes are left out. This makes the collection unrepresentative of what it purports to be about, and useless in the classroom.

Rating:
Summary: Fernie's Anthology is an Odd Compilation
Review: The choices Fernie made in compiling his anthology often seem to make little sense. His Vasari excerpt, for example, is a mish-mosh of badly excerpted Lives and patched together methodology--not one complete, coherent excerpt. Further, as a scholarly tool, it is quite irritating that Fernie deletes the footnotes to all the texts save his own. In addition, his introductions to each piece are not very insightful nor are they stimulating. Unfortunately (and this is what saves the anthology from being a 1) it is the only introduction to various methodologies for the young art historian. For the interested amateur this is a good start (although note that there are many other interesting texts that are not included in the anthology--Pliny, for example). If I were a Professor, however, I would simply make a packet of materials for my students of more substantive excerpts WITH footnotes and without Fernie's summations.

Rating:
Summary: A rare breed: a stimulating read
Review: The prospect of a book filled with extracts from some of the greatest art criticism written may not fill every one with excitement, but when this is the book, it should. Eric Fernie has collected the major works of the most important art historians and critics, all translated in to English. With each he adds a slight biography and handy pointers as to what the aim of the writer was. It is true that these are just extracts (in some cases, like Goethe, it is the whole of the piece) but they give you a taste of the whole, without leaving you confused.

Apart from the actual writings, there is a very handy guide to "buzz" words and terminologies, as well as theories from the world of art and philosophy, so if you do get lost, you have a map to refer to. The format of the book is good too, being arranged in such away that it is almost a text or reference book: you have a well designed index which allows you to dip in and out with out getting bemused or frustrated.

This book is a good introduction to the world of art criticism. If you ever read reviews of artists or exhibition and get confused by the terms used or people mentioned, it is likely that a look and then read of this book will make everything clearer, or distract you so much that you forget. Though this group of works may appear boring at first, it is not because Fernie's mini-biographies and explainations make it all clear: bordom soon becomes interest when the fear of getting lost among the technical terms is taken away.

A good introduction to art history and criticism, and the more general world of philosophy.