period eye is a blog about art and its frame(s), its histories, canons, (a)synchronicities, displays and (mis)interpretations. It owes its name to an expression coined by Michael Baxandall to describe the social and cultural experiences that shape the visual skills and habits of a time. According to Baxandall, social facts conditioned the audience’s gaze and expectations to which artists responded with their style (some may call it ‘taste’). How the realm of artistic possibilities was determined by this ‘general experience’ – rather than by the enlightenment of a few genius minds – was a revelation to my young student’s mind. Observing the context beyond the straitjacket of historical materialism has fascinated me ever since.
An art historian once told me that art historiography is considered a hobby, a divertissement, to be cultivated alongside more ‘serious’ research on artists, collections, and trends. For that reason, I should rather put my effort into becoming the expert on some period, artist, or other. I took heed of his advice but went on to become a specialist in art theory and museum studies, instead. Whether a conceptual framework or a physical showcase, the interpretation and narrative surrounding works of art has been the focus of my studies. The illusion of holding that interpretative key is truly exhilarating, albeit a dangerous fallacy as postmodern demystification and relativism has taught us. Analysing methods and approaches to works of art is no subsidiary meta-discipline but an eye- and mind- opening endeavour.
In a thought-provoking documentary series, John Berger showed us that art discourse (or the Ways of Seeing as he preferred to call it) should not be the purview of academes, wannabe aesthetes, and polished connoisseurs. I share his conviction that the critical interpretation(s) of images is a subject for scholars and curious people alike. While he was speaking to an audience that was only starting to witness the global and postmodern age, the resonance of the debate he was trying to instigate is even stronger today. How art has always serviced power, imperialism and patriarchy is a fact the discipline is still reckoning with while Mee Too and Black Lives Matter movements struggle to shake granitic prejudices. In this fluid landscape, being critically aware of the impact images can have is crucial.
How people look(ed) at images, coveted and arranged them to reinforce dominant ideologies or spark revolutions – or simply: images and their meanings. This is what period eye is about. A blog to discuss the frame, to better understand the work and, perhaps, also ourselves and our time in the process. But like Berger warned his viewers, everything should be taken with a healthy dose of scepticism!
period eye 