A canon of the fittest - Evolutionist perspectives on art history

The observation of evolutionary processes in cultural expression and art can be traced back to antiquity and has played an important role in historiography and the human sciences in general for centuries. However, over time the notion of directed cultural development towards a point of hypothetical perfection, as well as the corresponding belief in cultural developmental stages, came to be considered out-dated and suspect.The 20th-century abandonment of evolutionist art history is mainly due to the insight that one cannot establish what constitutes ‘improvement’ or ‘increasing complexity’ in the visual arts. Up until the Modern period a sense of directed progress was seen in the perceived improvement in mimetic quality of the artworks. The famous 20th-century art historian Ernst Gombrich in particular strongly believed in an ascending line towards ever-increasing realism. The present thesis concerns the uses of the metaphor of Darwinian evolution for the study of art history. How...Show moreThe observation of evolutionary processes in cultural expression and art can be traced back to antiquity and has played an important role in historiography and the human sciences in general for centuries. However, over time the notion of directed cultural development towards a point of hypothetical perfection, as well as the corresponding belief in cultural developmental stages, came to be considered out-dated and suspect.The 20th-century abandonment of evolutionist art history is mainly due to the insight that one cannot establish what constitutes ‘improvement’ or ‘increasing complexity’ in the visual arts. Up until the Modern period a sense of directed progress was seen in the perceived improvement in mimetic quality of the artworks. The famous 20th-century art historian Ernst Gombrich in particular strongly believed in an ascending line towards ever-increasing realism. The present thesis concerns the uses of the metaphor of Darwinian evolution for the study of art history. How did evolutionism, before and after Darwin, develop in art historical writing? And how can a renewed analysis of the resemblances between biological evolution and art history resolve earlier problems with evolutionism and result in a reappraisal of the metaphor? The structure of the thesis is twofold. Firstly, we will look at the role of evolutionism in art history, both with respect to a pre-Darwinian, general sense of evolution and to a Darwinian, specifically biological sense. This historical overview will describe the general tendency to read art history as a process of gradual development towards ‘improvement’ and the role biological evolution has played in this perspective. Secondly, this thesis proposes a new role for the metaphor of biological evolution within the field of art history.Show less

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A canon of the fittest - Evolutionist perspectives on art history