Works in Progress

Below are links to several works in progress in PDF format. All of the texts are unfinished and unpublished. All comments are welcome, including general suggestions on how texts and ideas might be shared over the Internet.

• How the Visual is Studied is a work in progress. It is meant as a textbook; it considers particular questions in visual studies in some detail. The following chapters exist in provisional forms:
  
  "Time and Narrative" is a chapter on the depiction of time in art, and on the representation of narrative in contemporary photography and painting. The issue, from an artist's standpoint, is sometimes how to avoid telling a straightforward linear story that will seem to have only one meaning. Fragmentation, juxtaposition, and flashbacks (flash-forwards, flash-betweens) are among the strategies for disrupting narratives.
  
  "Problems with Peirce" is on the general subject of the use of semiotics, and the particular question of the utility of Peirce's theory. I argue that Peirce is much stranger and significantly less visually inclined than he has been taken to be, and that only generalized or simplified readings of his work can make sense in relation to visual studies.
  
  "The End of the Theory of the Gaze" outlines the history of the concept, and proposes three versions of the theory. The limitations of each are stressed: the gaze remains an indispensible theory for visual culture, but it is limited in its dependence on psychoanalysis, its pathos, its reliance on gender, and its often too general constructions of the viewer and the viewed. (The version here has no illustrations.)
  
  "A Multicultural Look at Space and Form" combines two essays: the first is a version of the usual Freshman space-and-form lecture, rewritten to that it ancompasses mulitcultural possibilities; the second is an essay on current theorizing on the place of mimesis and realism in art. (The version here has links to some illustrations.)

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• Streams into Sand: Connections Between Renaissance and Modern Painting is an unpublished MS (2001) that is concerned with the exclusion of Renaissance painting from conversations about contemporary painting. Art since the French Revolution, and especially since Manet, is commonly adduced to explain current practice, but the Renaissance seems increasingly a matter of scholarly interest. This book is an attempt to find some links, and assess the depth of the disconnection.
  A summary of the book is included in Renaissance Theory, vol. 6 of The Art Seminar series (see the Books page).
  
  Chapter 3, "Crivelli, Kirchner: Modern Impatience," concerns the question of painters' patience: why were Renaissance works typically done with what appears to be superhuman patience, while modern works are often made quickly? The difference is usually explained by the rise of modern subjectivity: in this essay I add to that account by trying to speak directly in terms of the values of practice.
  
  

• The Project of Painting, 1900-2000 (formerly called Success and Failure in Twentieth-Century Painting) is a work in progress (1997-present) on various theories of success and failure, illustrated using kinds of painting that tend to be overlooked in contemporary criticism: average (not avant-garde) 20th c. painting in China, India, and Egypt; how-to-paint-the-nude books; Czech cubism; old-barn watercolors; southwest regional art; fantasy art.
  
  Title, table of contents, and preface, 2001 revision.
  
  Part I concerns general historiographic issues such a models of modernism and postmodernism that contribute to ideas of success and failure.
  
  Part II is a survey of the problems of writing about the wortld's art--the limits of multiculturalism, regionalism, and so forth.
  
  Part III is a series of studies of particular examples of success and failure.
  
  Sample sections:
  1. "Lack of Irony," on serious political and religious art, and on naïfs and faux-naïfs.
  2. "Missing the Point, Not Playing with a Full Deck," on Czech cubism.
  3. "Being Academic, Alexandrian, Mannerist, Precious, and Ivory-Tower," on postmodern trompe l'oeil.
  4. "Lacking a Unified Style," on mixtures of East and West in Chinese painting.
  5. "Getting Tired," on "exhausting declines" in later careers of painters, and a section on really weak painting.
  
  Conclusions (excerpt)

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Articles

These essays are not parts of larger writing projects.

• "Night, Colorstorms, and the Unnatural: Emil Nolde's Search for a Private Color Language," an essay on the relation between Nolde's use of color (neither naturalistic nor consistently anti-naturalistic) and his isolated lifestyle. (Note: the Nolde Stiftung does not permit color reproductions outside of publication, so the essay is unillustrated.)
  
  

• "How Close Can We Come to Admitting We're Really Writing Mostly About Ourselves?" is a lecture on the subject of art historians' subjectivity. Few books by art historians last more than 30 years, because they come to seen as products of their time; my claim is that objectivity won't help that situation, but better writing might.
  
  

• "In an Oppressive Atmosphere: Pontormo's Last Thoughts on Food, Drawing, and Criticism" is an essay on Pontormo's diary and his work on San Lorenzo. The diary, and the late work, have been interpreted as evidence of the artist's proto-romantic sensibility and melancholy. It is also possible to read them in a straightforward way, as documents with minimal information about the artist's "inner life."
  

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