Pevsner on Englishness 1 & 2 and links to reflections on heritage. A844 Ex. 1.7-1.9 inclusive
Thursday, 27 Sept 2018, 10:00
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Edited by Steve Bamlett, Thursday, 27 Sept 2018, 10:11
Pevsner on
Englishness 1 & 2 and links to reflections on heritage. A844 Ex. 1.7-1.9
inclusive
What suggests art-
historical background?
My feeling is that the crucial issue is not the ontology of
art historian – what am I? But its value and specialism. Hence, ever so
delicately, Pevsner distinguishes his right to be a ‘professional’ rather than
an amateur and ‘make a living out of’ it. The right to make a living inheres in
something special and possibly elitist in the values, skills and knowledge that
are claimed to be demanded by visual as opposed to linguistic or aural culture:
‘revelations which can reach us through the eye are less familiar’. This sense
of a specialised culture accessible less commonly than other cultural objects
is merely asserted not argued and feels extremely tenuous for that reason.
Hence, he goes on to compare uneducated responses (those without art-history)
to those able to penetrate the ontology of the art-object as it is seen in its
own originating time and nation.
The contradictory theme of the urbane commentator who is
nevertheless keen to appear as a ‘professional’ whilst performing merely as an
English eccentric ought to been expected from Pevsner, given his strange
situation as a professional art-historian in a university structure that had no
art-history teaching in it. Pollock (2012)[1]
mentions the stress on both ‘anomalous, full of eccentricities’ (357) –
sometimes presented as particularly ‘anti-intellectual’(362), that were often
to be enacted and enjoyed as particularly and warmly ‘English’, whilst
insistent on a superiority behind it that must be ‘professional’ or
craftsman-like, and based on literacy in the skills.
The historical constants are knowable (by those in the know)
as ‘spirits of ages’ (probably Hegelian in origin) that can be assessed when we
know what to look for as more important than individual variables relating to
single artists. Along with this synchronic developmental field lies a
diachronic one based in the ‘geography of art’, where we look for national
characteristics.
National characteristics are distinct from the assertions of
nationalism? Yet this is difficult to sustain in examinations of art, where
contradictions and complications must be ignored to establish this (Lowe 2009).
Both nationalism and national characteristic are likely to be ‘imagined’
beliefs rather than objectively established truths according to Benedict
Anderson.
The features of life that are supposed as discernibly
national, are: languages & terminologies, climate (bringing in Winkelmann)
and the sequelae in nature brought about by climate – oak forests. Schama will
help us unpack this use of the forest in imagined beliefs of the national
characteristic. But how do we move from tis to the demand oak makes on
church-makers for ‘high exacting craftsmanship’. The associative networks here
are predominantly ‘imagined’ ones.
Setting parameters for
investigating Englishness. Are there contradictions, complications in framing
the discussion?
1.
Englishness is established by learned comparison
& contrast between different works from different cultures but across time
(to establish the constant of a national character). This juggling with
variables and possible constants in time-space is entirely ignorant of other
sets of variables such as culture and social categories, some of which might be
transnational.
2.
Englishness may be experienced by all or many
English but is discerned, at the level of analytic knowledge, consciously only
b the few educated to be thus able.
3.
The relationship between history and geography
of art is grossly oversimplified. If more specific would it stand up? The
methodology is from Wölflinn – ‘compare and contrast’ and can be used for synchronic
and diachronic comparisons. His is all in the latter.
4.
The validity of ‘national characteristics’ are
assumed verities based on ‘non-statistical comparisons. Yet they can be argued
to be culturally imagined describing ‘communal’ values in the interests of
colonial adventures.
5.
That associations are often specious and do not
appear to mark ‘national characteristics’ is to be expected because they are
not ‘universal’ truths. So what kind of truths. I’d say ‘imagined ones. The characterisation
of them as part of an ‘atmospheric view of the world’ asserts its rather
belief-led process, taking us back to Winckelmann assertions about climate.
Ex. 1.8 Perpendicular
England.
No questions given. My notes:
1.
The Perpendicular is peculiar to England. ‘not
even a remote parallel abroad’. Its features:
a.
Angularity – ‘square-topped tower’; square-ended
chancel; ‘enclosed space should be like a box, or a cube, or a block.’. An arch
that is really ‘an open triangle’.
b.
Shows architecture that is not kneaded or
plastic moulded, but components added to each other.
c.
Uniformity & repetition, and stressing ‘flat
surface’. Close & repetitive tracery.
d.
Seen again in Gothic revival, arts & crafts
etc.
Ex. 1.9 Critical
Heritage Studies Reading Rodney Harrison (2010).
As I finished these extracts with interest, I realised I’d
read them before on a University of Leiden MOOC on Heritage under Threat. I
covered many themes on exercises (compulsory for a ‘with Honours’ pass) date.
They mainly concern a site near my birthplace – Castle Hill, Almondbury, near
Huddersfield, although there is stuff on coal mining and Hamsterley forest. The
concern for coal mining heritage runs throughout though.
Pevsner on Englishness 1 & 2 and links to reflections on heritage. A844 Ex. 1.7-1.9 inclusive
Pevsner on Englishness 1 & 2 and links to reflections on heritage. A844 Ex. 1.7-1.9 inclusive
What suggests art- historical background?
My feeling is that the crucial issue is not the ontology of art historian – what am I? But its value and specialism. Hence, ever so delicately, Pevsner distinguishes his right to be a ‘professional’ rather than an amateur and ‘make a living out of’ it. The right to make a living inheres in something special and possibly elitist in the values, skills and knowledge that are claimed to be demanded by visual as opposed to linguistic or aural culture: ‘revelations which can reach us through the eye are less familiar’. This sense of a specialised culture accessible less commonly than other cultural objects is merely asserted not argued and feels extremely tenuous for that reason. Hence, he goes on to compare uneducated responses (those without art-history) to those able to penetrate the ontology of the art-object as it is seen in its own originating time and nation.
The contradictory theme of the urbane commentator who is nevertheless keen to appear as a ‘professional’ whilst performing merely as an English eccentric ought to been expected from Pevsner, given his strange situation as a professional art-historian in a university structure that had no art-history teaching in it. Pollock (2012)[1] mentions the stress on both ‘anomalous, full of eccentricities’ (357) – sometimes presented as particularly ‘anti-intellectual’(362), that were often to be enacted and enjoyed as particularly and warmly ‘English’, whilst insistent on a superiority behind it that must be ‘professional’ or craftsman-like, and based on literacy in the skills.
The historical constants are knowable (by those in the know) as ‘spirits of ages’ (probably Hegelian in origin) that can be assessed when we know what to look for as more important than individual variables relating to single artists. Along with this synchronic developmental field lies a diachronic one based in the ‘geography of art’, where we look for national characteristics.
National characteristics are distinct from the assertions of nationalism? Yet this is difficult to sustain in examinations of art, where contradictions and complications must be ignored to establish this (Lowe 2009). Both nationalism and national characteristic are likely to be ‘imagined’ beliefs rather than objectively established truths according to Benedict Anderson.
The features of life that are supposed as discernibly national, are: languages & terminologies, climate (bringing in Winkelmann) and the sequelae in nature brought about by climate – oak forests. Schama will help us unpack this use of the forest in imagined beliefs of the national characteristic. But how do we move from tis to the demand oak makes on church-makers for ‘high exacting craftsmanship’. The associative networks here are predominantly ‘imagined’ ones.
Setting parameters for investigating Englishness. Are there contradictions, complications in framing the discussion?
1. Englishness is established by learned comparison & contrast between different works from different cultures but across time (to establish the constant of a national character). This juggling with variables and possible constants in time-space is entirely ignorant of other sets of variables such as culture and social categories, some of which might be transnational.
2. Englishness may be experienced by all or many English but is discerned, at the level of analytic knowledge, consciously only b the few educated to be thus able.
3. The relationship between history and geography of art is grossly oversimplified. If more specific would it stand up? The methodology is from Wölflinn – ‘compare and contrast’ and can be used for synchronic and diachronic comparisons. His is all in the latter.
4. The validity of ‘national characteristics’ are assumed verities based on ‘non-statistical comparisons. Yet they can be argued to be culturally imagined describing ‘communal’ values in the interests of colonial adventures.
5. That associations are often specious and do not appear to mark ‘national characteristics’ is to be expected because they are not ‘universal’ truths. So what kind of truths. I’d say ‘imagined ones. The characterisation of them as part of an ‘atmospheric view of the world’ asserts its rather belief-led process, taking us back to Winckelmann assertions about climate.
Ex. 1.8 Perpendicular England.
No questions given. My notes:
1. The Perpendicular is peculiar to England. ‘not even a remote parallel abroad’. Its features:
a. Angularity – ‘square-topped tower’; square-ended chancel; ‘enclosed space should be like a box, or a cube, or a block.’. An arch that is really ‘an open triangle’.
b. Shows architecture that is not kneaded or plastic moulded, but components added to each other.
c. Uniformity & repetition, and stressing ‘flat surface’. Close & repetitive tracery.
d. Seen again in Gothic revival, arts & crafts etc.
Ex. 1.9 Critical Heritage Studies Reading Rodney Harrison (2010).
As I finished these extracts with interest, I realised I’d read them before on a University of Leiden MOOC on Heritage under Threat. I covered many themes on exercises (compulsory for a ‘with Honours’ pass) date. They mainly concern a site near my birthplace – Castle Hill, Almondbury, near Huddersfield, although there is stuff on coal mining and Hamsterley forest. The concern for coal mining heritage runs throughout though.
https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/viewpost.php?post=206298
https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/viewpost.php?post=206684
https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/viewpost.php?post=206290
https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/viewpost.php?post=207689
https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/viewpost.php?post=207708
https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/viewpost.php?post=207740
https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/viewpost.php?post=207676
https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/viewpost.php?post=206683
https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/viewpost.php?post=207770
[1] Pollock, G. (2012) ‘Art History and Visual Studies in great Britain and Ireland’