• 미술이론과 현장
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• 제2호
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• pp.49-74
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• 2004

It has been frequently pointed out that the established art history with the stylistic and iconographic interpretations and monographic analysis is fallen behind the currency of modern art. Among those who claimed the crisis in the discipline of art history, there is a suggestion that the art historical study should be fostered by other factors in the fields of the humanities. The so called New Art History or 'visual Culture Studies' insists that art history has to be restructured to integrate the broader study of culture and society, and by now, such an opinion is not a novelty at all. One of the most significant yet overlooked elements that induced the new currency of art history is properties of contemporary art that conflict the traditional claim of art historians. Although the idea that art is not purely aesthetic but that it has many other functions has been brought up by the art historians, it was the artists that provoked such a perception. When Arthur C. Danto and Hans Belting proclaimed the End of Art and Art History in the 1980s, the concept of art has been changed radically through the avant-garde tendency of Modernism and a new pluralism of Postmodernism. One dominant concern that strikes art historians is to find a new approach to art, since the traditional method and goal of analysis for past art and past art history seem unavailable. The perplexity arising from the situation is intensified in the field of teaching art, especially for those who teach art history in art school. Basically art history is a pursuit of learning of art in history, and its purpose is to reconcile the present with the past and the future as well. Since Modernism, as it is confusing sometimes because it implies the present state, somehow art became considered 'tradition-less'. It does not mean that a work of art stands aloof from the past attainments, hut modern art imposed itself on a task seeking after the new for its own sake, turning its back on the tradition. And now in the era of Postmodernism, an historians face the requirement to revaluate the whole history of art including modernism. The necessity of art history in art education is indisputable, but methods and contents in the academic courses should he reexamined now. Because artists' concept of history and past art has been altered, and art history as a humanistic discipline can only maintain its identity through incorporation with art itself. Academics teaching art history, or, strictly speaking, past works of art and history, to the student in art school, confront with the need to rethink the object of art history and its meaning to the artists.