Michael David Kighley Baxandall, FBA (18 August 1933 – 12 August 2008) was a British

art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

and a professor emeritus of Art History at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

. He taught at the

Warburg Institute The Warburg Institute is a research institution associated with the University of London in central London, England. A member of the School of Advanced Study, its focus is the study of cultural history and the role of images in culture – cro ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...

, and worked as a curator at the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

. His book ''Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy'' was profoundly influential in the social history of art, and is (2018) widely used as a textbook in college courses.

Career

Baxandall was born in

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a ...

, the only son of David Baxandall, a curator who was at one time director of the

National Gallery of Scotland The Scottish National Gallery (formerly the National Gallery of Scotland) is the national art gallery of Scotland. It is located on The Mound in central Edinburgh, close to Princes Street. The building was designed in a neoclassical style by W ...

. He went to

Manchester Grammar School The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) in Manchester, England, is the largest independent school (UK), independent day school for boys in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1515 as a Grammar school#free tuition, free grammar school next to Manchester C ...

and studied English at

Downing College, Cambridge Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 650 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the old ...

, where he was taught by F. R. Leavis. In 1955 he departed for the Continent. He spent a year at

Pavia University The University of Pavia ( it, Università degli Studi di Pavia, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; la, Alma Ticinensis Universitas) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one ...

(1955–56), then taught at an international school in

St. Gallen , neighboring_municipalities = Eggersriet, Gaiserwald, Gossau, Herisau (AR), Mörschwil, Speicher (AR), Stein (AR), Teufen (AR), Untereggen, Wittenbach , twintowns = Liberec (Czech Republic) , website = ...

in Switzerland (1956–57), and finally went to Munich to hear the art historian

Hans Sedlmayr Hans Sedlmayr (18 January 1896, in Szarvkő, Kingdom of Hungary – 9 July 1984, in Salzburg) was an Austrian art historian. From 1931 to 1932 and from 1938 onwards, he was a member of the Nazi Party. Positions as a University Professor Sedlm ...

and where he worked with

Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich (born 23 March 1903 in Leipzig; died 14 September 1978 in Munich) was a German art historian specialized in Italian Renaissance art. From 1947 to 1970, he served as director of the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, ...

on the court of

Urbino Urbino ( ; ; Romagnol: ''Urbìn'') is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of F ...

at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte. On his return to London in 1958 he began a long association with the

, initially working in the photographic collection, where he met Kay Simon, whom he married in 1963. From 1959 to 1961 he was a junior fellow, working on his never-completed PhD, ''Restraint in Renaissance behaviour'', under

Ernst Gombrich Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich (; ; 30 March 1909 – 3 November 2001) was an Austrian-born art historian who, after settling in England in 1936, became a naturalised British citizen in 1947 and spent most of his working life in the United Ki ...

. From 1961, he was Assistant Keeper in the Department of Architecture and Sculpture at the

, returning to the Warburg Institute in 1965 as lecturer in Renaissance Studies. He was appointed to a chair by the University of London in 1981, but increasingly spent his time in the United States. He was A. D. White Professor-at-Large at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

and became a half-time Professor of the History of Art at the

, in 1987. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

in 1991. He was

Slade Professor of Fine Art The Slade Professorship of Fine Art is the oldest professorship of art and art history at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and University College, London. History The chairs were founded concurrently in 1869 by a bequest from the art collect ...

at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

for 1974–75.

Books

His book ''Giotto and the Orators'' was published in 1971. This was followed in 1972 by ''Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy'', now considered a classic of

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

, in which he developed the influential concept of the

period eye The period eye is a concept that was devised by Michael Baxandall and described in his innovative ''Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style'', where he used it to describe the cultural co ...

. These were followed by ''The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany'' (1980), ''Patterns of Intention'' (1985), ''Tiepolo and the Pictorial Intelligence'' (1994, with

Svetlana Alpers Svetlana Leontief Alpers (born February 10, 1936) is an American art historian, also a professor, writer and critic. Her specialty is Dutch Golden Age painting, a field she revolutionized with her 1984 book ''The Art of Describing''. She has also ...

), ''Shadows and Enlightenment'' (1994) and ''Words for Pictures'' (2003). In all his work, Baxandall was concerned to illuminate artworks by a thorough exploration of the conditions of their production – intellectual, social, and physical. In ''Limewood Sculptors'' this took the form of using "carvings as lenses bearing on their own circumstances". Despite his impact in "social" art history, Baxandall often retreated from Marxist or overly "contextual" approaches. At one point, he declared that he was just "trying to do Roger Fry...in a different way," and he often cited the impact of

Heinrich Wölfflin Heinrich Wölfflin (; 21 June 1864 – 19 July 1945) was a Swiss art historian, esthetician and educator, whose objective classifying principles ("painterly" vs. "linear" and the like) were influential in the development of formal analysis in ar ...

's book ''Classic Art.''Shone, Richard and Stonard, John-Paul, eds.. ''The Books That Shaped Art History: From Gombrich and Greenberg to Alpers and Krauss''. London: Thames & Hudson, 2013.

Death and legacy

Baxandall died in London from pneumonia associated with Parkinson's Disease. His concept of the ''period eye'' has continued to gain in importance since his death.

Publications

* ''Giotto and the Orators. Humanist observers of painting in Italy and the discovery of pictorial composition 1350-1450'', (1971),

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

. *''Painting and Experience in 15th century Italy'', (1972), (Oxford University Press). *''The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany'', (1980), (

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Univers ...

) (paperback 1982). * ''Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures'', (1985). * ''Tiepolo and the Pictorial Intelligence'', (with Svetlana Alpers), (1994). * ''Shadows and Enlightenment'' (1995). * ''Words for Pictures'', (2003). * ''Episodes'', (2010), (Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd). * ''A Grasp of Kaspar'', (2010), (Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd).

References

External links