''The Invention of Art: A Cultural History'' (2001) is an

art history Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...

book by Larry Shiner, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, History, and Visual Arts at the

University of Illinois Springfield The University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) is a public university in Springfield, Illinois, United States. The university was established by the Illinois General Assembly in 1969 as Sangamon State University with a focus on post-graduate edu ...

. Shiner spent over a decade to finish the work of this book.

Content

The book sees

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function (such as ...

as a modern invention due to

social transformation In sociology, social transformation is a somewhat ambiguous term that has two broad definitions. One definition of social transformation is the process by which an individual ''alters'' the socially ascribed social status of their parents into a ...

s during the 18th century. David Clowney, writing for ''Contemporary Aesthetics'' summarizes the central thesis of this book. "In The Invention of Art: A Cultural History, Larry Shiner claims that

Art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

with a capital A,

Fine Art In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function (such as ...

, was invented in the west in the eighteenth century. The claim is not original with him; he credits

Paul Oskar Kristeller Paul Oskar Kristeller (May 22, 1905 in Berlin – June 7, 1999 in New York, United States) was a scholar of Renaissance humanism. He was awarded the Haskins Medal in 1992. He was last active as Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia Uni ...

’s essay “The Modern System of the Arts” as the inspiration for his work. Others have made this claim as well, among them

Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (, ; ; ; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influ ...

Paul Mattick Paul Mattick Sr. (March 13, 1904 – February 7, 1981) was a German-American Marxist political writer, activist, and theorist, associated with the council communist movement. Throughout his life, Mattick was critical of capitalism, Bolshevism ...

, and

Terry Eagleton Terence Francis Eagleton (born 22 February 1943) is an English literary theorist, critic, and public intellectual. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University. Eagleton has published over forty books, ...

. What Shiner has added is a detailed proof of the Kristeller claim using the methods of intellectual, social, cultural, and art history. In brief, the thesis is this: There was a traditional “system of the arts” in the West before the eighteenth century. (Other traditional cultures still have a similar system.) In that system, an artist or artisan was a skilled maker or practitioner, a work of art was the useful product of skilled work, and the appreciation of the arts was integrally connected with their role in the rest of life. “Art,” in other words, meant approximately the same thing as the Greek word techne, or in English “

skill A skill is the learned or innate ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. Some examples of gen ...

”, a sense that has survived in phrases like “the art of war,” “the art of love,” and “the art of medicine.”" The book is divided into five parts * ''I. Before Fine Art and Craft'' - Details the lack of any differentiation between skilled work of any type during three periods of history; classical antiquity, the middle ages, and

the Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

. The lack of any social role separating artists from artisans, nor any concept of the aesthetic is also discussed. In the final chapter of Part I, the beginnings of some differentiation during the 17th century is described. * ''II. Art Divided'' * ''III. Countercurrents'' * ''IV. The Apotheosis of Art'' * ''V. Beyond Art and Craft''.

Quotes

“The modern system of art is not an essence or a fate but something we have made. Art as we have generally understood it is a European invention barely two hundred years old.” (Shiner 2003, p. 3)

Reviews

In a book review published in ''The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism'', Mitch Avila wrote:

Shiner aptly characterizes his narrative as one that aims to heal the unnecessarily fractured conceptions of art and art practice that mark the contemporary artworld... By showing that the essentialist conception of art, along with its normative and regulative implications, is the artifact of a particular historical and cultural world, Shiner invites us to freely respond to the manifold richness of human expression and embellishment.

Reviewer Marc Spiegler called the book "a must-read for anyone active in the arts".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Invention of Art: A Cultural History 2001 non-fiction books Art history books Sociology of culture Philosophy of culture Aesthetics books University of Illinois at Springfield Anthropology books Sociology of art