Intelligence of Art

""Since Impressionism, we are all amateurs", said Picasso, referring to the dissolution of aesthetic values and settled procedures in painting. Thomas Crow echoes these words in his introduction to THE INTELLIGENCE OF ART, four lectures originally addressed to a mixed academic and lay audience at the University of North Carolina, when he remarks, reassuringly, that "in attempting to comprehend the scope of even one discipline, we are all amateurs a good part of the time". In keeping with the interdisciplinary spirit of that occasion, Crow chooses three model texts from widely different fields of art historical research to illustrate his argument, and this serves to focus attention on the salient issue of methodology. Before recounting these examples, he briefly summarizes the dominant currents in art-historical discourse this century, highlighting their inadequacies as means of making art intelligible. Crow, Thomas E. is the author of 'Intelligence of Art' with ISBN 9780807824535 and ISBN 0807824534.