Distant viewing in art history
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Distant viewing in art history
by K. Bender, independent researcher
An example of a quantitative approach
in art history based on
a digital thematic research collection of
the iconography of Venus
from the Middle Ages to Modern Times
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"Vortragsreihe zur Digitalen Kunstgeschichte" Institut für Kunstgeschichte
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Tuesday 24 June 2014, 7 p.m.
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https://sites.google.com/site/venusiconography/ with webpages:
*Topical Catalogues
*Data Analysis
*Connectivity Maps
*Aphrodite/Venus Art Exhibitions and other Events 3
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http://kbender.blogspot.be/ Iconography in Art History, a Blog to discuss:
1° Thematic Research Collections or Topical Catalogues, their compilation methodology and their use among art historians. 2° Papers, articles or blogs and websites where the iconography is of importance. 3° 'ut pictura poesis' (poetry resembles painting and vice-versa) or inter-art analogies and differences between literature (poetry, theatre, prose) and visual arts and other 'sister' arts ( music, dance, etc). With special attention to the iconography of Aphrodite/Venus
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Synopsis
• 1. A thematic collection and its compilation
• 2. Descriptive statistics
• 3. Regional and temporal frequency distributions
• 4. Distribution of artworks and artists
• 5. Frequency distributions of topics
• 6. A curious observation: Lotka’s law in art history
• 7. Distant viewing or macro-analysis: conclusion
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1. A thematic collection and its compilation: sources
• Museum catalogues and ‘catalogues raisonnés’ of artists are the common sources in art history
Not appropriate to study the iconography of a specific subject across artists, periods and regions
• Exhibition catalogues or monographs do not contain exhaustive subject lists
• Compilation of sales catalogues from the 17th century onwards, death inventories, myriads of bibliographical references and the Internet
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1. A thematic collection and its compilation: topical catalogues
• Topical catalogues categorize this endless information into 'topics‘, sub-topics, etc., possibly chronologically ordered.
• Few printed topical catalogues exist, they are not illustrated and not digitized.
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1. A thematic collection and its compilation: Topical catalogues
• 'Barockthemen - Ein Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts
by A. Pigler
Akademiai Kiado, Budapest, second edition 1974
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1. A thematic collection and its compilation: Topical catalogues
• 'The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300-1990s‘
by Jane Davidson Reid
Oxford University Press, NY/Oxford 1993)
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1. A thematic collection and its compilation: catalogues on-line
• Bildarchiv Foto Marburg, founded in 1913
• Warburg Photographic Collection, since 1933 in London
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1. A thematic collection and its compilation: catalogues on-line
• Iconclass with a hierarchical structure and alphanumeric classification codes
• Ten main divisions:
0 Abstract, Non-representational Art 1 Religion and Magic 2 Nature 3 Human Being, Man in General 4 Society, Civilization, Culture 5 Abstract Ideas and Concepts 6 History 7 Bible 8 Literature 9 Classical Mythology and Ancient History
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1. A thematic collection and its compilation: catalogues on-line
Warburg Photographic Collection
• Eleven main divisions 1 Antiquities 2 Architecture 3 Gods and Myths 4 History 5 Literature 6 Magic and Science 7 Ornament 8 Portraits 9 Religious Iconography 10 Secular Iconography 11 Social Life
Iconclass
• Ten main divisions
0 Abstract, Non-representational Art
1 Religion and Magic
2 Nature
3 Human Being, Man in General
4 Society, Civilization, Culture
5 Abstract Ideas and Concepts
6 History
7 Bible
8 Literature
9 Classical Mythology and Ancient History
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1. A thematic collection and its compilation:
six Topical Catalogues with mutually exclusive entries
• Total: 14155 artworks sculptures, reliefs, paintings, frescoes, drawings, prints and illustrations
from 5421 identified artists in 9 European regions
• Volume 1.1 'The Italian Venus' 1840 artworks of 649 identified Italian artists. 156pp. (2007)
• Volume 2.1 'The French Venus‘ 2997 artworks of 977 identified French artists. 194 pp. (2009)
• Volume 3.1 'The Venus of the Low Countries' 2636 artworks of 728 identified artists of the Low Countries.
202 pp. (2010)
• Volume 4.1 'The German, Swiss and Central-European Venus'
3198 artworks of 1506 identified artists of Germany, Switzerland and Central-Europe. 302 pp. (2012)
• Volume 5.1 'The British and Irish Venus' 2113 artworks of 912 identified artists of Great Britain and
Ireland. 197 pp. (2013)
• Volume 6.1 'The Venus of Eastern, Southern and Northern European Regions'
1371 artworks of 629 identified artists of the Eastern, Southern and Northern European Regions. 154 pp. (2014)
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An example of VELAZQUEZ’s ‘Rokeby Venus’ and copies or imitations
(from Volume 6.1 'The Venus of Eastern, Southern and Northern European Regions')
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2. Descriptive statistics ordering of observations, selection of scales,
presentation in contingency tables and graphical visualization
• number of artists = unknown
• number of artworks of the selected theme = indefinite > population
• information about the population through sampling
• if all artworks have equal chance to be selected > ‘sampling at random'
• always limited information sources > 'convenient sampling‘
• sample representativeness
• sample size
• artworks compiled and described = observations
• numbers of observations = frequencies
• ordered in an interval scale (time scale) and in a nominal scale (regions and topics)
• table of ordered frequencies = contingency table with marginal totals and grand totals of frequencies
• frequencies divided by their marginal or grand totals = relative frequencies (frequency percentages)
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2. Regional and temporal frequency distribution
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2. Regional and temporal frequency distribution
3D presentation Cumulative frequency curves
(S-curves)
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2. Regional and temporal frequency distribution
skewness of the distribution a steady rise of the distribution
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2. Regional and temporal frequency distribution Coping with uncertainty of dates of artworks
• *date of creation of an artwork : often uncertain , active life of the artist
• *interval of 50 year is questionable
• *calculation of moving averages of overlapping intervals of 50 years.
• *= arithmetic average of frequencies of intervals 1500-49 and 1550-99 > frequency of new interval 1500-99
• *= average frequency of intervals 1550-99/1600-49 > interval 1550-1649
• *= till the last interval 1900-99.
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4. Distribution of artworks and artists
• the demography of artists > interdisciplinary research
• serious estimates better than no estimates at all
• 'The Demography of Art in Western Europe, 1300-1899' (DAWE) by Paul Taylor (Warburg Institute)
• estimates number of painters and sculptors active per decade between 1300 and 1899 in ten West-European countries: Italy, Spain & Portugal, Austria/Hungary, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, British Isles, Scandinavia
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4. Distribution of artworks and artists
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The rise and fall of the frequencies of Venus-artworks in Italy and in the Low Countries
is correlated to the numbers of both Venus-artists and DAWE-artists
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4. Distribution of artworks and artists
Both numbers of Venus-artists and DAWE-artists in France follow the time-lag of the production of Venus-artworks, with 'Boucher'-effect in period 1750-99 (skewed distribution)
Distinct time distribution of Venus-artworks with continuous rise in Germany, Switzerland and Central-Europe, reflected by both numbers of Venus-artists and DAWE-artists
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5. Frequency distributions of topics
• categorization of all artworks in 18 main
topics (entries mutually exclusive)
• detailed questions: e. g. how did the popularity of the myth of Venus with her classical companions evolve in the five regions ?
Examples
• ‘ Venus and Adonis ‘ : most popular topic in the Low Countries, Italy and France, second popular in Great Britain & Ireland and third in Germany & neighbours
• 'Judgement of Paris‘ most popular in Germany & neighbours and in Great Britain & Ireland , second popular in the Low Countries and in France
• 'Venus and Mars‘ : popular in the Low Countries, second popular in Italy and in Germany and neighbouring countries
• etc
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6. A curious observation
• average number of Venus-artworks created by the artists
= total number of artworks/ total number of artists
=between 2,1 and 3,6 or about 2,7 overall
• actual numbers per artist are quite different
• Graph Fig.4 from Research Paper 1 (webpage Data Analysis) 24
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6. A curious observation: Lotka’s law
• percentage of artists, who produced only once in their lifetime a work depicting Venus, is very high:
always near 60%
• phenomenon is well described by the so-called
Lotka’s law in bibliometrics
y = C/x a
y: proportional number of artists C: constant approximately = 0,6 x: number of works a: exponent approximately = 2
• law of productivity : success breeds success, i.e. the artist will
continue to depict Venus if his/her first work was successful
• Graph Fig 11 from Research Paper 5 (webpage Data Analysis)
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7. Distant viewing or macro-analysis • Paul Moretti: literature is not a 'sum of
individual cases', but a 'collective system'
• in 'distant reading' the canon disappears into the larger literary system
• in traditional art history:
focus on works considered as the greatest
masterpieces of art
• lesser artists and their works are often forgotten
• quantity in the arts cannot be dismissed: it is part of the historical complexity of art production
• art historians were aware about the shifting popularity of the Venus-myth in different time periods and countries
• 'distant viewing‘ or ‘macro-analysis ‘ offers knowledge and aggregate large quantitative data
• of interest for advanced analysis and interdisciplinary research 26
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Conclusion
• Distant viewing is a condition of knowledge
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Postscriptum
• The female species ‘Aphrodite/Venus’
• The female species ‘Aphrodite/Venus’
of the genus ‘Greek-Roman Gods’
in the family of ‘Gods and Myths’ is
very persistent in evolutionary art history
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Postscriptum
• “The irrational delight in the beauty
of the object is a precondition
for successful observational science” Konrad Lorenz
quote in TLS June 6, 2014 p.24
• Art history : an observational science
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