Origins of the Art History Survey Text

Abstract

The universal and developmental presumptions of art history are nowhere better expressed than in the global survey text. More than any other genre within the discipline, the survey text embodies the nineteenth-century vision of history to unify the art of the past into a coherent and relevant story for the present. In its grand tour through all five continents and over thousands of years, the survey text asks us to believe that the immeasurable diversity of art can be brought together into a great chain of meaning. The survey text is art history at its most grandiose, promising to reveal the complex truths of humanity through art. It is also art history at its most political, reducing cultural and individual differences to questionable hierarchies and generalities.