The Contextual Shifting Of The Social History Of Art

Francis Haskell was considered to be the most eminent historian of western art inBritain, and possibly in the world, since the generation of the great refugee scholars ofthe1930s.And certainly，and he also is the most creative and widely admired arthistorian of his generation. His research began with art patronage exploration andlater expanded to the field of taste、collection history、iconography and exhibitionhistory. He self-proclaimed he was a intruder in the field of art history and hisExtensive knowledge and new research perspective Enriches our understanding of thehistory of art, which has a great influence on the later generations of Chinese andwestern art history research.As we all know, At the beginning of the20th century, the rise of social history ofart broke the formal analysis’s monopolization situation and Gradually become themainstream of the western art history, which explains the style of art through theexternal factors such as society，economy, politics, etc. Since the sixties and seventiesof the20th century，The Context of the Social History of Art began to shift，Duringthis period，Social historians of art turn to the sector of Patron，taste history andartist’s status, etc.，In addition，Their research also gradually abandoned the practiceof early art historians who looking for exemplification from the abstract concepts anduniversal law,such as Arnold Hauser，Frederick Antal. In this regard, Haskell is oftenthought to be one of the representative of new social art history,and His firstmonograph,Patron and Painter, was regard as initial research of art patronage.Haskell’s research of art patronage were designed to reveal how did the artproduced under the changing condition of material and sponsorship. The publicationof His first monograph, Patron and Painter, not only changed the understanding ofbaroque art，but also changed the western way of thinking，in other words,We beginto see art from the perspective of art recipients rather than the artist’. Later，Haskellsuccessively published, Rediscoveries in Art, Taste and the Antique,in whichdiscussed the taste history. Later research is not the abandon of the subject of patrons，but further expansion and deepening. This article is not to write an essay aboutHaskell’s biography,but better explore and summarize features of Haskell’s arthistory research,the sources of his thoughts and the widely influence of his research.This article is divided into five chapters，The first and second part of theintroduction mainly describe the theoretical background Haskell’s research of arthistory and some basic situations of Haskell himself, the third part write thepurpose,clues,status and the difficulty of the research. The first chapter discussesseveral aspects of the thoughts origin of Haskell, and specifically discussed therelations between Haskell and European historiography in the19th century, Warburg institute, King’s College, Pevsner Nikolaus. The second chapter is about Haskell andhis art patronage research. This chapter separately talked about the history of artpatronage research, the characteristics of Haskell’s art history research and theinfluence and enlightenment of future generations，and so on. In the next chapter, thegoal was to discuss some aspects of art patronage through Haskell’s research aboutthe17th century art patronage. The fourth chapter mainly discussed Haskell’s thoughtof the problem of taste history. In addition, in view of the criticism of “Haskell’sRelativism, I expressed my views. The last chapter made some summary to Haskell’sconcept of art history through the above analysis，and pointed that some advantages ofhis research still has its own values that today’s art history research can learn from.