Meyer Shapiro’s Art Theory And Critical Practice

Meyer Schapiro is an important American art historian in the twentieth century,whose expertise ranged from Romanesque sculpture to contemporary art.He recognized the dialectical tension between the assertion of artistic freedom and the constraints of social and economic life,incorporated interdisciplinary methods into the research of artistic works,forming a unique artistic methodology.The way of regarding art with an non-isolate perspective makes art return to the integrity and complexity of itself.To restore the unique position of art history in humanism,drawing inspiration from Shapiro’s works is extremely enlightening.He pursued particularly artistic approach to the study of art,credited with redefining both the demands and the ambitions of the discipline.While Schapiro has a thorough understanding of cutting-edge art theories,he has never divorced from the art practice,and has always insisted on starting from the artistic context,enlightening a new direction in the traditional environment in which art history dominated by formalism and biographicism.This article mainly takes Shapiro’s theoretical viewpoints as the starting point,focusing on the analysis of the sources of his theory and methodology,and uses Shapiro’s specific art criticism practice as evidence to conduct research from the perspective of overall art theory.Attempt to abstract and refine Shapiro’s views metaphysically from theoretical system,combined with the specific historical context,and restored the context of the formation and development of his overall theory,intended to remove the "historical" and "Western" limitation of Shapiro’s artistic achievements and brought enlightening significance to later generations within any cultural contexts.The research on this topic will help to fill the gap of contemporary American art history scholars in the domestic academic circles at this stage.As a master of contemporary American art history researcher,Shapiro’s research results and multiple art methodologies can provide methodological reference.This article is divided into six parts.The introduction summarizes the background of the research,combing the current situation of Shapiro’s art criticism research at home and abroad,and clarifies the research content and research value of this article.The first chapter starts from the research background of Shapiro’s art history and art theory,and traces the theoretical origin of his art criticism theory.The second chapter focuses on analyzing the composition of Shapiro’s art theory,mainly classifying the basic categories of his art theory and discussing his important issues such as the meaning of symbols in images,the relationship between form and content,and style.The third chapter mainly starts from the practice of Shapiro’s art criticism,specifically analyzed his art criticism articles about Impressionist and abstract artists,and revealed his through the interpretation of specific artist and genres.Chapter four summarizes Shapiro’s art criticism methods,explained the background of his pluralism methodology which focuses on his formalism,visual language semiotics and psychoanalytic methods.The final part of the concluding mainly summarizes the value and significance of Shapiro’s art theory which is based on his own context of art,and discusses the impact on modern art history because of its practicality and openness.