A Study On George Kubler’s Idea Of Art History

The American art historian George Kubler published two books in 1962,The Shape of Time,a theoretical work on Kubler’s art history,and The Art and Architecture of Ancient America,his study of ancient American art.These two works had a rather profound impact on the transformation of the idea of Western art history in the second half of the 20 th century.Guided by Henri Focillon’s view of style,Kubler compares the views of Shapiro and others on style and uses them as a point of reference to analyze the limitations of style for art historical research and proposes the term “Formal Sequence”to describe changes in visual form,thus replacing the flawed term “Style”.Kubler’s approach to the inclusion of formal characteristics of artworks in sequences is closely related to his idea of expanding the object of study to include man-made things.He has always been committed to combining archaeology and art history to give man-made things the value of works of art.At the same time,by studying ancient American art,Kubler developed a different narrative of the history of man-made things than the stylistic staging.In addition,the theoretical connection between Kubler’s idea of history and Wiener’s “Cybernetics,” as well as Kubler’s use of numerous interdisciplinary metaphors,reveal the scientific context of Kubler’s idea of the art history.Based on Kubler’s theoretical writings,his research on ancient American art,and the basic concepts of Wiener’s cybernetics,this study aims to explain and comment on George Kubler’s arthistorical theory,with the aim of deepening the understanding of Kubler’s idea of art history,depicting the shape of world art history in the context of the globalization of manmade things,and thus drawing a vision of the interaction between Chinese art and the world.