Читать книгу Art in Theory - Группа авторов - Страница 11

Art in Theory: The West in the World is an anthology of over 360 documents. Its aim is to represent changing ideas about the art of societies outside Europe (and latterly North America as well) held by Western artists and writers from the beginning of the modern period until the globalized situation of the early twenty‐first century. Many of the documents are anthologized here for the first time, and this is also the first time that some of them have been translated into English. Each text is accompanied by an introduction bringing out its main points and relating them to the overarching concerns of the anthology. We believe it is the first time that such a diverse collection of texts has been attempted. Accordingly, the book may be controversial; we certainly do not expect to please all of the people all of the time. But we believe it will above all be useful to the student and interested general reader trying to respond openly to the far‐reaching changes affecting both the practice and the study of art worldwide at this moment in time.

What the present book is not is a history of world art. Insofar as the anthologized texts do present a narrative, it is a narrative told from a European – and subsequently a ‘Western’ – point of view. It thus includes the ignorance as well as the admiration, the silences and blind spots as well as the praise and emulation, that such a point of view implies. What the book also sets out to demonstrate is that this perspective from the West is not monolithic. Most notably, ideas have changed significantly over time. To state the point again: Art in Theory: The West in the World is an anthology of changing ideas, both ideas about the art of other societies and ideas stimulated by those cultures more generally, ideas that have been influential on the practice of Western art from the Renaissance to the present day.