Under the cobbled streets of Geneva, Switzerland lies a marvel on the bleeding edge of humanity’s technological prowess in the 21st century. In the city made famous by John Calvin during the Protestant Reformation, Le Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire, or CERN, a consortium of European governments and research institutes operates the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, for the sake of brevity. This complex machine, taking the form of an underground ring over 27 kilometers in circumference, is a particle accelerator, where a beam of light travels at ever higher speeds within the ring and crashes into a targeted particle. The resulting sub-atomic train wreck is where scientists uncover the hidden minutia of matter. Art History works much in the same way. Art and History, two incredibly complex and pedigreed disciplines in academia, are in many ways smashed against each other, and out of this at times chaotic union comes Art History. It is in this artistic and historical “atom smashing” where true scholarship takes place, as historians, artists, or some combination thereof, examine the fractured pieces and shards to find new and exciting analyses and conclusions. The question still remains, however, of why bother to combine art and history, and who thinks they answered that query first?
Art History as a discipline arose out of the European academe in the late 19th Century precisely because merely looking at and admiring art left some scholars wanting. Interdisciplinary by design, early art historians were akin to sociologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and perhaps even economists. However, one must not lose sight of the context of the birth of art history itself. The Europe of the late 19th century was a time of maximal European cultural, political, and economic primacy. This was the age of Empire, of steam, and a normalizing of what some would call Eurocentrism, and others would label White Supremacy. Therefore, art historians have peered through a kaleidoscope that refracts on a European bias. To Europeans, “new” forms of “art,” like nearly every other aspect of the native cultures they were interacting with, was at the time held up to their own sensibilities, and either appropriated, or unceremoniously discarded. However, in the last fifty years, Art History has been shifting, ever so cautiously, to a new set of academic and cultural standards. Art History as it is commonly understood, while originally a European-crafted discipline, must grow in breadth and scope to encompass the vast cultures, polities, economies and unique set of aesthetic principles imagined by all humankind. Art History should no longer pretend itself such an inclusive discipline, especially regarding non-Western traditions, lest it change to fully embrace them. This is why the atom smashing must continue, lest Art History run the risk of becoming an ossified and anachronistic discipline. Art History must continue to push boundaries and commonly held beliefs if it is to survive well into the future with any sort of relevance.
One of the first places art historians begin their formal training can be as early as high school. Many students enroll to take Advanced Placement Art History. If a high school student can pass the grueling exam set forth by the CollegeBoard, they stand the chance to earn college credit before even matriculating in their future alma mater. However, the curriculum set forth by the CollegeBoard has been one that up until very recently, skewed heavily in favor of the Western tradition. In 2015, a new set of curriculum standards reduced the entirety of Art History to 250 pieces that students are tasked with learning. The streamlined set in many ways aimed to steer art history and by extension art historians into a more, multicultural direction by specifically breaking up the art pieces by geographic region and culture. Naturally, while hailed by some, this move was seen as doing too little to truly update the contemporary art historian program, as well over 60% of the memorized pieces are either European or descendants of the European tradition.
Art History, by virtue of being such a broad subject as it is, is out of habit slow moving, much like the institutions that reproduce its well worn narratives. The changes to the AP Art History curriculum prove that Art Historians indeed are sensitive to the issues surrounding accurate and equitable representation in art education, but also prove that not enough is being done to definitively tackle the issue. Thankfully at the collegiate level, courses that specialize in regional and specific cultural areas allow for further inquiry, but we must continue to “smash” the particles of art and history against each other, if the discipline is to survive. In a perfect world, art history would not instantly conjure images of white wigs on powdered white faces painted on canvass, but for now, there remains much work to be done.