"Other Art Histories: Islam,'Art,' and the Baptistère de Saint Louis" (Research Paper)
Arts
HAVC 185 - Art and Community: Arts Professions and Community Engagement
This paper looks to challenge the dominant classifications used to clarify a supposedly “Islamic Art” within the Western discipline of art history; in problematizing an “Islamic Art,” the paper seeks to problematize art history itself and to call into question whether or not art history is even capable of rationalizing the non-Western object. To illustrate the category errors that inform art historical scholarship, the 14th Century Baptistère de Saint Louis is treated as a case study for identifying foundational flaws in the premise of an “Islamic Art,” including its denial of agency to the object, its helter-skelter approach to display, its sidelining of the creator in favor of the scholar, and its Western privileging of “art” as a universal constant and category. The paper concludes by identifying these problems as potentially-irremediable, arguing for the abandonment of an outmoded art history in its entirety and for the transition into a more equitable and responsible discipline of visual studies.
