This thoughtful, learned, well-written, extensively illustrated, and heavily documented study deserves to be regarded as a landmark in art history. Traditional art history has dealt for the most part with the “fine arts” (chiefly painting, drawing, sculpture, and architecture), whereas other human creations that take physical form (such as furniture, ceramics, textiles, and metal and glass items), whether utilitarian or decorative (or both at once), are considered “craft” or “applied art” and are studied by folklorists, anthropologists, and archaeologists and often displayed in different museums. Cooke wishes to break down this “hierarchical taxonomy,” this “fragmented, hierarchical field,” that emerged from Western Europe's “misunderstanding of art,” which valued “the cerebral over the manual.” His goal, in other words, is to outline “a more inclusive human history of art”— “a connected art history.” This phrase from his subtitle refers not simply to connecting “fine art” with “applied art” but also to crossing...
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Review Article|
May 01 2024
Global Objects: Toward a Connected Art History
Edward S. Cooke Jr.,
Global Objects: Toward a Connected Art History
(Princeton, NJ
: Princeton University Press
, 2022
), 327
pp.
G. Thomas Tanselle
G. Thomas Tanselle, former vice president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, was awarded the Gold Medal of the Bibliographical Society in London in 2015. His many books include Literature and Artifacts; Bibliographical Analysis; Descriptive Bibliography; A Rationale of Textual Criticism; Books in My Life; and American Publishing History: The Tanselle Collection.
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Common Knowledge (2024) 30 (2): 202–204.
Citation
G. Thomas Tanselle; Global Objects: Toward a Connected Art History. Common Knowledge 1 May 2024; 30 (2): 202–204. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-11236740
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