Art History and the Nineteenth Century: Realism and Resistance

Abstract

Skilled workers have cause to believe that they profit from professional clannishness. They know that sharing the se-crets of a trade or method with outsiders risks diluting the market for the corresponding product or service. If too many get involved in the same kind of work, not only does supply exceed demand, but the possibility of independent invention and “modernization” increases, along with the likelihood that the parameters of the entire enterprise may shift dramatically. The changes that often accompany such unregulated activity in a field may be what we call progress - or perhaps they merely represent an aspect of the myth of progress.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Richard Shiff

Best known for his book, Cézanne and the End of Impressionism: A Study of the Theory, Technique, and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art (1984), Richard Shiff also has published numerous articles on later nineteenth-century painting, which have appeared in Critical Inquiry, New Literary History, Yale French Studies, and other journals. He currently is preparing a book-length study of what he calls “a history of modernist modes of representation.” [The Department of Art, Hanes Art Center, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3405]