A Transcultural Approach to Art History through the Lens of Its First International Conferences

Abstract

This essay aims to propose a cross-cultural rewriting of the history of art history during the decisive years of its emergence and institutionalization that significantly revises existing narratives, going beyond traditional disciplinary and national boundaries in a global context. The focus is on the first international conferences in art history, which are essential instruments of cultural transfer. This should help both to restitute a transnational perspective and to overcome art historical narratives that reinforce only the celebrated names of art historians or artistic schools, expanding their horizon toward an international art historical koine. Dealing with the problematic tension between national and global, historiography reveals itself as the most powerful means of deepening our understanding of today’s global perspective and particularly of the way in which processes of centralization and standardization coexist with an increasing splitting into sectors, which is the result of a multicentric differentiation of national identities.