From the History of Art to the Sociology of Art: Overcoming the Divide Between Formalist and Contextual Approaches

Abstract

There is an old division between formal and contextual approaches in art studies. I argue that it is possible to overcome this divide. Leading researchers in art history have never been content with purely formal analysis; within the framework of Hegel's philosophy of history, they explore the analogies between different sociocultural fields to reach the spiritual unity of a period or Zeitgeist. Thus, they give their analysis a contextual orientation. Likewise, the spokesmen of the contextual pole, the members of Western Marxism for example, have not been narrow minded contextualists who ignore or reduce artistic forms to something outside themselves. They sought to discover non-reductionist analogies between artistic forms and other sociocultural fields. Finally, I argue that the sociology of art can offer solutions to chronic dilemmas in art studies. For example, Bourdieu developed a sociology of cultural forms that synthesizes formalism and contextualism. As a result, it is understood that the formalist-contextualist division, which was based on a misunderstanding from the beginning, has no theoretical and methodological basis at the point where the humanities and social sciences have reached today.