The Art Historian as Philosopher: Meyer Schapiro

Parmisianino, Madonna dal Collo Lungo (Madonna with Long Neck) (1534-40)
Oil on panel, 216 x 132 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Meyer Schapiro was unique partly because of his unparalleled multidisciplinary abilities and partly because of the acuity of his eye and his ability to interpret and explicate the facture of a painting.  We might call Schapiro a practical theorist.  He was adept at combining available knowledge from many fields in order to widen the interpretive context for a given work.  Although drawn to Marx and Freud, didn’t lean on a single approach (like formalism or iconography), instead improvising a singular treatment of important artists and movements, and responding to the commentary other thinkers on important artists like Van Gogh, Leonardo and Cezanne.  He did not try to frame a grand theory (like those of Wölfflin or Greenberg) but stuck to mid range generalities as heuristics intended for the analysis of particular movements and artists.  He was, in fact, suspicious of grand theory; for example, he was “quite properly suspicious of theories of style that contradicted or elided historical data (Wölfflin had notoriously omitted Mannerism from his discussion because it did not fit his cyclical scheme).”[1]

Thus, Schapiro’s improvised approach was characterized by “1) a concentration on the way social structures impinge on the formal structure of works of art, 2) a focus on concrete, historical objects, 3) a refusal to admit any transhistorical forces into the analysis, 4) an adequate conception of historical processes, and 5) a scientific rigor which can only result from an empirical study of historical conditions and factors.”[2]   In a 1953 essay Schapiro states that an adequate theory of style will require “a unified theory of the processes of social life in which the practical means of life as well as emotional behavior are comprised.”[3]  This means that art history will require the support of many other fields, like economics and psychology, in order to properly address its own proper concern with style.

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[1]. Allan Wallach, “Meyer Schapiro’s Essay on Style: Falling Into the Void” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Vol. 55, #1 Winter, 1997  

[2]. Michael Ann Holly, “Schapiro Style” in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Vol. 55, #1 Winter, 1997 p. 7

[3]. Meyer Schapiro Theory and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, and Society Selected Papers, Vol. IV George Brazillier, 1994 p. 100