Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures

by Michael Baxandall

This book is an inquiry into the historical understanding of pictures -- something sought not only by art historians but by anyone who looks at a picture in the knowledge that it is old or comes out of a culture different from his own. Michael Baxandall begins by developing a scheme for the explanation of concrete historical objects in general, taking as an example how we think about a complex artifact such as a bridge, the Forth Bridge in Scotland. He then shows how this scheme is adapted to the explanation -- or inferential criticism -- of pictures. Analyzing in detail Picasso's Portrait of Kahnweiler, Chardin's A Lady Taking Tea, and Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ, Baxandall discusses the painter's goal, his sense of what is wanted from him and what he wants, the market in which he works, the culture from which he draws resources, his relation to other painters, and the use he makes of philosophical or scientific ideas. Baxandall then reflects on how far we can understand the mind of an artist living in a different culture and to what extent we can test and evaluate a historical interpretation of a picture. Braxandall does not claim that the method of inferential criticism is the only way to think about pictures. But if we accept that behind a superior picture there is a superior organization -- perceptual, emotional, and constructive -- it seems evident that attempting to discover the artist's intentions will sharpen our legitimate satisfaction in the picture itself.

Genres: Art, Art History, Nonfiction, Theory, Philosophy, History

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Art historian who developed the theory of period eye. He worked as a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London as well as teaching at the Warburg Institute and the University of California.

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I seem to have naturally ground to halt with this one, and I'm not going to fight it.

I was interested in this since I have come to be more and more suspicious of the idea that there is any "fallacy" involved in appealing to intentions when talking about art. The idea that such appeals are illegitimate was part of a New-Critical move to establish the hegemony of one kind of reader, and one kind of reading, alone. In fact, we are interested in talking about (and experiencing) art for any number of different reasons; and any number of different intentions on the part of artists may be relevant to what we want to say about, or get out of, art.

I think that basically Baxandall is on my side in this, though he explicitly declines to engage (at least, head on) with the issues I have just raised. In fact, his use of "intention" is quite idiosyncratic and confusing. Intention is "the forward-leaning look of things," it is not an "historical state of mind" but "a relation between the object [i.e. picture, poem, artifact] and its circumstances." It is "referred to pictures rather more than painters." (All quotations from p. 42.)

What I think he is doing is attempting to read back, from examining a work of art, to the kinds of historical ideas that determined the artist's "brief" (his term for the task the artist is addressing in creating a particular piece of work). For ideas to function in this way, as part of our description of an artist's brief, we do not need evidence that the artist actually thought about them (that's the point of the disclaimer that intentions are not "historical states of mind") but merely that they were such that the artist could have thought about them (they form part of the relevant circumstances of the work).

On this basis, we get several case studies, which involve much fascinating detail about the history of the art market, the history of science, etc.

One interesting point, made in passing, was that the nature of art criticism has changed dramatically in response to the different ways in which the picture under discussion was (or was not) represented along side the criticism.

[Patricia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here, Baxandall attempts to make the study of painting legitimate by the standards of a historian, by attempting to deduce the cultural and historical reasons that a work of art looks a certain way (i.e. who commissioned the piece and for what purpose, how does a given piece fit into the oeuvre of its artist, with what other artists or theories of the time was the artist recorded as being in dialogue). He makes a thorough case for this approach, but he leaves no space for the meaning of a work to exceed the intention of its maker--in fact, he states explicitly that he's not at all interested in reading paintings as "texts" with symbolic or iconographic meaning. As such, he largely sidesteps the questions of interpretation in which I'm interested, and so, despite the clear style, this book bored me to tears. Likely a disciplinary issue: sorry, art historians.

[Jonathan Frederick Walz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather dense and philosphical—but that's what I like about it! Not sure I got everything on first reading, but the first section contained some interesting thoughts that can be related to portraiture (which is probably why Jonathan Weinberg recommended it to me a million years ago, pre-doctoral).
Thumbs up.

[Lori Grecco · Rating 1 out of 5]

Required reading that was painful to get through.

[Ariel Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first chapter, on the reading, viewing, and writing of an image, is both brilliant and elegantly written. Probably one of the best analyses of art historical method that I've ever read.

[Marcos Henrique Amaral · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Baxandall, em sua explicação histórica dos quadros, propõe que a intencionalidade do artista não é um “estado de espírito” ou “psicológico” reconstruído, mas “uma relação entre o objeto e suas circunstâncias”; em outros termos, é evocada diante do aparecimento de um problema experimentado pelo artista, mas cujas respostas podem ter sido dadas de modo inconsciente, como resultado das instituições a que aderiu ou, ainda, das disposições adquiridas ao longo de sua trajetória biográfica e que, conquanto possam eventualmente ter sido alvo de reflexão, passam à dimensão das capacidades ou habilidades corporais capazes de lidar com tarefas objetivas (BAXANDALL, 2006, p. 81).

Essa noção de intencionalidade é sumarizada por Baxandall a partir da triangulação revelada entre um
problema objetivo, uma situação que apresenta um conjunto de possibilidades culturalmente
determinadas e uma resposta. Postos diante das respostas-obras de um artista, cabe perguntarmo-nos, de acordo com a proposta do autor, a respeito do binômia composto pelas figurações em que tal agente artístico toma parte ― considerado que as interdependências funcionais limitam ou possibilitam as ações individuais, conforme os vínculos de reciprocidade ― e pelos problemas que enfrenta. Ora, se a obra é vista como solução a problemas que
aparecem em determinadas situações, podemos a partir de então sumarizar o problema referente
à psicogênese de um artista a partir da pergunta: que problemas tinha e sob quais condições eles foram experimentados como tal?

[Andrea Ortiz Morales · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro lo comencé a leer en 2016 para mi primer curso de Historia social de los bienes culturales novohispanos, y desde entonces he estado dándole vueltas y releyendo muchas secciones. Esta semana, que he empezado el último capítulo de mi tesis, por fin leí una sección que me faltaba y doy por “leído” ese texto que me ha cambiado la forma de ver las pinturas a lo largo del tiempo y que ha sido parteaguas para el encauzamiento de intereses personales: entre otros, el estudio de la pintura colonial. Y digo “leído” porque a lo largo del tiempo, parece que le he encontrado más sentidos al texto, seguramente porque he adquirido mayor madurez académica. Me pone muy feliz haberlo terminado, pero seguro que nunca dejaré de hacerlo.

[Nat]

P.58: “It is always fortifying to hear your feelings stylishly verbalized by someone you like”.

I didn't know Baxandall before reading this book, but now I like him, and the way he verbalizes his thoughts and feelings about the Forth Bridge, Picasso's Portrait of Kahnweiler, Chardin's Portrait of a Lady Taking Tea, and Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ is certainly fortifying.

Reading this shortly after reading T.J. Clark's super duper close readings of Poussin is instructive because it shows how much can be done with reflection on cultural context, which Clark only uses a little bit.

[Robert Lukins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baxandall places pre-18th century Western art deeply in its financial, political, and historical contexts; his thesis of needing to see the pre-Artist artist; Essential; and he writes like a dream.

[Malte Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slaytondra

[Bequi · Rating 4 out of 5]

pordiosteamobaxi

[Yury Akseenov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patterns of Intention was my first real eye opener in 1990 at the University of California at Berkeley Art History Department where I took a Graduate Seminar from the venerable art theoretician Michael Kighly Baxandall.

The style of the book its flare come from Michael's structured thinking based on the linguistics of Latin.

It is one thing to read a book but another to be in the presence of the Master.

Someone in the very bureacratic left overs of the California Educational System called the Master a Marxist. Probably because of a rabid politician T.J. Clark who ruined a lot of people's lives with his appropriation of cultural history.

Michael was a true sage whose personal sensibility was one of a mystic.

Michael is greatly missed.

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

read the chapter on Chardin paintings! Enchanting!

[Julie H. Ernstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful book for anyone interested in art or art history and how the conventions, symbols, and interpretations change with time.

[Rachel Nickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating.