LA HISTORIA DEL ARTE EN LA ÉPOCA DE SU HIPERCOMUNICABILIDAD AUDIOVISUAL

Abstract

This article addresses the situation of art history in its social dimension precisely now, when it has become one of the most topics in digital audiovisual communication. Faced with the hyperabundance of audiovisual products dealing with art history, this article considers how this medium implies a series of transformations in the traditional modes of socialization of art history as a discipline halfway between the museum and the academia. In so doing, the crises that have plunged into our discipline will be raised, attending to cases that go beyond our own Spaniard geography.

To this end, the article approaches two essential television documentary series on the subject, Kenneth Clark's Civilisation (1969) and John Berger's Ways of Seeing (1972), contrasting the models, their consequences and the possibilities afforded by the new television medium. This will lead us to apply the conclusions extracted from the previous examples to the Spanish context, where the series Mirar un cuadro (1983-1988) will be the final focus of attention. How an innovative and path breaking art history can be developed in the audiovisual economy will be the concluding question of the study.