Art History and Visual Studies

The Division for Art History and Visual Studies at Lund University conducts research about older, modern and contemporary art, from historical, social and aesthetic angles of approach. Art History is an old academic discipline. In its modern form it emerged in the 19th century, but has predecessors back to Antiquity. Today the discipline is characterized by a varied range of methods and theories, and contacts with other disciplines inside and outside the humanities. Art History itself, however, is a deeply humanistic discipline, as a study of that which is human. What we call art can be seen as a mirror for the human, which is older than historical text-based sources, and today is living and multi-faceted. At the same time, every artistic expression is linked to its time, place and originator, and the scholar must pursue that which is historically and historiographically specific. In Lund, in the beginning of the 21th century, the name of the discipline was given a second part, ’Visual Studies’. This reflects the insight, that images and other visual signs that are not categorized as art are equally important as expressions of human knowledge and experience. The border between them and art is not seldom fleeting and changeable; a photograph, for instance, is often an image of knowledge as well as a commercial and artistic image. In Lund, as internationally, the growing link between Art History and Visual Studies has made the research less disciplinary isolated, while the awareness of the disciplinary identity has been strengthened. The Division aims to let its research influence its courses and teaching.