The Art of Discovery

With so many exhibitions opening in Australia this year, the director of the French National Institute of Art History, Éric de Chassey, explains why it’s never been more important to care about art

Why is art history important?

We live surrounded by images but to understand them we must first learn to read them. The most effective tool to gain a deeper understanding of the images we see in our everyday life is art history. I firmly believe that research must always be connected to society [and] rooted in the present.

Art history shouldn’t only focus on the most famous artists of the past but also on lesser-known or unknown artists, which historically means most women artists. Art history should also include images that were not initially regarded as artistic, such as fashion photography.

Speaking of women artists, how do you explain their lack of representation throughout history?

The practice of art was largely closed to women. Things began to change in the 19th century but even then women were frequently confined to minor genres, like portraits or flowers. They were not allowed to study human anatomy, for instance. So there were few of them to begin with and then they were prevented from developing fully, further reducing the number of women creating interesting art. On top of that, widespread prejudice about the value of their work also meant that most of it wasn’t preserved. Our role as art historians is to examine the conditions of the past, to make sure that these systems of discrimination no longer exist and to bring forgotten women artists to light.

What do you think about the way people compulsively consume images online?

Social media is not conducive to developing and sharing complex thoughts. And we want to empower people to ask and answer these questions themselves, not to dictate how they should think. What’s great about social media is that it’s an amazingly effective image-sharing tool. But, as an art historian, I know that the impact of an image depends fundamentally on its materiality, on concrete aspects like size, scale, age, smell, location. We don’t just see with our eyes; we see with our whole bodies.

What is the main reason people should care about art history?

Too often we see learning as dreary and as the opposite of pleasure. The truth is, the more we know, the more pleasure we experience. Art history allows us to understand the world we see and to do so with pleasure.