The Art of History
and Vice Versa
Jim Farrell
February 4, 2010
We live in stories. What we are is stories. We do things because of
what is called character, and our character is formed by the stories we
learn to live in. Late in the night we listen to our own breathing in the
dark and rework our stories. We do it again the next morning, and all
day long, before the looking glass of ourselves, reinventing reasons for
our lives. Other than such storytelling there is no reason to things.
William Kittredge
Elements of Historical Thinking
• Chronology: Thinking in time.
• Causation: One way that things in time are related.
• Context: Things happen in the midst of other things, and they’re
mutually influential.
• Complexification: The only simple truth is that there are no simple
truths. Multiple causation.
• Contingency: At any given moment, anything can happen.
• The wisdom of whys. Not just what happened but why it
happened.
Doing “dense facts”
In approaching our subject of choice, we should not only look
straight at it but travel around and beyond it, watching how it
connects into concentric fields raying from its center outwards.
Gene Wise, “Some Elementary Axioms for an American Culture
Studies”
Five interconnected steps to achieve this “perspectivistic method:”
1) Focus on an experience in the culture
2) Identify the various fields surrounding the experience (art, literature,
politics, business, ideas, family, peers, etc.)
3) Learn the distinctive forms of expressive media of each field
4) Connect the fields to one another
5) Know that it's not done when it's done
“Texting” America: or “Image-ination”
• 1) Text (microscope): What do we see?
• 2) Context (macroscope): What did the painters see
around them?
• 3) Subtext: What subtle meanings might be in the text?
Are there implicit as well as explicit meanings?
• 4) Contest: How have people interpreted the meanings
of this text, then and now?
Emmanuel Leutze, “Washington Crossing the Delaware”
John Trumbull, “The Declaration of Independence” (1817-19)
Emmanuel Leutze, “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way”
Albert Bierstadt, “Looking Down Yosemite Valley” (1865)
George Caleb Bingham, “The County Election” (1852)
George Catlin, “Painting the Portrait of a Mandan Chief” (1861/69)
“The Vanishing Indian”
I have, for many years past, contemplated the noble
races of red men who are now spread over these
trackless forests and boundless prairies, melting
away at the approach of civilization...
For this purpose, I have designed to visit every
tribe of Indians on the Continent, if my life should
be spared; for the purpose of procuring portraits
of distinguished Indians, of both sexes in each
tribe, painted in their native costume; accompanied
with pictures of their villages, domestic habits,
games, mysteries, religious ceremonies, &c. with
anecdotes, traditions, and history of their respective
nations.
If I should live to accomplish my design, the result of
my labours will doubtless be interesting to future
ages; who will have little else from which to judge
of the original inhabitants of this simple race of
beings, who require but a few years more of the
march of civilization and death, to deprive them
all of their native customs and character.
Edward Curtis, “Vanishing Race”
Gilbert Stuart, “George Washington” (1796)
Matthew Wilson, “Abraham Lincoln”
Dorothea Lange, “Migrant Mother” (1936)
Norman Rockwell, “Freedom of Speech” (1943)
Norman Rockwell, “Freedom from Want” (1943)
Walker Evans, “Brooklyn Bridge” (1929)
Walker Evans, “Brooklyn Bridge” (1929)
Joseph Stella, “Brooklyn Bridge” (1919/1920)
Charles Sheeler, “American Landscape” (1930)
"Every age manifests itself by some external
evidence. In a period such as ours when only a
comparatively few individuals seem to be given
to religion, some form other than the Gothic
cathedral must be found. Industry concerns the
greatest numbers—it may be true, as has been
said, that our factories are our substitute for
religious expression"
Charles Sheeler
Charles Demuth, “Incense of a New Church” (1921)
Charles Sheeler, “Water” (1945)
Hannah Greenlee, “Crazy Quilt” (c. 1896)
Susan McCord, “Grandmother’s Fan” (c. 1900)
Hannah Greenlee, “Crazy Quilt” (c. 1896)
Jackson Pollock, “The Key” (1946)
Susan McCord, “Grandmother’s Fan” (c. 1900)
Morgan Russell, “Synchromy” (1914-16)
William Van Allen, “Chrysler Building” (1926-30)