History and its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past.

How often have we heard the truism that art historians and historians (true and proper) approach objects and images from opposite vantage points and with differing intentions? In a time when poaching across disciplines has become commonplace, such distinctions may no longer seem useful. Indeed, it is not all that surprising to find an eminent art historian declaring that his new book "is not intended to make a contribution to art history as the term is generally understood" (6) and seeking, rather, to explore "how, when and why historians have tried to recapture the past, or at least a sense of the past, by adopting the infinitely seductive course of looking at the image that the past has left of itself" (9).

Toward this end Francis Haskell takes on an important subject that is central to current debates on historiography and method, and he does it in a grand manner. Focusing on personalities more than on artifacts, his study has an awesome sweep. It begins (not surprisingly) with Petrarch's discovery that literary and visual evidence do not necessarily agree and concludes with a thoughtful analysis of Johan Huizinga, the first writer, in Haskell's view, to produce a historical work of genuine distinction that was based in large part on perceptions of the visual arts. With a time frame that stretches about half a millennium and a geographical range that embraces the whole of Europe, Haskell aims for a broadly conceived synthesis. And yet he is unwilling to sacrifice circumstance for comprehensiveness and is forced to be selective, criss-crossing the Alps with an ease that sometimes leaves the reader a little breathless.

Long, dense, and elegantly written, the book is divided into two parts, with fourteen chapters organized more or less chronologically (with numerous detours and overlaps) that lead rather seamlessly from one to the next but that can easily be read as separate essays. In the first section the reader is introduced to the types of artifacts and images, both ancient and medieval, that were discovered at first by antiquarians and eventually by historians as evidence for the personae and events of the past: types of portraiture like coins, medals and sculpted busts; vehicles of historical narrative, including frescoes, mosaics and manuscript illuminations; and monuments like the Christian frescoes in the catacombs, whose very existence was in itself proof of the reality of that past. Among the more intriguing issues explored are the ambiguous character of images; the growing awareness of stylistic change; and debates on the causes of decline in the quality of Roman art.

In the second section, the emphasis shifts from the discovery of the image to its use in historical writing. Among the numerous topics covered are the problems of dealing with conflicting evidence, both visual and verbal; the study of gesture and physiognomy; awareness of pictorial anachronism; the rise of interest in post-classical medieval history; the importance of visual experience for historians like Gibbon who relied on it more for inspiration than confirmation; the extent to which art can be used as an index to the true character of a society; the birth of cultural history; the notion of the prophetic artist; and a fascinating account of the central role of the French in the discovery of the Italian Renaissance. The book concludes with Huizinga's paradigm-making use of the visual in evoking a past culture and his eventual and poignant awareness of the limitations of such evidence. Haskell's beautifully produced book is a singular contribution to historical studies and is as important for the questions that it raises as for those that it answers.

Patricia Fortini Brown PRINCETON UNIVERSITY