Art-historical Moments in Cinema

Given the abundance of previous publications focused on the intersections between cinema and the history of art, it is worth stating at the outset that the originality of this project lies in its capacity to analyse the medium of film, and particularly fiction film - from Peter Greenaway to Michelangelo Antonioni, Brian De Palma, Chris Marker and Alex Garland - as an instrument rather than as an object of (art)history. Above all else, this implies becoming aware not so much of the presence of artworks and their significance with respect to the related events, but of the ways in which the fiction itself, through certain motifs (windows, chairs, serpentine lines), visual or optical qualities (contrast of black and white, transparency) or even symbolic gestures (signing, designating or combining) evolves into a figuration of the history of art. Where in the film do these art-historical moments arise and what provokes them? How do these moments contribute to history as a discipline? In what ways does the film reinvent the theory or history of art? The authors of this volume have attempted to answer to such intriguing questions in diverse ways, involving the various ideas of Leon Battista Alberti, William Hogarth, Aloïs Riegl, Michel Carrouges, or Rosalind Krauss.