by Jon Lackman | 30 April 2007 | Books, Journals
We belatedly take note of the special issue of Art History (28: 5) devoted to art historian Stephen Bann, which has been published in book form. Editor Deborah Cherry highlights Bann’s concern “to create a dialogue between ‘present thinking about history’ and the ‘new codes of historical awareness that were established in the nineteenth century’ … Bann’s writings on the historical staging of the past in the visual cultures and museums of the nineteenth century has rearticulated the understanding of historical representation and, as [contributor] Paul Duro acknowledges, has ‘oriented the concerns of a whole generation of scholars.’” Jean Louis Schefer contributes an amusing reminiscence: “I confess it here and now: at the beginning of the 1980s, I founded, along with a few art-historian friends, the Académie des Secrets … not to bring a group of scholars but to … create the imaginary space of a community without conflict or rivalry … our different meetings (at Toulouse, Blois, Montepellier, Venice, Belgrade, Lisbon) had but one aim beyond that of the pleasure of meeting, namely that of allowing each member to present and preserve the secret of their own originality.”
