Reflections on Art History and Sociology of Art

In 1960, the last lines of an editorial in the (London) Times Literary Supplement of May 26 read: "There ought to be a sociology of art. At present there is not." Seven years later Vytautas Kavolis noted that "despite its still minisculus number of adherents, sociology of art is currently one of the most rapidly expanding sociological specializations." 1 Yet in 1970 Gerhard Grohs pointed out that particularly sociology of the visual arts-in contradistinction to that of literature, music, and the mass media-receives at best a "stepmotherly treatment" in current sociological encyclopedias and text-books. 2