Against the cultural mafia

The reason why the working method of the art historian should not be modified by the problems of selection and presentation which face the artist in today's ever changing society, is featured. Some twentieth-century art historians, like Nikolaus Pevsner and Johnny Friedlaender, have already proved that artist is also open to the art historian, by re-creating in Mannerism a recognizable style of sixteenth-century Italian painting between Raphael and Caravaggio which had not been properly examined for 100 years. Today art historians can do a great deal with photographs, slides and films to show relevant material from an artist's environment: even details of paintings to highlight certain points which, ironically, are impossible to see in the original. Certain similarities between a good artist and being a good art historian, in that they both try to present their material in an exciting way, and that because of their passion for the subject the presenters are prepared to go to great lengths to put the information together. There is no reason why an art historian should not concern himself with this type of problem, because there are many sociologists and behavioural scientists who are interested, and well equipped, to do it for him.