Looking for Lines: Theories on the Essence of Art and the Problem of Mannerism

Studies of the old masters are often implicitly based on modern notions, which do not necessarily tally with ideas contemporary with the art of the time being studied. With Looking for Lines, Paul van den Akker offers a survey of the concepts and controversies of artistic value since the eighteenth century. Drawing from the writings of art historians, critics, and philosophers such as Hogarth, Comte de Caylus, Goethe, Carl Schnaase, Burckhardt, Heinrich Wölfflin, and John Shearman, and focusing particular attention to the historiography of mannerism, van den Akker traces the evolution of aesthetic judgment over the past three centuries and at the same time scrutinizes it for clues to the way we see and think about art today.