There and Back Again: Selections from (attempts At) Revisionist Art History

It is worth repeating for the present argument the generic thesis that is the antagonist to this historiographic essay: “Chinese painting is concerned with revealing universal aspects of nature, not transient phenomena; it aims at reproducing inner-essences, not outer forms; it is fundamentally an art of line and distinct brushstrokes; it is much given ... to copying or imitating the past; it places little premium on originality; and so forth.” (Cahill, 2) While Cahill is not in favour of this thesis, he writes this in his own early attempt to offer a proto-revisionist history of Chinese art. Unlike previous art history essays, Cahill attempts to offer a history with some artistic struggle while still maintaining a Hegelian Zeitgeist where the counter-orthodox trends Cahill describes can still be viewed as epocheral struggles couched within the dominant narrative of traditional painting. All the same, in 1979 Cahill’s revisionism was no small fiat, especially in the discipline of art history, which seemed solely dominated by Western universal discourse, and where scholars’ access to primary material had hitherto been confined by political circumstance.