Digital Commons@RISD Home > Division of Liberal Arts > Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive) > Special Volumes
Abstract
After resigning from the service of Sotheby's Auction House, Bruce Chatwin changed his views on art, the art world, and art history. He developed an approach that differed from established art-historical writing; he began to contextualize differently. He saw and understood the use of artistic means more widely than in traditional art-historical writing. From Chatwin's viewpoint, one possibility was to "smuggle" new material into the existing system. In this study, I take as my material Bruce Chatwin's enthusiasm and loyalty to Andre Malraux and his ideas about Le Musee Imaginaire. I also make use of Chatwin's interest in Heinrich Wolfflin's ide of Kungeschichte ohne Namen, art history without names, wherin artworks and their contexts are emphasised at the expense o fhte proper names of their authors. In this are, Chatwin's most enduring achievement is the illustrated series One Million Years of Art.