The End of the History of Art?

Hans Belting offers a lucid discussion in this volume of the conceptual models that have shaped the discipline of art history. What Belting means by "the end of the history of art" is not the death of the discipline, but the end of a particular conception of artistic development as a meaningful, progressive historical sequence. Also included in the text is the historical background useful for understanding the development of the discipline and the origins of the rift between art-historical scholarship and contemporary artistic practice.