Volume 24, Number 4 · March 17, 1977
The Uses and Abuses of Art History
By Francis Haskell
BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS ESSAY
Princes and Artists: Patronage and Ideology of Four Habsburg Courts 1517-1633
by Hugh Trevor-Roper
Harper & Row, 176 pp., $20.00
The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe
by Theodore K. Rabb
Oxford University Press, 186 pp., $3.00 (paper)
The Baroque Age in England
by Judith Hook
Transatlantic Arts, Inc, 207 pp., $19.50
'History which ignores art or literature is jejune history, just as a society without art or literature is a jejune society, and, conversely, art and literature which are studied in detachment from history are only half understood.' This ringing declaration of faith (to which I subscribe in full) is to be found in the preface to Professor Trevor-Roper's new book, Princes and Artists. And, in principle, most art historians will surely welcome the arrival in their midst of a scholar who may be, in his own words, 'a plain historian,' but who is also a superlative writer capable of ranging across cultures as well as continents and centuries in the most informative and exhilarating manner.
Review, 3254 words
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