Wait, am I recording? You are listening to Stuff About Things, an art history podcast. Alright, let's bango. Hello and welcome to Stuff About Things, an Art History Podcast. My name is Lindsay, and I have now been doing this podcast for over seven years. Long enough that I now have my PhD in art history. The episode that you are about to listen to is from the earlier years of the pod. If you enjoy it, and I hope that you do, you will probably like every other episode in the podcast catalog. And if you don't, I do hope that you'll consider giving some of the newer ones a listen. But for right now, I'm really glad that you're here, ready to learn some stuff about some things. Past Lindsay, take it away. Hello and welcome to the second episode of Stuff About Things, an art history podcast. My name is Lindsay, and I am here to talk your ear off about art history. Yay! But first and foremost, I wanted to thank every single person who listened to the first episode of the podcast. Whether you are a friend or a colleague or professor, a stranger, or one of my 18,000 family members, I really appreciate you all taking the time to listen to the podcast. So thank you. For the second episode of this podcast, I am going to attempt to answer a foundational question. Why is art history important? Which I personally think sounds better when you put a pretentious accent on it, like, why is art history important? The question, why is art history important, can be a difficult one to answer, even though it really shouldn't be. And the reason why it is so difficult to answer is because it challenges you to defend the inherent value of what you chose to dedicate your life to. So, naturally, you have a tendency to become a teeny bit defensive when answering it, and maybe even a little bitter or salty in your response. And by you, I mean me, which is natural, because bitter and salty happen to be my two most predominant personality traits. I wish I was kidding. A small part of me though is bitter, that I even have to address why art history is important. The much larger, more logical part of me though, knows that it's a fair question. Damn you logical brain. More than anything, though, I know that I should be able to answer the question. This is, after all, the field that I chose to dedicate many, many years of my life to, and I should be able to defend that choice. So, here goes. I want to start off with a little bit of context. So, first, what I want to do is define what I mean when I say art history. Because I think that the term art history is much vague. What is art? What is history? What is life? Whoa, too far. Existential panic attack, you get out of here. The thing about the term art history is that everyone has a different opinion of what art is. Now I can only speak to what the word art means to me when it comes to the concept of art history. And my definition is admittedly extremely broad. So here goes. I see art history as stuff history, thing history, if you will. And you all know how I feel about stuff and things. I love 'em. Art historians, like myself, study how those things were made, who made them, how they were used, and the cultural implications of the relationships between people and things. So now that I have roughly defined what art history is, I can tell you that Newsflash, many people do not think that art history is a valuable field of study. They don't see how you could possibly use an art history degree to live a productive life and change the world for the better. Even President Barack Obama, who is like my favorite person ever, has publicly implied that art history is useless. Thinks Obama. Now please allow me to pause to do a not so dramatic reenactment of the famous scene from Titanic. Come back, come back. Whistleblow, whistleblow, come back. Regardless of whatever your personal politics are, I think that everyone living in the US, which is where I'm from and where I'm most informed about, but also places like England, are aware that the humanities, especially the arts, are under attack. Funding for schools, especially public schools, is being cut. And the first things to go when those cuts happen are arts programs, whether that be actual art classes, music, drama, what have you. And as someone who, surprise, surprise, was an active member of the art department and drama club in high school, that upsets me because I know what those experiences meant to me, and they meant a lot. I will always remember having the lead role in the 2004 freshman play, but that is mostly because my character's name was Mrs. Quackenbush. Quackenbush. I can't believe I just voluntarily brought that up. Oh dear. The insinuation that art history isn't important makes me mad. It just does, it makes me so mad. It especially makes me mad when people in charge of our universities and educational systems, like, oh hey, say the dean of my graduate school, who for the record I quite like, tells an auditorium full of humanities people that all anyone cares about today is quote big data. And if we don't have, quote, big data, then no one will ever want to employ us. Now I'm still trying to figure out what big data is, which almost certainly means that I do not have it. Thankfully, what I do have are parents with a pretty dry basement that I can move into once I have my PhD. Hi, Mama Dad. The question of why art history is important isn't just isolated to people outside art history, because even among my school friends and colleagues, we often have conversations about how we feel like what we do isn't important. Now I use the word feel here very deliberately because logically, the vast majority of art history people do know that what they do matters, that it has some kind of inherent value. Every now and then, even I need to be reminded of why what I do is important, especially when I come across zingers like this, which is from an essay entitled The Personal Importance of Art History by Anthony Jansen. And I quote, If art historians were to suddenly disappear like dinosaurs from the face of the earth, they would hardly be missed, and the world would probably be no worse off either. Ouch. Thanks, Tony. No, Anthony Jansen is actually a big deal, so I take that back. I take it back. Art history is important, and it's important for a number of reasons, and those reasons exist no matter what area of art history you choose to study. So, for example, it doesn't matter if you study Italian Renaissance sculpture like I do, or public wall murals, or American still life, or concepts of the decorative in France. As people trained in art history, we all come away from our education with a similar skill set in hand. And those skills are critical to why art history is important. The first thing that is so critically important about art history, and the thing that might be the most practical, is the fact that art history teaches you to think critically about the things that you see. Obviously, art history people also learn all of the basics of a good liberal arts education. Critical reading, writing, communication, blah, blah, blah. But the one thing that our field has that the others might not emphasize as much is that we are trained to use our eyes differently. Mind you, I am not a cognitive neuroscientist or a psychologist, but I do think it's safe to say that studying art history makes you more aware of how your eyes communicate with your brain. Art history teaches you to make meaning out of visual cues. It teaches you to pick up on small changes that might have big implications. And here's a little known fact for you. We all live in a visual world. We are constantly inundated with ads and Instagram posts and Pinterest boards and branding and political propaganda and some girl who photoshops her dog's face on a works of art. Oh my god. But not everyone is taught to consume these visual aspects of our world with a critical and analytical eye. In fact, I think that art history makes an excellent elective course for pre-med students because it teaches them to see things differently than they are used to doing in a more scientific-based education. Speaking of medicine, art history is a field that is essentially a catch-all. Art history people can usually find any excuse they want to study whatever the heck they want. I've spent time in anatomy labs learning about the human body. I'm currently auditing a course on the Bible. I studied physics as it pertains to the eye's consumption of color. I've taken sociology classes about race, and all of those classes have either informed the way that I look at or write about art, as well as how I look at the world. Art history is a crazy interdisciplinary field. And what's more, art historians tend to want to be interdisciplinary. We want to study all of the things, and it's when you study all of the things that you become a well-rounded, or at least, I don't know, semi-rounded, human who can more or less function in society. Although I will say that learning all of the things can also be achieved by anyone with a will to learn and a library card. And I've got three library cards. If I haven't impressed them already, that definitely did it. As art historians, we often study history. I mean, duh Lindsay, it's in the freaking title. We also study people, which is not in the title, thank you very much. But in doing so, we often have to empathize with other cultures and time periods that held different beliefs and had different standards than we do now. So, for example, you cannot approach the Italian Renaissance with a 21st century mindset and hope that you can understand it. That just won't work. As someone who studies religious art, I need to empathize with and accept as valid the beliefs of a 16th-century Catholic, even though those may not be the beliefs that I myself hold. And yes, mom, that may was for you. My point here is that one thing we could really use these days is people who can empathize with the ideas of others, even if we staunchly disagree with them. This can allow you to have a more constructive conversation with someone who sees things differently than you. And nothing is ever going to get done if that doesn't happen. Mind you, the ability to communicate and empathize is not something you need a degree to do. I simply think that studying art history has made me infinitely better at being aware of the biases that I bring to the table and how to set those aside, or at least shove them down when attempting to understand the point of view of someone else. Another reason why people don't think art history is important is because it doesn't do anything, or at least it's not like business and science and medicine, how they do stuff. Whether that's earn money, develop technology, cure people of disease, so on. And that's fair. Art history will never cure cancer, though that'd be pretty cool. And it also isn't going to send cars into space like Tesla, because, you know, that seems helpful. But ultimately, non-humanities fields are not enough to sustain a functional society. Yes, math and science and business and medicine are critically important. I would never suggest otherwise. But so are the arts. No, art will never cure cancer, but it can cure or at least relieve other things, if only for a few minutes or even a few seconds. Art can relieve depression, it can relieve hopelessness, it can cure a feeling of being detached from the world. Obviously, this all sounds quite dark, and those emotions can be very dark. But as someone who is generally very happy and a content human being, and my parents definitely just gave each other a look of baffled confusion, but I get those emotions from time to time, and I'm sure a lot of you do as well, especially with the current status of the world, which I am having a hard time comprehending. But I have never, not once, felt lonely when I was looking at a work of art. Even if I was the only person in the room. I personally feel very connected to the world when I look at or study art, even if the person who made that work of art did so, I don't know, hundreds of years before. I look at the color and the texture in Van Gogh's Starry Night, and I think, wow, that is amazing that one man did that. I walk into the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and I feel like a little ant that could, because I'm small and there is only one of me, and I am totally insignificant in so many ways. But with an idea and some help from a bunch of other little ants, you can make some crazy cool things. I mean, for Pete's sake. I remember seeing Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel when I was 17 and being floored by how amazing it was that some dude and his Ragamateg group of assistants made that. And I was also made acutely aware of how much it hurt to bend your neck to have to look at it. Michelangelo got up on a scaffold and painted that for four years. Are you kidding me? I crafted for twelve hours straight three weeks ago, and I still cannot feel my thumb. Can you imagine painting a ceiling for four years? Ridiculous. But Lindsay, you say, how does studying Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling have any relevance to us today with our iPads and our hovercrafts and our space cars? Who cares about a ceiling painted in 1508? Okay, fair question, but watch the tone and don't talk so fast. I have some thoughts on this, and you are forewarned. They are a bit idealistic and maybe even naive, but I believe in them. So here goes. One. If someone is asking you who cares in regards to art, especially art like the cistine freakin' ceiling, you best remove thyself from the situation because you are conversing with either a sociopath or an extremely closed-minded human being. Get back, fiend. Two, if someone actually asks you who cares, in earnest, and you know that they aren't a sociopath or a garbage human, then tell them that it matters because it shows us the potential that humans have to create beautiful things in spite of all of the things that tell us that we can't. Tell them that art is wonderful, and if they still scoff, tell them that you would like to see them do anything one iota as remarkable as what Michelangelo did, and then give you a call when they are ready to talk. Boy, bye. Ultimately, it comes down to this. Art is important because it's important. Yes, that's an evasion of the question in many ways. But is it? Try doing this. Close your eyes. I mean, unless you're driving or biking, or you don't just don't close your eyes. Eyes open. What's about you? I dare you, I dare you to consider what it would be like to live in a world where art does not exist. I've been thinking a lot about this lately just because it freaks me out. What would it mean to live in a world where there is no art? And not only can I not imagine that all I see is like gray smog consuming everything, but the thought alone makes me profoundly sad. It also makes me profoundly scared. Lots of profoundness here. I mean, can you imagine living in a place where art does not exist, where it just doesn't matter? There would be no paintings, no crayons, no coloring books, no Van Gogh, no Michelangelo, no photography, no movies, no advertisements. The things we have today would not exist if the things that came before it were wiped out of existence. So when I ask you to imagine a world without art, I hope that most of you would say that you can't. And I'm of the opinion that if you cannot imagine a world without something or someone in it, then that something or someone must be important, even if you can't explain why in words alone. Whoa, that got deep, a little emotional there. Pull it back, Lynz, pull it back. At the end of the day, art inspires curiosity and wonder. It fosters creativity and promotes engagement with the world in a different way than math and science do. Which is not to say that math and science and medicine don't encourage such things. Of course they do, but they do so differently than art does, and that's okay. Art history is one of the lenses through which we study and promote and preserve all of the beautiful things in the world that provide our lives with joy and wonder and meaning, even if we cannot always put those things into words, and even though it might not produce the same drastic effects or make as much money as big data. With all that in mind, I still plan to make my living looking at and promoting things that make me happy. And what makes me happy is art. Art encourages me to feel like I am part of the world, both past and present. Art makes me feel hopeful that we as humans are capable of amazing things, and maybe, just maybe, we can figure this whole mess out. And that is why art history is important to me. But I want to hear why art history is important to you. So for all of those art history people out there or allies of the arts and the humanities, whoever is really listening to this, I would love to hear why art is important to you, whether that be books or buildings or paintings or sock puppets, whatever. I would love to hear why art is important in your life. If you don't know where to reach me, you can do that at my contact me page on the podcast's website, which is stuffabout things podcast.com. Before I bring this episode to a close, I am going to dive into Gus Corner for the week. I have been told by my parents that hashtag GusTheDog is aware of his status as the podcast's mascot and is positively see what I did there, overjoyed by the love you've all been sending his way. I've also been informed that his status as the diva of the household has not changed. He still demands treats and belly scratches from his humans, and he spends his free time lounging and sunbathing like the spoiled rotten puppy he is. I encourage you to go to the podcast's website, which is once again stuff about things, podcast.wordpress.com, to see this week's extras, which include four more pictures of Gus in famous works of art, with an appearance by yours truly. Those works of art include Van Gogh's Starried Night, Rene Magritte's Son of Man, John William Waterhouse's The Lady of Shalot, and John Singer Sargent's Madame X. I have also provided a couple of links to places where you can go read more about why art history is important, as well as a link to Anthony Jansen's article that I quoted earlier. Please check back next week for the third episode of the podcast, which will cover the age-old question known to art history people far and wide. So, what are you going to do with that? As I did last week, I want to extend a thank you to two websites, freemusicarchive.org and hooksounds.com, which are the two websites where I got the royalty free music that brought us into and will lead us out of the episode. The first song you hear is a version of Box Brandenburg Concerto by Kevin McLeod, and the second song is called Success Dream. With that, I will bid you adieu and good day. I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your day. I thank you so much for listening, and I hope that you take the time to look at something beautiful today.