World Art Studies: Exploring Concepts and Approaches

This timely volume challenges the narrow Western-centrism of most art historical models. Archaeologists have found that, for tens of thousands of years, all human cultures have shared a desire for visual representation or expression. Yet the study of art history has traditionally focused on Western artworks of the past few centuries. World Art Studies examines the phenomenon of art through a broader cultural, global and temporal perspective, bringing together a uniquely exhaustive range of perspectives on art and borrowing approaches from the study of neuroscience, evolutionary biology, anthropology and geography as models–alongside more conventional art historical perspectives. In musicology or linguistics, using such diverse viewpoints for reflection and research is considered part of the normal process. In that spirit, this volume goes beyond abstract models, using case studies to demonstrate and examine specific methods of investigation.