The Dictionary of Art

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 1998 by Alfred Mayor

Perhaps only those who have been revising the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians since it first appeared in the 1870s and 1880s would have dared to embark on what Jane Shoaf Turner, the chief editor of The Dictionary of Art, defined as "an illustrated reference work that provided comprehensive coverage of the history of all the visual arts worldwide, from prehistory to the present."

The enormous scope of this dictionary is the result of a momentous sea change in art historians' approach to art. No longer are they satisfied with stylistic analysis and questions of authorship. Now they want context, an elastic concept that can be expanded at will to include all the social, political, cultural, historical, and economic considerations that have become part of this dictionary. Not even Denis Diderot's marvelous Encyclopedie of 1751 to 1772 attempted such a wide-angle view of the world.

The first listing in the Dictionary is "A.A.A. See ALLIED ARTISTS' ASSOCIATION and AMERICAN ABSTRACT ARTISTS." The last is "Zyvele, Henry. See YEVELE, HENRY." In between entries vary in length from a few lines to 469 pages (China). The articles fall into twelve rough categories, of which the largest group is 20,800 biographies of creators of art as well as "patrons, collectors, dealers, theorists, writers, art historians, museum officials, critics and teachers." The broad consideration of art patrons includes entries for all the world's major religions and many specific religious orders. Peoples and civilizations form another category, and there is a conscious emphasis on the lesser known, such as the Nazca of Peru, and Aboriginal Australia in order to create, say the editors, "the most comprehensive coverage of the arts of Asia, Africa, Australasia, and the Americas ever published in one source." There are articles on every country recognized by the United Nations, as well as cities and towns with artistic traditions. Site entries include individual buildings, building types, such as "Airport," building parts, such as "Arch," and archaeological excavations "as wide-ranging as Ayutthaya, Babylon or Great Zimbabwe." Schools and styles of art include Donkeys Tale, Estridentismo, and the Utrecht Caravaggisti, as well as the more familiar Ashcan school, baroque, and brutalism.

An area of coverage that the editors believe to be entirely new is a series of some six hundred entries devoted to materials and techniques. Headings such as Brass, Stone, Glaze, Lithography, and Acrylic painting contain information "to enable curators, scholars, students and collectors to understand technical issues related to how, and from what, works of art are made." Finally, there are articles about theoretical issues, among them Aesthetics, Dissemination, Iconoclasm, Semiotics, and Decadence and decline.

With such an enormous number of authors, and therefore opinions, the editors have done all they can to resolve discrepancies. However, since the articles are signed, the authors' views are respected and other interpretations are noted in "parenthethetical editorial comments and/or cross references." The preface to the Dictionary ends with thoroughly winning humility, inviting readers to notify the London publishers of errors or omissions "so that they may be corrected in the future."