Publication result detail
"STRANDED ON THE SHORES OF HISTORY"? MONUMENTS AND (ART-)HISTORICAL AWARENESS
BULVAS STEJSKAL, J.
Original Title
"STRANDED ON THE SHORES OF HISTORY"? MONUMENTS AND (ART-)HISTORICAL AWARENESS
English Title
"STRANDED ON THE SHORES OF HISTORY"? MONUMENTS AND (ART-)HISTORICAL AWARENESS
Type
WoS Article
Original Abstract
Can past agents deliberately influence our historical awareness by designing objects' appearances and sending them to us down the stream of time? We know they have certainly tried to do so by raising monuments. But according to an influential narrative, the efforts of the "monumentalists" are destined to fail: no monument can keep a legacy alive in perpetuity. In this article, I argue that this narrative misrepresents the nature of the monumentalists' mission, and I set out to show that monumentality should be understood as a means of addressing what I term "art-historical awareness." This mode of historical awareness attends to artifacts' appearances in search of visual manifestations of relevance that can survive the loss of context. Those who raise monuments aim to produce such artifacts, or what amount to intentional art-historical documents, and they do so in order to overcome the tension between the monuments' nature as public art and their commemorative function. By visually manifesting a transcendent relevance, monuments ideally appeal to both present and distant audiences, insofar as these audiences are able to appreciate the monuments' potential to sustain at least a semblance of relevance beyond their immediate contexts.
English abstract
Can past agents deliberately influence our historical awareness by designing objects' appearances and sending them to us down the stream of time? We know they have certainly tried to do so by raising monuments. But according to an influential narrative, the efforts of the "monumentalists" are destined to fail: no monument can keep a legacy alive in perpetuity. In this article, I argue that this narrative misrepresents the nature of the monumentalists' mission, and I set out to show that monumentality should be understood as a means of addressing what I term "art-historical awareness." This mode of historical awareness attends to artifacts' appearances in search of visual manifestations of relevance that can survive the loss of context. Those who raise monuments aim to produce such artifacts, or what amount to intentional art-historical documents, and they do so in order to overcome the tension between the monuments' nature as public art and their commemorative function. By visually manifesting a transcendent relevance, monuments ideally appeal to both present and distant audiences, insofar as these audiences are able to appreciate the monuments' potential to sustain at least a semblance of relevance beyond their immediate contexts.
Keywords
art history; historical awareness; Karl Friedrich Schinkel; monumentality; monuments; neoclassicism
Key words in English
art history; historical awareness; Karl Friedrich Schinkel; monumentality; monuments; neoclassicism
Authors
BULVAS STEJSKAL, J.
Released
17.10.2025
Periodical
History and Theory
Volume
64
Number
3
State
United States of America
Pages from
338
Pages to
358
Pages count
21
URL
Full text in the Digital Library
BibTex
@article{BUT197842,
author="Jakub {Bulvas Stejskal}",
title="{"}STRANDED ON THE SHORES OF HISTORY{"}? MONUMENTS AND (ART-)HISTORICAL AWARENESS",
journal="History and Theory",
year="2025",
volume="64",
number="3",
pages="338--358",
doi="10.1111/hith.12382",
issn="0018-2656",
url="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hith.12382"
}Documents
Responsibility: Ing. Marek Strakoš