Les Technologies De L’intelligence: L’avenir De La Pensee A L’ere Informatique (The Technologies Of Intelligence: The Future Of Thought In The Computer Age) by Pierre Levy (review)

task. He knows not only contemporary architecture (he is at present professor of architecture at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri , United States, and has written a number of books on the subject including New Architecture in the World [1965]), he has also published comprehensive works on contemporary art, among them The New Sculpture (1967-1968), The New Painting (1969) and Art and Life (1971). By adopting W6lffiin's thesis that art and the history of art run parallel, and by rewriting entirely the last chapter "History of Art Today" for this second edition, Kultermann recognizes this necessity of reassessment. He maintains, however, that art history as a specific science (the course of which he is trying to describe-the subtitle of his book is Der weg einer Wissenschaft , the itinerary of a science) needs to renew itself from inside, and he holds that the lessons from the past cannot be forgotten but must be fully incorporated into the new assessment . In a short conclusive appendix entitled "The Art Historian", Kultermann quotes Hans Belting's Das Ende der Kunstgeschichte (The End of Art History) (1983) and stresses that the task of art historians today is no longer limited to representing the horizon of a certain disciplinerather they must try to grasp the totality of art in all its discernable manifestations and reintegrate these findings into a new total image. Contemporary art historians must also try to reconcile the concept of an everchanging definition of science with their own discipline. Moreover, in this appendix Kultermann recognizes the abyss between the autodefinition proclaimed by art historians and the present-day reality with its sensibility that is dominated by electronics and new media. It is of course a moot point whether and to what extent methods of art history, be they iconological or formalistic, are still operational in apprehending the arts of the electronic age. Such subtle questions as, for example, an assessment of the importance of the process of creation with regard to the finished work and its possible survival through its interaction with the public would have to be raised. There is no doubt, however, that in the assessment of contemporary art a certain distance is always an asset. 224 Current Literature Here the function of the historian, the critic and the aesthetician necessarily merge. In video art, for example , Catherine Dieckmann has written that "after twenty years video still lacks a solidly independent criticism, a situation largely attributable to its dearth of qualities required for art-historical appraisal (objecthood, agreedupon 'value', and a past)." (Katherine Dieckmann, "Electra Myth: Video, Modernism, Postmodernism", ArtJournal , [Fall 1985] p. 199). Of course, it is debatable whether that situation is due to the state of video art or whether the art historical/critical/aesthetic approach is inadequate. On the other hand, it would be a herculean task to reassess the whole of the artistic production from the beginnings to today with the new aesthetic , social, scientific and technical criteria available at present and to compare the results with the findings of the art historians throughout history . But that such a possibility could be envisaged is implied in Kultermann 's book. The bulk of this work, however, is devoted to a fascinating kaleidoscope of art historians' theories and working methods, comprising chapters on early aspects, such as Kiinstlergeschichte (History of the Artists) and its protagonist Vasari; the French philosophy of art in the seventeenth century (around the time of Nicolas Poussin), followed by chapters on the artistic theories of the Enlightenment and the revolution by Winckelmann. The section on the founding ofArt History as a 'science' features chapters on Goethe, the Romanticist Movement, Rumohr and the School of Berlin, Jakob Burckhardt and the Renaissance . Chapters on the artistic stance of Impressionism, the Vienna School, the discovery of 'form', the history of the art of Expressionism and the foundation of Iconology precede chapters on the history of art in many countries today, which complete this exhaustive panorama. Kultermann's book can be used easily for rapid consultation-like a dictionary containing a great number of individual entries-but it can also be read from cover to cover and appreciated almost like a novel, having as the main...