The Art History In The Perspective Of Cultural History

This thesis is the case study of works by Johan Huizinga.As the leading figure in cultural historical study in the20thcentury, more researcheson Johan Huizinga s works need to be done and more misunderstandings need to beclarified in China. I had been to Leiden University where Johan Huizinga had taught formany years. With the help of professor Willem Otterspeer, the author of the only criticalbiography of Johan Huizinga, I had luckily got many valuable reading materials. To beginwith, this thesis focuses on Huizinga s life and his view on history in general, and thenintroduces the academic context of Huizinga, his works and the inner-relationship of theworks and the receptions of works by Huizinga in different countries. By contrasting theEnglish version and Chinese version of Huizinga s works, problems have been detectedand clarifications have been made, trying to come closer to the better understanding ofHuizinga s works.The close relationship with art history is one of the features of Huizinga s study ofcultural history. Influenced by the trend of multidisciplinary studies in art history, thisthesis tries to explore Huizinga s works from the perspective of the methodology of arthistory. Firstly, to analyze and summarize Huizinga s methods of historical research, toexplore the role played by fine arts in works by Huizinga from the perspective of culturalhistory and then to discuss the problem of the uses of images as historical evidence in abroader sense.The last part of the thesis goes back to the key issue, that is, to reflect on theinspirations drawn from the research of cultural history by Huizinga from the perspectiveof art historical research, looking for the reasons why Huizinga was able to makebreakthroughs in important issues of art history. The insight into and the grasp of theessence of idea and mentality of an age, the contrast and comparison of different culturalforms of an certain age, the rebuilding of context and atmosphere from the culturalrelationships of art, those form the main aspects of Huizinga s methods in the research ofart history. Finally, for the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have been the key topics inboth researches of art history and Huizinga s cultural history, the researches by Huizinga isshown in another dimension and the value of his research is highlighted by comparing theworks by Huizinga with the ones by Burkhardt and other historians.