Research Of Meyer Schapiro’s Thoughts On The Art History Of Marxism

The famous American art historian Meyer Schapiro’s thoughts on the art history of Marxism not only contains the art history of Old Marxism and Neo-Marxism,but also is different from the general art history of Marxism,and predicts the development direction of art history of Marxism.His relevant thoughts of art history can be divided into four stages: the faintly discernible early stage(1920s),the high stage of distinguishable position(1930s),the gradually changing late stage(1940s),and the uncatchable last late(after 1950).When Schapiro compiled his early articles in his later years,he never denied his early art thoughts as for Marxism.Therefore,his relevant art history thoughts is consistent.From the perspectives of materialism,epistemology and materialist dialectics,the pluralistic characteristics of Schapiro’s thought on art history of Marxism and social history can be summarized into technical and economic materialism,weak ideology,profound reflectionism,rich materialist dialectics and so on.Additionally,the relationships between Schapiro’s art history of Marxism and other old and new art history of Marxism,as well as similar art thoughts on Marxism are quite complicated.For example,the old Marxist art historians —Martin,and Hauser,the representatives of the Neo-Marxist art historians — Clark and Hadjinikolaou,and the scholars with art ideas of Marxism— Lukacs,Benjamin and Adorno,etc.Generally,Shapiro’s own art history is highly liberal.This tendency of free art history research is very consistent with Marxism’s appeal for the real freedom of the subject.Because the real freedom of the subject is the inherent appeal of Marxism,any investigation of art history based on any single element cannot fully answer this appeal,and Shapiro’s art history thought is implicitly in line with this inherent appeal.The main goal of using Marxism to modify art history is to point out that art history should be committed to its own true freedom.Re-examining Shapiro’s Marxist art history thoughts is helpful to deeply understanding the Old and Neo art history of Marxism,to eliminating people’s criticism on the Old and Neo art history of Marxism,and to exploring the development direction of art history of Marxism.