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Description: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
BOOKThe Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
George Kubler
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00157
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-13402
First published in 1962, The Shape of Time presented a radically new approach to the study of art history. Drawing upon new insights in fields such as anthropology and linguistics, George Kubler pursues such questions as the nature of time, the nature of change, and the meaning of invention.  The result is a view of historical sequence aligned on continuous change more than upon the static notion of style—the usual basis for conventional histories of art. Since its publication, the book has become a classic in the field.
Author
George Kubler
PublisherYale University Press
Print publication date September 1962 (in print)
Print ISBN 9780300100617
EISBN 9780300232561
Copyright© 1962 by Yale University
Illustrations 0
Print Status in print
Publisher (in print)
WorldCat
Google Books

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Contents
George Kubler
Description: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
Table of Contents
Author
George Kubler
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1962 by Yale University
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00157.001
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-13403
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Preamble
George Kubler
Description: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
Cassirer’s partial definition of art as symbolic language has dominated art studies in our century. A new history of culture anchored upon the work of art as a symbolic expression thus came into being. By these means art has been made to connect with the rest of history. …
Author
George Kubler
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1962 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.ix-x
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00157.002
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-13404
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1. The History of Things
George Kubler
Description: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
Let us suppose that the idea of art can be expanded to embrace the whole range of man-made things, including all tools and writing in addition to the useless, beautiful, and poetic things of the world. By this view the universe of man-made things simply coincides with the history of art. It then becomes an urgent requirement to devise better ways of considering everything men have made. This we may achieve sooner by proceeding from art rather than from use, for if we depart from use alone, all …
Author
George Kubler
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1962 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.1-27
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00157.003
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-13405
Chapter subject tags:Art--Historiography--20th centuryArt--Philosophy--20th centuryKubler, George, 1912-1996. Shape of timeArtists--Biography--HistoryMaterial culture--HistoryArt--Study and teaching--United States--20th centry

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2. The Classing of Things
George Kubler
Description: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
Only a few art historians have sought to discover valid ways to generalize upon the immense domain of the experience of art. These few have tried to establish principles for architecture, sculpture, and painting upon an intermediate ground partly in the objects and partly in our experience of them, by categorizing the types of organization we perceive in all works of art. …
Author
George Kubler
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1962 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.28-55
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00157.004
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-13406
Chapter subject tags:Art--Philosophy--20th centuryArt--Historiography--20th centuryKubler, George, 1912-1996. Shape of timeClassifiers (Linguistics)Art--Study and teaching--United States--20th centry

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3. The Propagation of Things
George Kubler
Description: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
It is a truism that the objects around us correspond to needs old and new. But this truism like others describes only a fragment of the situation. In addition to these correspondences between needs and things, other correspondences exist between things and things. It is as if things generated other things in their own images by human intermediaries captivated with those possibilities of sequence and progression we have just described. The sense of Henri Focillon’s Vie des Formes captures …
Author
George Kubler
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1962 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.56-75
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00157.005
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-13407
Chapter subject tags:Art--Philosophy--20th centuryArt--Historiography--20th centuryKubler, George, 1912-1996. Shape of timeArt--Study and teaching--United States--20th centry

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4. Some Kinds of Duration
George Kubler
Description: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
The modern professional humanist is an academic person who pretends to despise measurement because of its “scientific” nature. He regards his mandate as the explanation of human expressions in the language of normal discourse. Yet to explain something and to measure it are similar operations. Both are translations. The item being explained is turned into words, and when it is measured it is turned into numbers. Unfortunately the tissues of history today have only one dimension that is readily …
Author
George Kubler
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1962 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.76-111
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00157.006
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-13408
Chapter subject tags:Art--Philosophy--20th centuryArt--Historiography--20th centuryKubler, George, 1912-1996. Shape of timeArt--Study and teaching--United States--20th centry

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Conclusion
George Kubler
Description: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
The historical study of art on systematic principles is about two thousand years old if we include Vitruvius and Pliny. This accumulated knowledge now far surpasses the ability of any individual to encompass its detail. It is unlikely that many major artists remain to be discovered. Each generation of course continues to revaluate those portions of the past which bear upon present concerns, but the process does not uncover towering new figures in the familiar categories so much as it reveals …
Author
George Kubler
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1962 by Yale University
Related print edition pages: pp.112-119
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00157.007
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-13409
Chapter subject tags:Art--Philosophy--20th centuryArt--Historiography--20th centuryKubler, George, 1912-1996. Shape of timeArt--Study and teaching--United States--20th centry

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Index
George Kubler
Description: The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
General content index
Author
George Kubler
PublisherYale University Press
Copyright© 1962 by Yale University
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00157.008
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-13410
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The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
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