Kunstgeschichte in Schwarz-Weiss

Monika Wagner examines how attitudes towards color reproduction as a research and communication tool in art history have methodologically impacted the field. In scholarly publications, black-and-white photo reproductions were common even for color virtuosos like Titian or Turner until the 1970s. In contrast, popular publications shone in color. The rejection of color images in the academic context cannot be solely explained by deficiencies in color consistency. Rather, for a long time, there was no instrument to fix and reproduce color impressions. Monochrome photo reproductions, on the other hand, could connect to graphic reproduction techniques, thereby capturing color, which was suspected of being a carrier of emotion and mood, as unscientific. Key methods in art history, particularly iconography, were developed based on black-and-white photo collections that emerged at many institutions since the late 19th century. This raises the question of how the relationship to color and color reproduction influenced the art theories of representatives from different methodologies, from Gottfried Semper to Svetlana Alpers.