Hello everyone, I'm taking an online art history class (currently on the High Renaissance!!), and my prof asks us to ~do our own research~ to share with the class what we've learned about the art of each era.
Anyway, I'm a relatively new Communist (it still feels exhilarating to even type that out!), and I was so excited to discover that there are Marxist art historians, as seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_history#Marx_and_ideology
I would love to include some subversive ideas into my contributions to class discussion, so I was just wondering if any of you art lovers had any other art history resources that could help enrich my understanding of art history through a historical materialist lens?
Also, the art historians listed in the wikipedia article above appear to be mostly "vulgar Marxists" or like Trotsky, none of which I really understand--but I do know that many of you don't care for either tendencies. But maybe there are better Marxist art histories out there?
Worth looking at your Germans - Marx directly, as well as like Georg Simmel and Max Weber. I'd second Luckas, who synthesized a lot of those guys were addressing. Walter Benjamin was probably the biggest influence on me, and Greenberg and TJ Clark are well worth it. Really though, read everyone - post-structuralism is still hot shit as far as I'm aware, and it addresses a lot of the failures of revolutionary Marxism in ways that are only productive (edit: just don't trust anyone who tells you they understand Anti-Oedipus, because they're a goddamn liar)