Abstract

Italian art historian Lionello Venturi asserted in "History of Art Criticism" (1936) that all art histories are histories of criticism. This paper first reviews the four recognized stages of art criticism, which include description, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation. It analyzes Venturi's "unified view" on art histories and the histories of criticism, pointing out that evaluation is indispensable to both art historical research and art criticism. Secondly, it explores the differences and similarities between art criticism and art history from the perspectives of theoretical ontology, basic form, timeliness, narrative mode, and analytical dimension. Finally, it considers the common and separate dilemmas faced by the current academic community in the fields of art historical research and art criticism. They face the challenge of "subjectivity disappearance" in the cultural environment of pluralism and relativism, and the issue of "discourse suspension" in the contemporary landscape of decentralized art creation and multimedia. In the face of such dilemmas, researchers need to revisit the artworks and reassess value judgments.