The Work of Art and Its Researcher: Towards a Definition of Distance

Abstract

This article continues its examination of the relationship between subject and object of research in art studies. Revisiting ideas about the object within the context of metaknowledge is particularly relevant given the debate about the crisis of art studies, the constant recourse of researchers to a limited number of works, and the creation of an entire “information field” around them, represented by several concentric “zones of distancing” determined by the quantity and quality of intermediate sources of inferential judgments. In “zone A” the primary source is the immediate object (the work), in “zone B” it is replaced by a judgment about the object, in “zone C” an interpretation of the interpretation occurs.

The situation becomes more complicated in comparative studies, when the subject deals with several objects and is forced to use sources located in different qualitative zones of several information fields that overlap each other.

Attention is drawn to the change in research optics as we distance ourselves from the primary source and replace direct study of the object with reliance on information obtained from indirect sources and often distorted.

As a result, the level of verifiability and reproducibility of research is declining to critical levels. Specific examples demonstrate the “loss of fact” and the emergence of pseudoscientific concepts unsupported by scientific knowledge.

References

1. Akimov V.V. Zhabinskiy, ili Apofeoz agressivnogo nevezhestva [Zhabinsky, or the Apotheosis of Aggressive Ignorance]. Available at: https://samlib.ru/a/akimow_wadim_wadimowich/o_jabinskom.shtml (app. 28.12.2025). (In Russ.)
2. Bembel' I. O. V poiskah metoda. K voprosu krizisa arkhitekturovedeniya [In Search of a Method. On the Crisis of Architectural Studies]. Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta. Iskusstvovedeniye, 2020, no. 2, pp. 323–339. (In Russ.)
3. Bernshtein B. M. «Krizis iskusstvoznaniya» i institutsional'nyy podkhod [“The Crisis of Art Criticism” and the Institutional Approach]. Sovetskoye iskusstvoznaniye, 1991, iss. 27, pp. 269–297. (In Russ.)
4. Sedlmayr H. Iskusstvo i istina. Teoriya i metod istorii iskusstva [Art and Truth. Theory and Method of Art History]. St. Petersburg: Axioma, 2000 [1958]. (In Russ.)
5. Kozlova Yu. Metodologiya iskusstvoznaniya v situatsii sovremennogo krizisa kul'tury [Methodology of art history in the situation of the modern cultural crisis]. Sovremennye problemy iskusstvoznaniya: vzglyad molodykh. Moscow: SIAS, 2016, pp. 5–11. (In Russ.)
6. Kononenko E. I., Zilivinskaya E.D. Bolshaya mechet' Kefe v osmanskom arkhitekturnom kontekste [The Great Mosque of Kefe in the Ottoman architectural context]. Iskusstvoznaniye, 2022, no. 2, pp. 258–293. (In Russ.)
7. Kononenko E. I. Proizvedeniye iskusstva i yego issledovatel': granitsy (so)obshcheniya [The Work of Art and Its Researcher: The Limits of Communication]. Teoriya i istoriya iskusstva, 2025, no. 3, pp. 14–38. (In Russ.)
8. Kononenko E. I. Fakty, OBS, DDM: Opyt klassifikatsii anomaliy nauchnoy raboty [Facts, OBS, DDM: Experience of classification of anomalies of scientific work]. Real'nost' i sub'yekt, 2001, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 55–60. (In Russ.)
9. Matsievskiy I. Sravnitelnoye iskusstvoznaniye — XXI vek: K vvedeniyu v problematiku [Comparative Art History — 21st Century: An Introduction to the Problematic]. Sravnitel'noye iskusstvoznaniye — XXI vek. Issue 1. St. Petersburg: RIII, 2014, pp. 6–24. (In Russ.)
10. Myagkih S. Iskusstvovedcheskaya refleksiya v postmodernistskom diskurse (O nekotorykh problemakh sovremennogo iskusstvoznaniya) [Art criticism reflection in postmodernist discourse (On some problems of contemporary art criticism)]. Sovremennye problemy iskusstvoznaniya: vzglyad molodykh. Moscow: SIAS, 2016, pp. 12–17. (In Russ.)
11. Nataliya Sipovskaya: «Iskusstvo otvechayet tol'ko na te voprosy, kotoryye pered nim stavit chelovek» [Natalia Sipovskaya: “Art only answers the questions that a person poses to it”]. Vokrug ZheKa. 2024, no. 12, pp. 8–20. (In Russ.)
12. Petrakova A. E. Ponimali li skify i meoty syuzhety afinskikh raspisnykh vaz? [Did the Scythians and Maeotians understand the themes of Athenian painted vases?]. Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo gosudarstvennogo instituta kul'tury. 2024, no. 4, pp. 126–133. (In Russ.)
13. Pechnikova R. Yu. Mal'tiyskiy orden v proshlom i nastoyashchem [The Order of Malta in the past and present]. Moscow: Nauka, 1990. (In Russ.)
14. Prokoptsova V. P. Komparativizm v praktike i teorii iskusstva [Comparativism in the practice and theory of art]. Vestnik Belorusskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta kul'tury i iskusstv. 2012, no. 2 (18), pp. 59–68. (In Russ.)
15. Razeyev D. N. Vozmozhen li semanticheskiy test na autentichnost' nauchnogo proizvedeniya? [Is a semantic test for the authenticity of a scientific work possible?]. Mysl'. 2015, iss. 19, pp. 52–60. (In Russ.)
16. Ricoeur P. Germenevtika, etika, politika. Moskovskiye lektsii i interv'yu [Hermeneutics, Ethics, Politics. Moscow Lectures and Interviews]. Moscow: Akademia, 1995. (In Russ.)
17. Sapanzha O. S. Vsemirnaya istoriya iskusstv v kontekste razvitiya sovetskoy istoricheskoy nauki 1930-kh gg.: k voprosu sozdaniya uchebnika «Istoriya zapadno-yevropeyskogo iskusstva» 1940 g. [World history of art in the context of the development of Soviet historical science in the 1930s: on the issue of creating the textbook “History of Western European Art” in 1940]. Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2024, no. 500, pp. 36–46. (In Russ.)
18. Smirnova A. M. Metod sluchaynoy iteratsiy fraktal'nogo iskusstva pri issledovanii determinirovannogo algoritma V. Serpinskogo v sakral'nykh obrazakh Mal'tiyskogo ordena tampliyerov [Method of random iterations of fractal art in the study of the deterministic algorithm of V. Sierpinski in the sacred images of the Maltese Order of the Templars]. Izvestiya vysshih uchebnyh zavedeniy. Tekhnologiya legkoy promyshlennosti, 2023, no. 1, pp. 72–79. (In Russ.)
19. Shteyn S. Yu. Ob'yekt i predmet. Metodologicheskiye zamechaniya k vyyavleniyu distsiplinarnoy identichnosti iskusstvovedeniya [Object and subject. Methodological remarks on the identification of the disciplinary identity of art criticism]. Artikult, 2018, no. 32 (4), pp. 6–29. (In Russ.)
20. Shteyn S. Yu. Problema distsiplinarnoy identichnosti iskusstvovedeniya [The Problem of Disciplinary Identity of Art Studies]. Iskusstvoznaniye: Nauka, Opyt, Prosveshcheniye. Moscow: GII, 2019, pp. 10–22. (In Russ.)
21. Jaeggi O. Atticheskaya krasnofigurnaya keramika v Severnom Prichernomor'ye: osobennosti rasprostraneniya, vospriyatiya, ispol'zovaniya [Attic red-figure ceramics in the Northern Black Sea region: features of distribution, perception, use]. Bosporskiye issledovaniy, 2017, iss. 35, pp. 89–98. (In Russ.)
22. Belting H. Das Ende der Kunstgeschichte? München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1983.
23. Sunarto B. Comparative study in the paradigm of art research and art creation. Creativity Studies, 2023, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 604–623.