The essays in this volume give the international academic community as broad a picture as possible of the historical development of and the main trends in the history of art in Greece, along with the level of educational achievements in that field.
The study of modern European art history has been systematically developed as a specialist discipline both in academia and in the public sphere in Greece since the late 1970s onwards. In recent decades, the history of Western art has begun to be regularly taught in Greek universities, both at undergraduate level and in postgraduate and doctoral programmes. During the same period, an increasing number of Greek art historians have been trained in undergraduate and postgraduate courses at prestigious universities mainly in France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States, thus contributing, if they return to work in their native land, to a multifaceted updating of the theoretical and methodological tools of art history in Greece.
The ideological issues and objective difficulties of establishing art history into an academic discipline in Greece are presented in great detail in the pages of this volume, while the theoretical and methodological directions taken both in historiography and in academic teaching, are also thoroughly examined. Alongside these, there is some discussion on the attempts made over the last twenty years to form a permanent academic community through positive action, such as holding regular conferences, academic colloquia and lectures, under the aegis of the Association of Greek Art Historians.
