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Dissertation
Art world maps: a quantitative sociology of contemporary American art
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Drexel University
1997
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/00003660
Abstract
The objective of this research is the automatic style-classification of artists via relationships in the literature between artist-pairs and the graphical depiction of the relationships in a two-dimensional map. This research applies the co-citation methodology, developed and validated for mapping the structure of the science and social science literatures, to the literature of the visual arts. Co-mention, a co-word measure, is substituted for the co-citation unit of analysis. The study derives style structure from the visual arts literature using the multivariate techniques of cluster analysis, factor analysis, and multidimensional scaling applied to co-mention matrices derived from two bibliographical databases, Art Literature International (RILA) and Arts & Humanities Search[registered]. The co-mention methodology is validated by the comparison of the classification produced by each of the two source databases with the independent qualitative classification of artists synthesized by Diana Crane in her book The Transformation of the Avant-Garde: the New York Art World, 1940-1995, from the major critics and historians of the period. The Rand Index, Rg, provided a metric for comparison of the groupings obtained and produced ratings xindicating very good agreement between each of the database-generated classifications and the qualitative synthesis (3-D RILA and synthesis: Rg = 0.8873; 3-D AHCI and synthesis: Rg = 0.8297), as well as between the two quantitative classifications (Rg = 0.8070). Additional support for the validity of the method can be seen from the consistency of the structures produced by the three different quantitative techniques. The multidimensional scaling produced maps which provide coherent displays of the structures (RILA: 3-D RSQ = 0.799, stress = 0.170; AHCI: 3-D RSQ = 0.758, stress = 0.188). SPSS's INDSCAL scaling model of the ALSCAL procedure was used to compare the two maps and indicated a moderately good fit (3-D RSQ = 0.604, stress = 0.240). Graphical depiction of style groupings appears generally consistent among the maps and Crane classification; deviations from the expected groupings are interpretable, augmenting the understanding of style or movement affiliation.
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Details
- Title
- Art world maps
- Creators
- Deborah Bolton Stagg
- Awarding Institution
- Drexel University
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
- Publisher
- Drexel University; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Number of pages
- x, 157 pages
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- College of Information Science and Technology (1995-2013); Drexel University
- Other Identifier
- 991021888948204721