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 beensystematically 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.
