ABSTRACT
The starting point of this chapter is the discrepancy between discourses on art history and discourses on social and economic history. On the one hand, in the former field, it is now widely acknowledged that artistic creations from every point of the world are worth being considered, and no one would speak about backwardness (at least not explicitly). On the other hand, in the latter field, discourse on backwardness is still very much alive, as we will see in several publications. The influential economic historian Iván Berend sums this up clearly, saying, “backwardness is a harsh reality and it is not the construct of bias or cultural prejudice”. For scholars working on horizontal art history, this division is a dilemma. If they stay in the realm of art, the impact of their research is limited; it is not convincing. But if they go into the realm of the economy, they run the risk of being disqualified. This chapter proposes some suggestions to convincingly articulate the different fields.
