Jacques Thuillier

International activities

• 1964-1969 : Deputy Scientific Secretary
• 1969-1983 : Scientific Secretary
• Since 1990 : Honorary member of the Comité international d'histoire de l'art (CIHA)

In the field of information technology

• Organization of the CATART database
• Management of the International Artists' Biographical Data Bank project
• 1983-1990 : Chairmanship of the IT study group of the Comité international d'histoire de l'art (CIHA)
• 1983-1996 : Publication of the HAMI newsletter
• 1993-1998 : Co-president of CID (Centre des Hautes Études Internationales en informatique documentaire)

Awards and distinctions

• Commander of the Légion d'Honneur
• Grand Officer of the Order of Merit
• Commander of the Order of Merit
• Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters
• 1991 : Minda de Gunzburg Prize
• 1991 : Grand Prix d'histoire de la Ville de Paris
• 1994 : Grand Prix national d'histoire
• 2002 : Grand Prix d'histoire Chateaubriand

We spent the second half of the academic year writing another book, scheduled for publication at the end of 2002. This is a Histoire de l'art that deals with architecture, sculpture and painting, from their beginnings to the present day, and in the various regions of the world. Unlike the major undertaking of our predecessor at the Collège André Michel (1920-1925), carried out at the beginning of the ^19th century, which required 24 years, 18 tomes and numerous contributors, this publication will be limited to a single volume written entirely by us. The illustrations will be exclusively in color, in keeping with the international spirit of  art history; the text will be easy to read, requiring no prior specialization.

This book is therefore the opposite of all our previous works.

Up to now, we have focused on analysis and fundamental research, as demonstrated by our latest catalogs (Blanchard, Bourdon, Bellange, Baugin..., not to mention our ongoing research into Poussin's correspondence). This time, we will present a synthesis summarizing four millennia of history.

We hope that this attempt will not be perceived as a change of method, nor as a simple effort at popularization. Our aim is to remind us that the art historian is faced with an immense field. While his duty is always to return to works of art and artists, and to multiply facts and insights, he must also remain fully aware of the whole of Artistic creation, the relativity of the subjects he is able to deal with and the methods he uses. With the end of the ^20th century, we have seen the disappearance of most of the great " generalists ", of which André Chastel was one of the most prestigious models in France, and the rise of the " specialty ", with its admirable spirit of precision and rigor, but often also its regrettable short-sightedness.

The last one-volume History of Art was written in 1950 by Ernst H. Gombrich (with almost uninterrupted updates until his recent death). We thought we should renew the challenge. We don't think we've succeeded entirely. Between an ideal shortcut to art history and the current possibilities of color book publishing, between the desire to change certain art historians' routines and the need not to deprive readers of their traditional points of reference, we had to compromise. A general work
cannot proceed by means of a general upheaval. However, in writing the text, we have insisted on affirming five parties that are particularly important to us :

1. We have rejected anecdotal art history. We believe we have often enough demonstrated in our lectures and books (Le Nain, La Tour, Baugin...) the importance of historical inquiry (an entirely different approach), to be able to break completely with the degenerate heritage of history " à la Vasari ".
2. We have likewise broken with all determinist doctrines, and the reductive attitude they adopt towards art history. Whether we're talking about the all-too-simplistic analyses of Taine, or Marxist dissertations that regard art as a " epiphenomenon " whose main interest lies in revealing the social implications of the dialectics of history, these doctrines all commit a profound error : creation only appears at the moment of rupture with the surrounding environment. We therefore refuse to approach artists as the results and witnesses of an economic, social or religious milieu.
3. In the same vein, we frankly reject the drifts of the still-powerful current that confuses art history, Kunstgeschichte, with Geistesgeschichte, the history of the Mind, and in particular with iconology as defined by Erwin Panofsky. However ingenious and often accurate the analyses carried out within this framework, they usually focus on minor aspects of creation that are relativized by more general perspectives.
4. We have steered clear of today's common confusion between art and ethnology. We have not believed that tribal manifestations can take their place among artistic expressions, even if they make use of images. Whether we're talking about prehistoric times or the backward peoples of Africa or Australia, these manifestations are at the service of beliefs or religions ; they correspond to signs, not works that signify themselves, to use the demarcation line once established by Henri Focillon. Art begins at the very moment when the work detaches itself from the sign and proposes itself in its inexhaustible complexity.
5. We have rejected the notions of avant-garde and progress. These are ideas accredited to the ^19th century in a mystical or polemical spirit. On the scale of four millennia, they denounce themselves as devoid of content. All too often, they have concealed the complexity of the multiple temporal paths that characterize the history of art.