Diana S. Greenwald: Painting by Numbers—Data-Driven Histories of Nineteenth-Century Art, Princeton University Press, 2021

Abstract

A new quantitative approach to art history is rapidly spreading. The traditional qualitative method of analysis of specific artists and artworks is increasingly complemented by many scholars with an empirical approach, based on statistical analysis, which is typical of social sciences including economics and economic history. The main contribution of Greenwald’s book is to show how these two apparently distant approaches can be fruitfully joined to address important research questions in art history. To this aim, the author presents novel evidence on the artistic production of the nineteenth-century in France, the USA, and England and focusses on crucial topics in the art history of that period, namely, industrialization, gender, and the history of empire, providing new points of view. More generally, the book represents a concrete application of the benefits of an interdisciplinary approach in humanities and social sciences.