Gerard Baldwin Brown and the Origins of the Social History of Art in Great Britain

Gerard Baldwin Brown, Britain’s first art history chair (University of Edinburgh 1880-1930), is an all but forgotten figure today, but in the late nineteenth century he represented art history’s response to the substantial influence of Herbert Spencer’s theories of society and progress. His book The Fine Arts (1891) fleshed out art historical possibilities based on Spencer’s ideas on the tandem development of mind and culture. Baldwin Brown accepted Spencer’s ideas on art that it was the result of effusive energy that had once been invested in species survival. Frequently citing both Darwin and Spencer, Baldwin Brown devised a history of art that was rooted in social stimulation, especially festivals and other social gatherings. Buildings, monuments, and paintings originally expressed the urge towards a permanent representation of communal ideas and celebrations. This paper examines Baldwin Brown’s ideas on the historical development of art against the backdrop of current movements with which he was closely connected such as Scottish sociologist, town planner and art supporter Patrick Geddes’ emphasis on communal life and subjects of national identity and the focus on the notion of the “unity of culture” through the South Kensington System. Further, the essay opens up for discussion how Baldwin Brown’s histories and interest in social/national identity as embodied within the object may (or may not) provide a historical thread for the subject as cultural object (e.g., Bermingham’s Landscape and Ideology).