Resumen de Scale to size: an introduction
Among the issues most central to the creation and reception of artworks, scale directly addresses the capacity of artworks to mediate between viewers' expectations and perceptions. A recurring interest in the history of art is a pointed attention to scale that does not simply refer to size alone but to variable relationships between sizes. Standards of measurement, medium, format, and fuction all affect these relationships whose production fundamentally affects how artworks respond to the time and place of their making. Yet despite the context-specificity of scale, close analysis of how it affects the responsive capacity of artworks offers new possibilities of connection between multiple geographies and periods. By including discussions of a wide range of periods and artworks with a special focus on the language used to discuss scale, this introduction seeks to expand upon these possibilities in anticipation of more fully realizing the promises inherent in the idea of comparative art histories.
