Readers familiar with H. W. Janson’s History of Art textbook will immediately recognize the cover of A. H. Fessler’s Art History Lesson as a comment on Janson’s ubiquitous text. With a hardbound cover that replicates Janson’s book, Fessler seems to be challenging the authority of Janson’s text and, through the change in the title, letting readers know that there is lesson to be learned in her book as well.

As readers turn the pages of Fessler’s book, a quote from Janson’s History of Art describing Poussin’s Rape of the Sabine Women is slowly revealed.  It begins with a page of text, “The highest aim of painting, he believed….” Readers turn the page to read “is to represent noble and serious human actions.” The second half of the sentence is paired with an image of a soldier grabbing a woman who is trying to run away. The image, whose large halftone dots indicate that it comes from a previously published source, is a detail from the small black and white reproduction of Poussin’s painting from Fessler’s own college textbook. As readers turn the pages the quote continues, paired with additional details from Poussin’s painting of rape and abduction.

On the last page of the book, after revealing the source of the quote, Fessler appends the words “Required reading, Art History 101, 102, and 103,” making the point that survey textbooks are often used for multiple courses and in introductory classes where students may not have the critical skills to question authoritative texts.

A. H. Fessler, Art History Lesson, Baltimore, Maryland, 1991
Hardbound book; 24 pages; Published in cooperation with the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Art History Lesson was initially published as an insert in American Art, a journal published by the National Museum of American Art.