But then just a few pages later, Zorich cites the skepticism of many historians as to the appropriateness of employing technology in research, citing scholars’ doubts\u00a0that digital technology can’t actually improve on what they’re already doing, won’t create any added significance to traditional research, nor serve art historical scholarship generally [5]. \u00a0Perhaps these doubts are an artifact of an older generation of scholars unfamiliar with new technologies and a newer generation overwhelmed by them, but technology is a tool with the potential to facilitate speedier and more in depth research.<\/p>\n

For example, no longer is art historical research limited by what a scholar can physically observe on her own. Thanks to the incorporation of interdisciplinary collaboration and of imaging technology into traditional research and connoisseurship, historians are confidently attributing previously anonymous works to their original authors. \u00a0La Bella Principessa<\/em>\u00a0represents the ideal example of how digital humanities can work for art history in this way. \u00a0Based in part on the application of a multispectral camera to \u201ccapture light from frequencies beyond the visible light range,\u201d historians now attribute the work to Leonardo Da Vinci [6]. \u00a0The camera’s images allowed for statistical comparison to\u00a0other of Leonardo\u2019s works (a more manual version of Drucker\u2019s insistence on creating digital webs of works for comparison) [7]. \u00a0Through the combination of spectral imaging, carbon dating, formal analysis, comparison to similar works and socio-cultural analysis, the art historical community has access to a deeper understanding of both La Bella Principessa<\/em> singly and of Leonardo\u2019s oeuvre generally.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, projects such as there are few and far between due to funding, tenure restrictions, and a general disinterest in engaging with technology. \u00a0Those less skeptical of the value of digital humanities are still reticent to participate in digital scholarship endeavors, citing lack of technological savvy and an unwillingness to\u00a0work with\u00a0those ‘lesser scholars’ who can program and engineer the framework for digital projects [8]. \u00a0Current standards of publishing, tenure and institutional or departmental regulations don’t help the situation, since virtually none of them have embraced\u00a0the idea of a more fluid delivery system and the slipperiness of funding and acknowledging interdisciplinary efforts, let alone come to terms with seeing digital collaborations and online publications as up to scholarly snuff [9].<\/p>\n

During class discussion, JJ confirmed that departments (and even whole institutions) are still unwilling to alter its tenure requirements to acknowledge online and digital projects for tenure application, ensuring that important projects that might be begun through class collaboration don’t get funding or attention after the students aren’t there to justify the project’s existence. \u00a0Until those obstacles are removed, it seems unlikely that individual attitudes towards the inclusion of digital humanist tools will change for the better. \u00a0As Zorich notes, there is no incentive to take leadership on these projects, even in art historical research centers not associated with an academic institution [10]. \u00a0It will take highly visible scholars in institutions the world over pushing for a move towards funding and fostering digital art history before wide acceptance might be possible. \u00a0So as exciting as it is to see projects like the one conducted around\u00a0La Bella Principessa<\/em>, the satisfaction of those results are bittersweet.<\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0Johanna Drucker, \u201cIs There a \u201cDigital\u201d Art History?\u201d Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation<\/em>, vol. 29, no.1-2 (2013): 5-13.<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0Adam Kirsch, \u201cThe Limits of the Digital Humanities\u201d in New Republic<\/em>, May 2, 2014;\u00a0Diane M. Zorich, Transitioning to a Digital World: Art History, Its Research Centers, and Digital Scholarship,<\/em>\u00a0Report to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, May 2012.<\/p>\n

[3] Zorich,\u00a0Transitioning to a Digital World<\/em>, 15.<\/p>\n

[4]\u00a0Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

[5]\u00a0Ibid.<\/em>, 22.<\/p>\n

[6]\u00a0Blair Howell, \u201cPBS Documentary Attempts to Identify Renaissance-era Drawing as the Work of Da Vinci,\u201d Desert News<\/em>, January 23, 2012.<\/p>\n

[7]\u00a0Drucker, \u201cIs There A \u201cDigital\u201d Art History?\u201d 9.<\/p>\n

[8] Zorich, Transitioning to a Digital World<\/em>,\u00a022-24.<\/p>\n

[9] Kirsch captures perfectly the concerns of scholars in the humanities who have yet to engage with or gain full knowledge of the digital humanities, noting that these efforts don’t live up to the elegant standards of traditional, print-based scholarship. \u00a0He also, reasonably, sites the issue of tenure (and thus publishing) obstacles were digital humanities to be incorporated into humanities departments;\u00a0Kirsch, \u201cThe Limits of the Digital Humanities.\u201d<\/p>\n

[10] Zorich, Transitioning to a Digital World<\/em>,\u00a022-23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"