The Dictionary of Art: The Concept, the Challenges, and the AchievementsAuthor(s): Wendy GardnerSource: Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, Vol. 15,No. 2 (Fall 1996), pp. 29-32Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Art Libraries Society of NorthAmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27948844 .

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The Dictionary of Art: The Concept, the

Chattenges, and the Achievements

by Wendy Gardner, The Dictionary of Art

The following is an adaptation from papers presented by Dictionary of Art Director lan Jacobs, Editor Jane Turner, and South Asian Advisor Daniel Ehnbom, professor of art history, University of Virginia, CharlottesviUe, at the ARLIS/NA an nual conference in Miami Beach, Florida, in April 1996*

Art librarians and art historians are among the many who have patiently awaited the most comprehensive and authorita tive art historical reference ever to be published. In October 1996, after fifteen years of extraordinary effort and investment, Grove's Dictionaries in tandem with Macmillan Publishers will publish The Dictionary of Art.

This landmark publication will present in one unprecedented reference the visual arts of all the world's cultures and civilizations from prehistory to present times. In her talk to ARLIS/NA mem bers in Miami Beach, Jane Turner mesmerized many listeners with basic facts about The Dictionary of Art:

There are over 45,000 entries, arranged alphabetically, in the first 33 volumes, with a separate index in volume 34.

The entries consist of 26 million words of text, of which 14 percent is devoted to bibliographical references.

These 45,000 articles were written by 6,700 scholars from more than 120 countries around the world.

Of the 45,000 articles, 12,000 arrived in the London editorial office in a language other than English. A team of outside translators had to tackle articles in 30 different languages.

The articles are accompanied by 15,000 black-and-white il lustrations and 300 color plates.

The second, final set of page proofs are in excess of 30,000 pages.

The index itself comprises about 750,000 references.

At any one time over the past decade, about 100 editors worked on The Dictionary, most of them in the London of

fices, though many worked from overseas.

The sheer size of The Dictionary is astounding, but such large numbers may obscure the reality of the project, for there are really only two elements?people and ideas. Together they make for one of the most challenging intellectual exercises in the history of

publishing. Dictionary Editor Jane Turner, Director Ian Jacobs, and South Asian Art Advisor Dan Ehnbom spoke to ARLIS/NA mem

bers about the concept and challenges that The Dictionary team has faced over the last decade, from the gestation of The Dictio

nary of Art to the completion of page proofs. Ian Jacobs described how, in 1981, the idea for The Dictionary

of Art was born. In almost casual conversation following the launch of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, former Brit ish Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, president of Macmillan Publishers, and Nicholas Byam Shaw, managing director, consid ered what they might undertake as a next project. Byam Shaw

suggested, "Why not do for the visual arts what we have done for the world of music?" "Good idea," said Macmillan. And so the endeavor began.

The Concept The result of an idea formulated 15 years ago is 26 million

words of text. Turner is frequently asked how this enormous 26 million word pie was divided up. How did The Dictionary team decide how long each entry should be? Should Michelangelo be

given more text than Rembrandt? What about Picasso, and what about contemporary living artists? Who was included? Who didn't make it?

Before attention could be turned to these sorts of practical questions, it had to be decided exactly what kind of reference work to create. According to Jacobs, the planning stages began with

market research carried out among librarians and art historians.

Comparative analysis of existing art reference works was executed.

It was with this initial research in hand that the early editorial staff persuaded the publishers that The Dictionary of Art had to be different. It had to address the needs of a modern audience?one far more sophisticated and outward-looking than it would have been even a few years earlier. Architecture and photography would have to be included, and the decorative arts would need to be treated as seriously as the traditional "fine arts" (painting, sculp ture and architecture) as would contemporary art forms such as

performance art and multimedia installations?art works that don't fit neatly into conventional categories. Though this might seem self-evident now, it was not always so clear for The Dictionary's publisher. The first market research brochure produced in the early 1980s, before any editorial staff had been hired, gave extremely cursory treatment to architecture and implied that the whole of the decorative arts could be swept into one entry called "antiques and collectibles."

Moreover, The Dictionary editorial team realized that, if this reference work were to be comprehensive, its coverage could not

1996 ? Volume 15, Number 2 ? Art Documentotion 29

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be limited to biographies of artists or to Western art in general. Turner explained that most ancient cultures and non-Western civi

lizations simply don't lend themselves to a biographical approach. But what sets The Dictionary apart quite dramatically from previ ous reference works is the extraordinary depth and detail of the treatment of the arts of such places as Africa, China, Japan, Ab

original Australia, and Native North America. Editors also de cided that The Dictionary should offer a wider range of article types, including entries on styles, materials, techniques, art forms, coun

tries, cities, and individual buildings, as well as biographies of pa trons, collectors and dealers.

The very act of bringing this broad array of information to

gether "under one roof," as it were, extends The Dictionary's use

fulness, often in very unexpected ways. Turner pointed out a ser

endipity factor, such as discovering the article on "grisaille" when one has gone looking for "Juan Gris." This is in addition to more deliberate ways in which The Dictionary editors pushed forward the boundaries of knowledge and understanding. For example, The

Dictionary's worldwide expert on jade knew that it was used as decoration on some ancient Egyptian jewelry and weapons, but in his article he simply postulated about the source of jade for the ancient Egyptians, suggesting that they may have gotten it via trade with Afghanistan. As editors discovered in the course of

cross-checking articles?a continuous part of the editorial pro

cess?Egyptians had their own jade all along. The author who wrote about minerals, stones, and quarries in the survey of ancient

Egyptian art specifically mentions the natural deposits of jade that were found just beyond the Nile, in the Western Desert. Because

investigations into the use of stone by the ancient Egyptians have tended to focus on the building of the pyramids, it is a field of

enquiry that could easily be overlooked by decorative arts experts. Thus, by bringing together unrelated disciplines, The Dictionary editorial team could sometimes turn speculation into fact.

Another example Turner used to underscore how The Dictio

nary of Art has pushed forward the frontiers of art history comes from what is one of The Dictionary's more unusual entries: a survey on the development of the garden worldwide. Because this infor mation is presented in one continuous section, the reader is able to make links that might not be apparent were the information scattered in different sources. For instance, the word "paradise" is used in connection with one of the earliest documented gardens, the Old Testament Garden of Eden, and it is also later applied to the enclosed green area around a cathedral. But the term origi nates in a Persian word for the enclosed hunting and pleasure gar dens of Ancient Near Eastern rulers. The reader is thus able to trace the transformation of this concept of an enclosed green space from its totally secular origins to its present meaning with its pro foundly religious associations.

Most remarkable is the subsection of the garden article that

surveys pre-Columbian gardens. At the beginning of the project, some 200 outside experts advised The Dictionary on its coverage and on potential authors. But when the academic advisor on pre Columbian art was asked to suggest a scholar to write about Mesoamerican gardens, he swore there was absolutely nothing known or written about the subject. These were still the early days, however, so Turner and senior editors weren't as inclined to take "no" for an answer. An in-house editor was commissioned to

do some independent research and, to everyone's delight, he dis covered several interesting accounts preserved in chronicles writ

ten at the time of the Spanish Conquest. It appears that Babylon was not the only place to have hanging gardens. Chief Moctehcuzuma also had them at his ancient capital of Tenochtitlan in Mexico City.

Over the years, The Dictionary of Art team has been fiercely determined to tell the complete story for all the great civilizations of the world. However, the result of their effort is not simply a

synthesis of existing information; rather, there is new research and fresh insights. As Turner has said, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

Process of Compilation The pursuit of accurate detail is only one part of the editorial

process. At the beginning of Turner's presentation, it almost sounded as if a recipe had been worked out for the 25 million word

pie 15 years ago, and then experts had simply written to the recipe. "Would that it had really been that simple!!" Turner exclaimed.

Since the initial market research in 1981, The Dictionary of Art staff has been consulting on an on-going basis with scholars and librarians round the world about how specific areas should be tackled and who the best person might be to cover each topic. In

early stages, The Dictionary organized a number of formal seminar

type meetings where groups of academic advisors were gathered in a hotel meeting room to discuss a particular problem?whether it was the balance between coverage of different areas of non-West ern art, the relative lengths of patrons' biographies, or how to ap proach the decorative arts.

Coverage has been continually refined as a result of new in formation that has come to light with political changes. For ex

ample, the fall of Communism in the late 1980s led to vast politi cal changes in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. These mandated a complete overhaul of the Dictionary's treatment of those areas. Initially, editors were helped by Soviet (mostly Russian) scholars who had been officially encouraged to support the project through VAAP, the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Once the political situation changed, however, editors were able to en list academics from all of the former Soviet republics to write about their indigenous art traditions, making much of this information available in the West for the first time. In a rather different case, social and political unrest in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan has en

dangered and, in a few cases, destroyed national monuments. It has been important to preserve what is known about these objects as thoroughly as possible. Ehnbom said he was amazed by the dedi cation of many scholars from these areas who managed to use faxes, diplomatic pouches, and other methods to send on their articles and images to London under very difficult circumstances.

Questions of general balance and approach were a constant

challenge to the process of compiling and editing The Dictionary and not only in areas racked by political changes. Inclusion of

twentieth-century artists was reviewed yearly to ensure up-to-date

coverage until the very last opportunity for adding new names. The last biography was written and added in March 1996, two

days before proofreading was completed. Furthermore, as Turner noted, "The hard work doesn't end

once you figure out the headings and who's the best person to write the articles; if you have a simple dictionary or directory of

biographies, you just put them in alphabetical order." It was not so

straightforward for The Dictionary of Art, as the wide network of article types complicated the logistics of orchestrating how differ ent articles fit together and where each bit of information belonged. This, in turn, affected both the commissioning and the editing of the entries.

Turner illustrated some of the larger organizational questions, using as an example the treatment of jade. Should the whole of the history of jade be placed under "J," and if so, where would that leave the survey of the arts of China? Generally speaking, the so

30 Art Documentotion ? Volume 15, Number 2 ? 1996

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lution The Dictionary editorial team adopted was to discuss the Challenges for the Area Advisor material itself under its own heading: under "jade" one will learn

what jade is, where it comes from, what its unique properties are,

how it is worked, and what conservation problems it presents. In ticular subject was Professor Daniel Ehnbom, Univer other words, all the common characteristics are dealt with in one ginia at Charlottesville, who has been involved with

place, so that there is no need to repeat the information under nary of Art since 1984. An advisor on the coverage of S each civilization, culture, or country that used the material. This art, Ehnbom worked along with such leading scholar technical discussion of the material is usually accompanied by a Morris, Pat Bahree Barylski, Michael Willis, Vidya D ,

brief survey of its history and use worldwide, with cross-references especially Pramod Chandra of Harvard, who were all ci to more detailed discussions under other headings, especially non- sors at many points for the Indian side of the project.

Western civilization articles. For the stylistic development of jade- The Dictionary of Art has about 684,000 words on S

carving in China, the reader will need to go to the survey of China art, a substantial increase over the original goal of 500 in the "C" volume. In some cases, there are further subtleties in represents a considerable undertaking in and of itself c the way information is organized. Where there is a coherent his- Dictionary contains one of the most extensive and wi

tory of a material or technique's use, for example in Western Eu- surveys of South Asian art ever attempted. In addition

rope, then this story will also be found under the general name. 500 illustrations, some in color, and several maps of So The main point is that no culture's production of art has been sites.

excluded or treated superficially. The decisions were made for the Where Turner illustrated some of the overall con convenience of the reader, with cross-referencing used extensively. sues of concern to Dictionary editors, Ehnbom was A

Editors also had to take into account the complex ways in light some specific logistical problems endemic to a So which the different types of articles in The Dictionary of Art over- area editor-namely, how to categorize such a vast ran

lap. When dealing with a group of related entries, it is important rial. Over time, scholars have used various methods. to ensure that the discussion in all the different places is consis- heavily on dynastic appellation, a system that suggests tent factually but not repetitive in terms of wasting space. There exclusively the domain of princes. The second methoc will be a slightly different slant, a new story, from each different rization uses the essentialist view, which claims that th context. dynasty directs the development of artistic style. Th

Although The Dictionary has aimed for factual consistency, method, a third classification system, divides Indian art

Turner admits that this, at times, has proved to be rather an illu- (when used in religious rather than merely geographic sive goal. "Art history is not a science, and, as all of you are well is essentially a nineteenth-century European construct) aware, there are huge and sometimes quite heated debates in al- Jam, and Islamic, among others. most every field. There are differences of opinions over attribu- Further complexities exist within these various m

tion, dates, historical origins and significance-you name it. Some classification, particularly where exact dates of many m areas are political minefields." Dictionary policy in such cases was do not exist nor do the boundaries of numerous politic to respect the views of the author whose signature appears on the Additional categorical issues arise if the given artistic bottom of the entry, while alerting the reader to areas of contro- not necessarily coincide with the dynasty with which

versy by means of parenthetical remarks and cross-references. And ally associated. Moreover, there is relatively little har

by having so many types of articles, editors were able to accom- for direct imperial or royal intervention in the establ modate many different opinions. The Dictionary of Art, therefore, artistic workshops and stylistic developments. Ehnbom o

reflects no one single school of thought but rather the wide spec- out an inherent problem in using the sectarian method trum of scholarly views and approaches operating in today's art degree, all the religions of India use a common symli historical world. sual vocabulary turned to different sectarian uses, and

The field of art scholarship was not the only area affected by connections of any given work of art are not always im

politics. Turner reminded librarians how many name and border apparent.

changes have occurred since the 1980s. For years Dictionary edi- "The result," Ehnbom declared, "was guaranteed tors waited on tenterhooks to see what would happen in the former In order to smooth over these categorical issues, a d

USSR and Yugoslavia. Even once things were reasonably sorted expandable outline was developed by Rekha Morris, in out, editors could not simply change every mention of the word to ihPao hnr,Eno,adohr.Ti uln "Leningrad," for example, to "St. Petersburg." Instead, they coy- sevdaastuurlgiefrheinlpoc.Itlosredsa ered the history of the city when it was called Leningrad. For ex- stemnofprseadnitleculgdeorEbmad

ample, a catalogue for an exhibition held there in 1960 was not SotAsaauhr.Dcinyedosmdenerldcsono published in St. Petersburg. Moreover, a group of sixteenth-cen- aoddnsi n etra lsiiaint h erepsil tury drawings by an unknown artist christened by art historians infvrogerahclndtm rlctgresHwvr,oe the "Master of the Leningrad Sketchbook" has not suddenly been ueo yatctriooyi odel meddi coal reattributed to the "Master of the St. Petersburg Sketchbook." cncosesta ti onepoutv oaodi opeey

Nevertheless, every current location for a work of art given as adi oelmtdcnet tmyee eueu.Tu,aBd

"Leningrad, Hermitage" had to be changed in the database by edi- dafo ant a o setaie sGpaBdhs r u tors."TawapehpbetrdsrbdaanAD47BudafoSaah

"htI personally prayed for the success of the Dayton peace inesenUtrPashAtniowsalodwnoisre accord had almost as much to do with The Dictionary as it did with tinhponn-udstcltreftesaeeidadrgo.

feelings of humanitarianism and patriotism towards my native state Bodcrnlgclctgre eeue hthdsm eain of Ohio." Turner also reflected on last year's Canadian referen- si opltclhsoybtpiaiyarltosi oathsoi dum. As far as she was concerned, "it was simply too late by then cadelomnsPlicladscalhtryweasoaknno

for eopl to tar mesing bou andcreaing ewounties!Pco sieatingh atitlf, owee,ee at the edtoiarpo essntr

giniatChal19esvlle whom 15, Nber inole Arth Thuenictio-3

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rather than reduced to a simple illustration of history. The section on India covers the subcontinent up to 1947,

with post-independence developments in post-partition India ar

ranged according to the new political entities. Therefore, the bulk of coverage is presented together in a single survey, but relevant material is inserted throughout the 34 volumes. For example, South Asian entries on individual artists (when names are known) and

archaeological and architectural sites are sprinkled throughout The

Dictionary and in such general and diverse surveys as album, color, garden, etc. Thus, South Asian coverage is multi-tiered.

Editors also agreed that bibliography was extremely impor tant. "I can honestly say," Ehnbom boasts, "that the Indian sec tion of The Dictionary represents one of the most comprehensive bibliographic resources that exists." Included is material on virtu

ally every aspect of South Asian art history, ranging from the en shrined classics to the obscure to the very recent.

Ease of Use Having explained how the amazing breadth of material was

organized into The Dictionary of Art, Turner gave a short tutorial on how to use it. The Dictionary's team of editors have ensured its ease-of-use by beginning longer, multi-part articles with introduc

tory paragraphs summarizing the topic's importance and provid ing a numbered table of contents. There are three additional prac tical features that will aid the reader seeking specific information.

The first is the provision of variant bold headings for all those

places less prominent than Leningrad that have changed names and spellings over the centuries, along with various translitera tion systems in operation today and in older literature. For in stance, the pinyin system of transliterating Chinese is used through out Britain today, but ARLIS/NA members told Dictionary editors that the Wade-Giles system is still used in America. As a result, for every Chinese biography in The Dictionary there is an alterna tive bold heading under the Wade-Giles form, redirecting the reader to the pinyin spelling.

Secondly, The Dictionary's extensive system of cross-referenc

ing, by means of large and small capital letters, is embedded within the text of entries and serves to guide the reader to further discus sions and related topics elsewhere in the 33 volumes. Finally, the

1,000-page index volume will allow easy access to the 45,000 ar ticles.

Most importantly, The Dictionary of Art is rewarding to use. Each time a reader opens a volume, the possibilities for fascinat

ing and informative journeys are endless. Each journey can be tai

lor-made to accommodate the individual's personal interests,

whether researching an eighth-century pre-Columbian pyramid in East Kansas City, Illinois (Cahokia), the sixteenth-century art of Haarlem, the Netherlands, or the latest developments in Latin American art as practiced in Spanish Harlem, New York.

Technological Challenges All this work, of course, needed to be supported by the best

and most flexible technology. Ian Jacobs recalled that in late 1985 The Dictionary's production manager researched software suppli ers in the United States, Europe, and Japan, and found only five or six companies in the world who could provide the technical

back-up required. The Dictionary needed a company with experi ence in handling large-scale databases; with reliable yet flexible software; programming skills necessary to adapt software to Dictio nary requirements; and, not least, with staff who understood the demands of a complex publishing project. Furthermore, with an

image bank in excess of 15,000 images, The Dictionary needed the best available imaging technology and, eventually, a powerful batch-pagination process to produce page make-up of over 30?00 pages in a matter of a few weeks. "This," Jacobs told ARLIS/NA members, "is no mean feat and has stretched the capacity of cur rent technology to its limits."

In 1985, Dictionary publishers invited bids and presentations from five possible suppliers. They looked at technical and human resources in considerable detail. At least two of them have since

gone under, not, Jacobs hopes, because they did not get the con tract for The Dictionary of Art. In the end, even their chosen sup plier could not provide all the technical expertise required. As a

result, the data basing and page make-up of The Dictionary was handled by Pindar in Beccles, Suffolk, and the digitization of im ages was, in the end, contracted to R. R. Donnelley & Sons, in

Willard, Ohio.

Jacobs explained that these technologies gave The Dictionary two enormous benefits: flexibility to allow editors to update and

reorganize coverage up to the very last stages of production, and the ability to choose any method of delivery that might be avail able in the future. This flexibility is truly a marvel of modern tech

nology, but like most marvels it does not come cost-free. The cod

ing required to take full advantage of these technologies increased editorial costs by about 25 percent. "We all know that we are liv

ing through a technological revolution and that technology changes extremely rapidly," Jacobs concluded. This required The

Dictionary of Art's publishers and production team to review avail able technology constantly.

32 Art Documentotion ? Volume 15, Number 2 ? 1996

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