Can we have a critical art history using digital methods? To answer this question, we need to ask what are the critical questions in art history that demand and are best suited to specific digital methods? This article argues that asking a critical question involves taking up the long art-historical tradition of the social history of art. Social art history is not satisfied with a social context for art, but rather reverses this equation by arguing that an analysis of art, artist, and audience must tell us something structurally about society. It is these kinds of questions that critically engage in broader art-historical debates. When questions such as these rely on large bodies of evidence – which they often do if “society” is their focus of study – then the scale of the project is, in today’s context, best suited for digital methods. In sum, digital art history lets us address the tradition of the social history of art in new ways. The following essay seeks to advance a nuanced triangulation between our art-historical topics of study, our methodological debates, and computational analysis. In specific terms, exploring alternative subjects of art history as well as the particular analytical methods of social art history opens up the debates in the discipline to a more critical intervention with digital methods.

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作为艺术社会史的数字艺术史：走向数字方法的学科相关性

我们可以使用数字方法来制作批判性艺术史吗？为了回答这个问题，我们需要问艺术史上哪些关键问题需要并最适合特定的数字方法？本文认为，提出一个批判性问题涉及到艺术社会史的悠久艺术史传统。社会艺术史并不满足于艺术的社会背景，而是通过认为对艺术、艺术家和观众的分析必须从结构上告诉我们一些关于社会的东西来颠倒这个等式。正是这些类型的问题批判性地参与了更广泛的艺术史辩论。当诸如此类的问题依赖于大量证据时——如果“社会”是他们的研究重点，他们通常会这样做——那么在今天的背景下，项目的规模最适合数字方法。总共，数字艺术史让我们以新的方式处理艺术社会史的传统。下面的文章旨在推进我们的艺术史研究主题、我们的方法论辩论和计算分析之间的微妙三角关系。具体而言，探索艺术史的替代主题以及社会艺术史的特定分析方法，开启了该学科的辩论，以对数字方法进行更批判性的干预。