Nationalism vs. “values which survive all temporal conflicts”: art historians during wartimes

The essay deals with the role of art history as a discipline during periods of critical historical watersheds, such as the First World War and its immediate aftermath, focusing on three issues: how the discipline’s network and systems (that is: scholars’ status, relationships among them, affiliations to universities, academies, scholarly associations, the system of publishing, etc.) interact with other spheres and fields (military, political, ideological, etc.); to what extent the art historical system can work as a supranational entity in the presence of national divisions and strong ideological conflicts; or, in other words, how strong is the attachment / feeling of belonging of a scholar to his professional community / group, as opposed to nationalistic choices / ideologies; finally, and more generally, how the discourse on a human endeavour  - in this case art - claiming alleged universal values relates to expertise on art heritage, which can be easily manipulated to foster nationalist or identity aims. Certain episodes during the traumatic periods immediately after the First World War and on the eve of the Second World War demonstrate the complexity of the interplay (to be mainly declined on a rhetorical basis) between art as a humanistic, universal, supranational expression, and art as one of the most eloquent demonstrations of specific feelings of belonging and national identity. Two such episodes involve international congresses of art history (Rome 1912 and London 1939), congresses that, at least in theory, should strengthen the feeling of belonging to a transnational community and promote exchange and collaboration as well as fruitful sharing of research results. A third case, regarding the negotiations between Italy and Yugoslavia for the restitutions of artworks during the Interwar period, offers an insight into the role of art experts in diplomatic affairs.