The three generations of the French sociology of art

Abstract

This paper introduces the French sociology of art to English-speaking scholars. Its story begins with a shift from the humanities to social sciences through the use of empirical methods, and a change in focus from artworks to the social conditions of their production, mediation, and reception. This meant, initially, a positivist turn, relying on a strong explanatory and determinist paradigm using social origins, positions in a “field,” hidden interests or types of “capitals” as basic and unquestioned tools. Then an interactionist turn appeared, based on the observation of actual interactions between various actors within “art worlds” or “artistic fields.” Then an interpretivist turn happened, addressing the collective representations of art and artists, the values according to which people valuate artworks, and the hierarchy and classifications of artistic genres. Finally, a pragmatic turn introduced a general sociological trend investigating the actual processes owing to which artworks circulate, how things become endowed with the status of an artwork, as well as the conditions and meaning of artistic recognition. Because such issues cannot be fully addressed through the lens of a standard explanatory sociology, this article calls for a descriptive, pragmatic, qualitative, interpretivist, and value-neutral turn, inducing a new French sociology of art.