Book Recommendation (Mahnoor, Non-Core Post #10)

This book was recommended to me a few months ago by a friend: Painting By Numbers: Data-Driven Histories of Nineteenth Century Art by Diana Seave Greenwald. In college, I worked in an art museum as a tour guide. As guides, we were allowed to design thematic tours, and in mine, I asked visitors to think about people, places, and cultures often left out of dominant visual narratives. It never occurred to me that data-driven approaches were being used to dismantle cultural hierarchies within the art world/museum space. From the publisher's website: "Ultimately, Greenwald considers how many works may have been excluded from art historical inquiry and shows how data can help reintegrate them into the history of art, even after such pieces have disappeared or faded into obscurity." I've only read the introduction so far, but I am really impressed by Greenwald's methodology and her very intentional balance of quantitative and qualitative analysis. I'm excited to continue reading and wanted to share this positive, non-dystopic use of data for anyone interested in art history!