Stephen Bann

Stephen Bann CBE, FBA (born 1 August 1942) is the emeritus professor of history of art at the University of Bristol.

Its very self-contained nature (as opposed to an extract from a text) enables it to generate cross-references as well as to provide a field for practical analysis" (Romanticism and the Rise of History).

Here, the subjectivity of the author of a museum or collection is established as significant in determining how particular representations of the past are structured, specifically in terms of tendencies toward synecdoche (empathetic recreation) and/or metonymy (mechanical and sequential display).

Similarly, in writing on the history of gardens, Bann has found cause to cite the Scottish poet Ian Hamilton Finlay, among others indicative of a contemporary imaginative predisposition.

The argument is completed with an assessment of Post-Modernism in connection with "the historical phenomenon of 'curiosity'" which, for Bann, "has resurfaced as a widespread and noteworthy feature of present-day art".