The history of art encompasses both the study of the history of those material objects termed as art themselves and the use of those objects as sources for writing history. It has always been catholic in its methodology, drawing on other disciplines such as philosophy and anthropology, and later being influenced by both Marxism and feminism. The Courtauld Institute, influenced by the scholarship of Aby Warburg and his fellow emigrés in the 1930s, has been the leading centre for the study of art history in Britain, but from the 1960s the subject has also proliferated in the universities. Recent debates have included that over whether the term 'art' is now redundant, and should be replaced by 'visual culture'.
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