Style (visual arts)
In the visual arts, style is a "... distinctive manner which permits the grouping of works into related categories"[1] or "... any distinctive, and therefore recognizable, way in which an act is performed or an artifact made or ought to be performed and made".[2] Style refers to the visual appearance of a work of art that relates to other works with similar aesthetic roots, by the same artist, or from the same period, training, location, "school", art movement or archaeological culture: "The notion of style has long been historian's principal mode of classifying works of art".[3]
Style can be divided into the general style of a period, country or cultural group, group of artists or
After dominating academic discussion in art history in the 19th and early 20th centuries, so-called "style art history" has come under increasing attack in recent decades, and many art historians now prefer to avoid stylistic classifications where they can.[5]
Overview
Any piece of art is in theory capable of being analysed in terms of style; neither periods nor artists can avoid having a style, except by complete incompetence,[6] and conversely natural objects or sights cannot be said to have a style, as style only results from choices made by a maker.[7] Whether the artist makes a conscious choice of style, or can identify his own style, hardly matters. Artists in recent developed societies tend to be highly conscious of their own style, arguably over-conscious, whereas for earlier artists stylistic choices were probably "largely unselfconscious".[8]
Most stylistic periods are identified and defined later by art historians, but artists may choose to define and name their own style. The names of most older styles are the invention of art historians and would not have been understood by the practitioners of those styles. Some originated as terms of derision, including
on the other hand was a conscious identification made by a few artists; the word itself seems to have originated with critics rather than painters, but was rapidly accepted by the artists.Western art, like that of some other cultures, most notably
History of the concept
Classical art criticism and the relatively few medieval writings on aesthetics did not greatly develop a concept of style in art, or analysis of it,[12] and though Renaissance and Baroque writers on art are greatly concerned with what we would call style, they did not develop a coherent theory of it, at least outside architecture:
Artistic styles shift with cultural conditions; a self-evident truth to any modern art historian, but an extraordinary idea in this period [Early Renaissance and earlier]. Nor is it clear that any such idea was articulated in antiquity ... Pliny was attentive to changes in ways of art-making, but he presented such changes as driven by technology and wealth. Vasari, too, attributes the strangeness and, in his view the deficiencies, of earlier art to lack of technological know-how and cultural sophistication.[13]
The theorist of
Constructing schemes of the period styles of historic art and architecture was a major concern of 19th century scholars in the new and initially mostly German-speaking field of art history, with important writers on the broad theory of style including Carl Friedrich von Rumohr, Gottfried Semper, and Alois Riegl in his Stilfragen of 1893, with Heinrich Wölfflin and Paul Frankl continuing the debate in the 20th century.[17] Paul Jacobsthal and Josef Strzygowski are among the art historians who followed Riegl in proposing grand schemes tracing the transmission of elements of styles across great ranges in time and space. This type of art history is also known as formalism, or the study of forms or shapes in art.[18]
Semper, Wölfflin, and Frankl, and later Ackerman, had backgrounds in the history of architecture, and like many other terms for period styles, "Romanesque" and "Gothic" were initially coined to describe architectural styles, where major changes between styles can be clearer and more easy to define, not least because style in architecture is easier to replicate by following a set of rules than style in figurative art such as painting. Terms originated to describe architectural periods were often subsequently applied to other areas of the visual arts, and then more widely still to music, literature and the general culture.[19]
In architecture stylistic change often follows, and is made possible by, the discovery of new techniques or materials, from the Gothic
Although style was well-established as a central component of art historical analysis, seeing it as the over-riding factor in art history had fallen out of fashion by World War II, as other ways of looking at art were developing,
The use of terms such as
A rare recent attempt to create a theory to explain the process driving changes in artistic style, rather than just theories of how to describe and categorize them, is by the
Individual style
Traditional art history has also placed great emphasis on the individual style, sometimes called the signature style,[28] of an artist: "the notion of personal style—that individuality can be uniquely expressed not only in the way an artist draws, but also in the stylistic quirks of an author's writing (for instance)— is perhaps an axiom of Western notions of identity".[29] The identification of individual styles is especially important in the attribution of works to artists, which is a dominant factor in their valuation for the art market, above all for works in the Western tradition since the Renaissance. The identification of individual style in works is "essentially assigned to a group of specialists in the field known as connoisseurs",[30] a group who centre in the art trade and museums, often with tensions between them and the community of academic art historians.[31]
The exercise of connoisseurship is largely a matter of subjective impressions that are hard to analyse, but also a matter of knowing details of technique and the "hand" of different artists.
However the idea of personal style is certainly not limited to the Western tradition. In
The painter
Manner
"Manner" is a related term, often used for what is in effect a sub-division of a style, perhaps focused on particular points of style or technique.
Style in archaeology
In
As in art history,
Stylization
Stylization and stylized (or stylisation and stylised in (non-Oxford) British English, respectively) have a more specific meaning, referring to visual depictions that use simplified ways of representing objects or scenes that do not attempt a full, precise and accurate representation of their visual appearance (mimesis or "realistic"), preferring an attractive or expressive overall depiction. More technically, it has been defined as "the decorative generalization of figures and objects by means of various conventional techniques, including the simplification of line, form, and relationships of space and color",[44] and observed that "[s]tylized art reduces visual perception to constructs of pattern in line, surface elaboration and flattened space".[45]
Ancient, traditional, and
Even in art that is in general attempting mimesis or "realism", a degree of stylization is very often found in details, and especially figures or other features at a small scale, such as people or trees etc. in the distant background even of a large work. But this is not stylization intended to be noticed by the viewer, except on close examination.
"Stylized" may mean the adoption of any style in any context, and in
Computer identification and recreation
In a 2012 experiment at Lawrence Technological University in Michigan, a computer analysed approximately 1,000 paintings from 34 well-known artists using a specially developed algorithm and placed them in similar style categories to human art historians.[48] The analysis involved the sampling of more than 4,000 visual features per work of art.[48][49]
Apps such as Deep Art Effects can turn photos into art-like images claimed to be in the style of painters such as
See also
- Artistic rendering
- Composition (visual arts)
- Mise en scène
Notes
- ISBN 978-0-7148-2991-3
- ^ Gombrich, 150
- ^ George Kubler summarizing the view of Meyer Schapiro (with whom he disagrees), quoted by Alpers in Lang, 138
- ^ Elkins, s. 1
- ^ Elkins, s. 2; Kubler in Lang, 163–164; Alpers in Lang, 137–138; 161
- ^ George Kubler goes further "No human acts escape style", Kubler in Lang, 167; II, 3 in his list; Elkins, s. 2
- ^ Lang, 177–178
- ^ Elsner, 106–107, 107 quoted
- ^ Gombrich, 131; Honour & Fleming, 13–14; Elkins, s. 2
- ^ Honour & Fleming, 13
- ^ Elsner, 107–108, 108 quoted
- ^ classical authors did leave a considerable and subtle body of analysis of style in literature, especially rhetoric; see Gombrich, 130–131
- ^ Nagel and Wood, 92
- ^ See Blunt throughout, with in particular pp. 14–22 on Alberti, 28–34 on Leonardo, 61–64 on Michelangelo, 89–95 and 98–100 on Vasari
- ^ Elkins, s. 2; Preziosi, 115–117; Gombrich, 136
- ISBN 9781847065919
- ^ Elkins, s. 2, 3; Rawson, 24
- ^ Rawson, 24
- ^ Gombrich, 129; Elsner, 104
- ^ Gombrich, 131–136; Elkins, s. 2; Rawson, 24–25
- ^ Kubler in Lang, 163
- ^ Alpers in Lang, 137
- ^ Elkins, s. 2 (quoted); see also Gombrich, 135–136
- ^ Elkins, s. 2; analysed by Kubler in Lang, 164–165
- ^ Elsner, 98
- ^ Murphy, 324
- ^ Summarized in his article "Evolution of Ancient Art: Trends in the Style of Greek Vases and Egyptian Painting", Visual Arts Research, Vol. 16, No. 1(31) (Spring 1990), pp. 31–47, University of Illinois Press, JSTOR Archived 2016-09-20 at the Wayback Machine
- S2CID 163333589.
- ^ Elsner, 103
- ^ Alpers in Lang, 139, a situation she sees as problematic
- ^ Exemplified in grumbling by Grosvenor; Crane, 214–216
- ^ Elsner, 103; Dictionary of Art Historians: "Giovanni Morelli" Archived 2018-11-06 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Gotlieb, throughout; 469–475 on Vasari and van Eyck; 469 on Seurat.
- ^ Rawson, 92–102; 111–119
- ^ Rawson, 27
- ^ https://museumsandcollections.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/2942274/13_Ritchie_Gainsboroughs-signature-22.pdf Archived 2021-10-27 at the Wayback Machine[bare URL PDF]
- ^ "Pop art | Characteristics, Definition, Style, Movement, Types, Artists, Paintings, Prints, Examples, Lichtenstein, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
- ^ "What Is Poetry?", "Petronius Arbiter", The Art World, Vol. 3, No. 6 (Mar., 1918), pp. 506–511, JSTOR Archived 2018-12-15 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Christie's "Explanation of Cataloguing Practice" (after lot listings) Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine. "Style" is not used for paintings etc., but for European porcelain they give the example:"A plate in the Worcester style" means "In our opinion, a copy or imitation of pieces made in the named factory, place or region". For examples, this painting, sold by Bonhams in 2011 Archived 2013-05-22 at the Wayback Machine as "Manner of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn", is now attributed in their notes to "an anonymous eighteenth-century follower of Rembrandt". This example sold by Christie's Archived 2013-05-25 at the Wayback Machine fetched only £750 in 2010.
- ^ Kubler, George (1962). The Shape of Time : Remarks on the History of Things. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Kubler, p. 14: "human products always incorporate both utility and art in varying mixtures, and no object is conceivable without the admixture of both"; see also Alpers in Lang, 140
- ^ Bahn & Vertut, 89
- ^ Thermoluminescence dating can be used for much ceramic material, and the developing method of Rehydroxylation dating may become widely used.
- ^ Review by Mary Ann Levine of The Uses of Style in Archaeology, edited by Margaret Conkey and Christine Hastorf (see further reading), pp. 779–780, American Antiquity, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), Society for American Archaeology, JSTOR Archived 2016-09-20 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Stylization" in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1979, online at The Free Dictionary Archived 2013-06-07 at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 0851156827, 9780851156828, google books
- ^ See Elsner, 107 on Picasso as the paradigm of "the supremely self-conscious poseur in any style you like".
- ISBN 0521248043, 9780521248044, google books
- ^ a b Suzanne Tracy (ed.), "Computers Match Humans in Understanding Art", Scientific Computing, retrieved November 2, 2012 This is a summary of an article appearing in the ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage; the original article was not available at the time of this citation's insertion; citation for original publication follows: Shamir, Lior, and Jane A. Tarakhovsky. "Computer analysis of art." Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH) 5.2 (2012): 7.
- ^ See also Gombrich, 140, commenting in 1968 that no such analysis was feasible at that time.
- ^ "A.I. photo filters use neural networks to make photos look like Picassos". Digital Trends. 18 November 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
- ^ Biersdorfer, J. D. (4 December 2019). "From Camera Roll to Canvas: Make Art From Your Photos". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
- arXiv:2208.01618 [cs.CV].
- ^ Vincent, James (5 September 2022). "DALL-E can now help you imagine what's outside the frame of famous paintings". The Verge. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
- ^ Edwards, Benj (6 September 2022). "With Stable Diffusion, you may never believe what you see online again". Ars Technica. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
- ^ James, Dave (27 October 2022). "I thrashed the RTX 4090 for 8 hours straight training Stable Diffusion to paint like my uncle Hermann". PC Gamer. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
- ^ Ford, Paul. "Dear Artists: Do Not Fear AI Image Generators". Wired. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
- ^ Metz, Rachel (21 October 2022). "These artists found out their work was used to train AI. Now they're furious | CNN Business". CNN. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
References
- "Alpers in Lang": Alpers, Svetlana, "Style is What You Make It", in The Concept of Style, ed. Berel Lang, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 137–162, google books.
- Bahn, Paul G. and Vertut, Jean, Journey Through the Ice Age, University of California Press, 1997, ISBN 0520213068, 9780520213067, google books
- ISBN 0198810504
- Crane, Susan A. ed, Museums and Memory, Cultural Sitings, 2000, Stanford University Press, ISBN 0804735646, 9780804735643, google books
- Elkins, James, "Style" in Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, Oxford University Press, accessed March 6, 2013, subscriber link
- ISBN 0226571696, 9780226571690, google books
- Gombrich, E. "Style" (1968), orig. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. D. L. Sills, xv (New York, 1968), reprinted in Preziosi, D. (ed.) The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology (see below), whose page numbers are used.
- Gotlieb, Marc, "The Painter's Secret: Invention and Rivalry from Vasari to Balzac", The Art Bulletin, Vol. 84, No. 3 (Sep., 2002), pp. 469–490, JSTOR
- Grosvenor, Bendor, "On connoisseurship", article in Fine Art Connoisseur, 2011?, now on "art History News" website
- ISBN 9781856695848
- "Kubler in Lang": Kubler, George, Towards a Reductive Theory of Style, in Lang
- Lang, Berel (ed.), The Concept of Style, 1987, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ISBN 0801494397, 9780801494390, google books; includes essays by Alpers and Kubler
- Murphy, Caroline P., Review of: After Raphael: Painting in Central Italy in the Sixteenth Century by Marcia B. Hall, The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 86, No. 2 (Apr., 2000), pp. 323–324, Catholic University of America Press, JSTOR
- Nagel, Alexander, and ISBN 9781942130345, google books
- Preziosi, D. (ed.) The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN 9780714829913
- ISBN 0714114316
Further reading
- Conkey, Margaret W., Hastorf, Christine Anne (eds.), The Uses of Style in Archaeology, 1990, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Review by Clemency Chase Coggins in Journal of Field Archaeology,1992), from JSTOR
- Davis, W. Replications: Archaeology, Art History, Psychoanalysis. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. (Chapter on "Style and History in Art History", pp. 171–198.) ISBN 0-271-01524-1
- ISBN 0-262-16151-6
- Schapiro, Meyer, "Style", in Theory and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, and Society, New York: Georg Braziller, 1995), 51–102
- Sher, Yakov A.; "On the Sources of the Scythic Animal Style", Arctic Anthropology, Vol. 25, No. 2 (1988), pp. 47–60; University of Wisconsin Press, JSTOR; pp. 50–51 discuss the difficulty of capturing style in words.
- Siefkes, Martin, Arielli, Emanuele, The Aesthetics and Multimodality of Style, 2018, New York, Peter Lang, ISBN 9783631739426
- ISBN 0140218637
- Wölfflin, Heinrich, Principles of Art History. The Problem of the Development of Style in Later Art, Translated from 7th German Edition (1929) into English by M D Hottinger, Dover Publications New York, 1950 and many reprints
- See also the lists at Elsner, 108–109 and Elkins