DOI Artikel:
Schwarz, Michael Viktor: What is style for?
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51712#0025
ŠTÚDIE ! ARTICLES
ARS 39, 2006, 1
What Is Style For?
Michael Viktor SCHWARZ
I.
Fundamentally, art historians can study two as-
pects of a work of art: the represented and that which
represents, the représenter (Saussure would have said
le représentée and le représentant). The study of the repre-
sented is called iconography. The study of the repré-
senter is called critique of style. Critique of style means
that certain characteristics of design are examined
comparatively in Order to deduce from the observa-
tions the authorship and cultural origin of the work:
Rembrandt or an anonymous Dutch painter of the
17th Century, Italian or Byzantine, antique or medie-
val, original or fake? While one can say that iconog-
raphy adequately examines the represented in that it
poses the central question of what is represented, it
does not seem unfair to reproach critique of style for
sticking to mere Symptoms. It is interested in the clas-
sification features of the instruments of representing,
but neither in the respective purposes of the instru-
ments, nor in how they are used by the artists. In
short: It is only interested in how the représenter looks
and not in how it represents.
Apart from spéculations in the normative tradi-
tion of Poussin and classic rhetoric theory which start
from and corne to the assertion that spécifie styles
enable the représentation of spécifie contents,’ there
1 POUSSIN, N.: Lettres et propos sur l’art. Ed. A. BLUNT. Paris
1964, pp. 121-125; BIALOSTOCKI, J.: Das Modusproblem
in den bildenden Künsten: Zur Vorgeschichte und zum Nach-
leben des „Modusbriefes“ von Nicolas Poussin. In: Zeitschrift
für Kunstgeschichte, 24, 1961, pp. 128-141.
2 Cf. BAKOŠ, J.: Der tschechoslowakische Strukturalismus und
die Kunstgeschichtsschreibung. In: Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und
is a school of research which studies the functional
aspect of form systematically. Sometimes the term
formalism is used for it, following the name of a similar
paradigm in literary criticism.1 2 The starting point of
these considérations was the art theoretical text Das
Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst by the sculptor
Adolf von Hildebrand (1893). The best known pro-
ponent is Ernst H. Gombrich. Similar to Hildebrand
- although arguing not from the perspective of the
producer, but instead from that of the interpréter -
in his book Art and Illusion (I960) Gombrich addresses
the question of how the représenter represents: How
is it that a few pencil strokes give viewers the im-
pression of a living face, or that combinations of di-
agonal and orthogonal lineš make it hard for them to
reject the appearance of spatial qualities? Gombrich
maintains that this works because the viewers un-
knowingly collaborate. They complément what they
see according to their expériences and deceive them-
selves in a productive way. In their minds arises from
the représenter not so much the représentation of
objects as the illusion of them, for example of a face
or a space. This approach is an essential contribution
and appears to make art history complété. Neverthe-
less, it is füll of unsolved problems.
Among the unsettled questions in Gombrich’s
model is that of the historicity of form.3 Though cri-
allgemeineKunstwissenschaft, 36, 1991, pp. 5 3-103 ; and B AKOŠ,
J.: The Prague Linguistic Circle’s Contribution to Art Histo-
ry. In: Human Affairs, 15, 2005, pp. 22-34.
3 SCHWARZ, M. V.: Das Problem der Form und ihrer Ge-
schichtlichkeit: Hildebrand, Riegl, Gombrich Baxandall. In:
Wiener Schule: Erinnerung und Perspektiven (= Wiener Jahrbuch
für Kunstgeschichte, 53, 2004). Vienna 2005, pp. 203-216.
19
ARS 39, 2006, 1
What Is Style For?
Michael Viktor SCHWARZ
I.
Fundamentally, art historians can study two as-
pects of a work of art: the represented and that which
represents, the représenter (Saussure would have said
le représentée and le représentant). The study of the repre-
sented is called iconography. The study of the repré-
senter is called critique of style. Critique of style means
that certain characteristics of design are examined
comparatively in Order to deduce from the observa-
tions the authorship and cultural origin of the work:
Rembrandt or an anonymous Dutch painter of the
17th Century, Italian or Byzantine, antique or medie-
val, original or fake? While one can say that iconog-
raphy adequately examines the represented in that it
poses the central question of what is represented, it
does not seem unfair to reproach critique of style for
sticking to mere Symptoms. It is interested in the clas-
sification features of the instruments of representing,
but neither in the respective purposes of the instru-
ments, nor in how they are used by the artists. In
short: It is only interested in how the représenter looks
and not in how it represents.
Apart from spéculations in the normative tradi-
tion of Poussin and classic rhetoric theory which start
from and corne to the assertion that spécifie styles
enable the représentation of spécifie contents,’ there
1 POUSSIN, N.: Lettres et propos sur l’art. Ed. A. BLUNT. Paris
1964, pp. 121-125; BIALOSTOCKI, J.: Das Modusproblem
in den bildenden Künsten: Zur Vorgeschichte und zum Nach-
leben des „Modusbriefes“ von Nicolas Poussin. In: Zeitschrift
für Kunstgeschichte, 24, 1961, pp. 128-141.
2 Cf. BAKOŠ, J.: Der tschechoslowakische Strukturalismus und
die Kunstgeschichtsschreibung. In: Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und
is a school of research which studies the functional
aspect of form systematically. Sometimes the term
formalism is used for it, following the name of a similar
paradigm in literary criticism.1 2 The starting point of
these considérations was the art theoretical text Das
Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst by the sculptor
Adolf von Hildebrand (1893). The best known pro-
ponent is Ernst H. Gombrich. Similar to Hildebrand
- although arguing not from the perspective of the
producer, but instead from that of the interpréter -
in his book Art and Illusion (I960) Gombrich addresses
the question of how the représenter represents: How
is it that a few pencil strokes give viewers the im-
pression of a living face, or that combinations of di-
agonal and orthogonal lineš make it hard for them to
reject the appearance of spatial qualities? Gombrich
maintains that this works because the viewers un-
knowingly collaborate. They complément what they
see according to their expériences and deceive them-
selves in a productive way. In their minds arises from
the représenter not so much the représentation of
objects as the illusion of them, for example of a face
or a space. This approach is an essential contribution
and appears to make art history complété. Neverthe-
less, it is füll of unsolved problems.
Among the unsettled questions in Gombrich’s
model is that of the historicity of form.3 Though cri-
allgemeineKunstwissenschaft, 36, 1991, pp. 5 3-103 ; and B AKOŠ,
J.: The Prague Linguistic Circle’s Contribution to Art Histo-
ry. In: Human Affairs, 15, 2005, pp. 22-34.
3 SCHWARZ, M. V.: Das Problem der Form und ihrer Ge-
schichtlichkeit: Hildebrand, Riegl, Gombrich Baxandall. In:
Wiener Schule: Erinnerung und Perspektiven (= Wiener Jahrbuch
für Kunstgeschichte, 53, 2004). Vienna 2005, pp. 203-216.
19