Style in the Art Theory of Early Modern Italy

A study of style as an important artistic, literary, and historiographic practice.

Philip Sohm (Author)

9780521780698, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 October 2001

344 pages, 21 b/w illus.
25.9 x 18.3 x 2.5 cm, 0.889 kg

"Sohm writes (dare one say it?) with such style, and with such clarity, that his book is likely to be found accessible and engaging by scholars well beyond this restricted field. It is important reading for all who wish to understand the development of the theory and criticism of style, and its often frustratingly subjective nature." Sharon Gregory, RACAR

Style is one of the oldest and most powerful analytic tools available to art writers. Through style, they have made attributions and dated paintings, classified works of art into artistic periods or schools, and verbally captured the visual essence of paintings. Despite the importance of style as an artistic, literary, and historiographic practice, the study of it as a concept has been intermittent, perhaps, as Philip Sohm argues, because style has resisted neat definition since the very origins of art history as a discipline. In this study, Sohm examines discussions of style from Vasari to Baldinucci, showing how the linguistic dimension of visual perception, the means through which painters styles have been described, and how concepts of language have shaped ideas of style. His analysis of the language that painters and their literate public used to characterize painters and paintings will enrich our understanding about the concept of style.

Introduction
Part I. Language and Style: 1. Fighting with style
2. The language of style
Part II. Definitions of Style: 3. Defining definition
4. Giorgio Vasari: aestheticizing and historicizing style
5. Nicolas Poussin and the rhetoric of style
6. Marco Boschini: the techniques and artifice of style
7. Filippo Baldinucci: cataloguing style and language
8. A conclusion on indeterminate styles.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], History of art & design styles: c 1400 to c 1600 [ACN]