Looking for the Concept of Style (1753 – 1953)

Abstract

A number of authors have written about the history of the concept of style, one of the key formulating concepts of art history. Those deserving special mention here are Jan Białostocki (‘Styl’, in: BIAŁOSTOCKI, J.: Historia sztuki wśród nauk humanistycznych. Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków-Gdańsk 1980, pp. 36-55), Willibald Sauerländer, (‘From Stilus to Style: Reflections on the Fate of a Notion’, in: Art History, 6, 1983, no. 3, pp. 253-270), Carlo Ginzburg, (‘Stil. Einschließung und Ausschließung’, in: GINZBURG, C.: Holzaugen. Über Nähe und Distanz. Berlin 1999, pp. 168-211), and Robert Suckale (‘Stilgeschichte’, in: Kunsthistorische Arbeitsblätter, 11, 2001, pp. 17-26). The present study is an attempt to map in greater detail the efforts of several generations of scholars to define style, starting with the ‘discovery’ of the history of style in the mid-eighteenth century and ending with the crisis that ensued after the end of the Second World War.