Style of art

14th century Islamic ornament in ivory, centred on a palmette; Alois Riegl's Stilfragen (1893) traced the evolution and transmission of such motifs.

A style of art in the visual arts refers to the visual appearance of a work of art that relates it to other works by the same artist or one from the same period, training, location, "school", art movement or archaeological culture.

Quotes

• ...distinctive manner which permits the grouping of works into related categories.
  • Eric Fernie. Art History and its Methods: A critical anthology. London: Phaidon, 1995, p. 361. ISBN 978-0-7148-2991-3

• ...any distinctive, and therefore recognizable, way in which an act is performed or an artifact made or ought to be performed and made.
  • Ernst Gombrich. "Style" in: International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. D. L. Sills, xv (New York, 1968)

• We do not exactly know the sociological reason for reverence for the past; it may be rooted in tribal and famly solidarity or in the endeavour of the privileged classes to base their privileges on heredity. However that may be, the feeling that what is old must be better is still so strong that art historians and archaeologists do not shrink even from historical falsification when attempting to prove that the style of art which appeals to them most is also the oldest.
  • Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art, Volume I. From Prehistoric Times to the Middle Ages, 1999.

• The notion of style has long been the art historian's principal mode of classifying works of art. By style he selects and shapes the history of art.
  • George Kubler summarizing the view of Meyer Schapiro (with whom he disagrees), quoted by Alpers in Lang, Berel (ed.), The Concept of Style, 1987, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ISBN 0801494397

• The subject of industrial design is one of three important practical co-related subjects which should be taught in public schools, and to which practice and skill in drawing should be applied. Satisfactory results in this subject, however, depend entirely upon the manner in which it is taught. Instruction in industrial design means a clear presentation of the principles which obtain in the construction and harmonious arrangement of geometric form for decorative purposes, the proper use of plant forms in ornamental arrangements, and the principles of good taste to be found in the great history styles of art.
  • Walter Smith (1836-1886) American Text-books of Art Education: Drawing-books 1 and 2, 1880, p. 70.