Style in the Art Theory of Early Modern Italy

by Philip Sohm

Overview

Style is one of the oldest and most powerful analytic tools available to art writers. 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. 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521780698
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/08/2001
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	7.20(w) x 10.20(h) x 0.98(d)

Table of Contents

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.

Editorial Reviews

"Shines a brilliant new light upon the concept and descriptive terminology of artistic style.... Sohm's own writing style, exquisite, incisive, and frequently witty, makes this complex topic accessible, enjoyable, and thought provoking." CAA Reviews

"Sohm's engaging new book provides important insights, not only about art in the early modern period, but also on broader questions." Renaissance Quarterly

"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

From the Publisher