On Rereading "Style"

Author(s): JAMES S. ACKERMAN

Source: Social Research , SPRING 1978, Vol. 45, No. 1 (SPRING 1978), pp. 153-163
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

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On Rereading /
"Style" y BY JAMES S. ACKERMAN

A eagerly read Meyer Schapiro's article "Style," which ap-

peared in 1953, but sometime after it was published. Like so
many of Schapiro's writings, it was hard to find before it
became famous, and it was a long time before I learned the
secret of its hiding place in Anthropology Today, edited by A. L.
Kroeber.1 It was an exciting experience for me; since graduate
school, I had been distressed by the lack of historical and
critical theory in writing by art historians in this country and
in England, and this article helped to prod me into writing a
book (Art and Archaeology, with Rhys Carpenter2), one chapter
of which also is called "Style," and an article called "Art and
Evolution."3 More colleagues accepted Schapiro's challenge
and proposed alternative definitions, most memorably George
Kubler in The Shape of Time4 and E. H. Gombrich in "Style" in
the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.5 After almost
twenty-five years, Schapiro's incunabulum has not noticeably
aged; it is still rewarding, and it seems to be a standby on the
reading lists of all graduate courses on method. Rereading it
in the past few months together with many other of Schapiro's
articles, I see it as a partial expression of a kind of credo that
has informed much of his work, especially in the medieval
1 Meyer Schapiro, "Style," in Alfred L. Kroeber, ed., Anthropology Today (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1953), pp. 287-312; reprinted in Morris H. Philipson,
eds., Aesthetics Today (Cleveland: Meridian Books, 1961), pp. 81-113.
2 James S. Ackerman and Rhys Carpenter, Art and Archaeology (Englewood Cliffs:
Prentice-Hall, 1963).
3 James S. Ackerman, "Art and Evolution," in Gyorgy Kepes, ed., The Nature and Art
of Motion (New York: Braziller, 1965), pp. 32-40.
4 George Kubier, The Shape of Time (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962).
5 E. H. Gombrich, "Style," in David L. Sills, ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences, 17 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1968).

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154 SOCIAL RESEARCH

field. Seen in the context of his

not only as the definition of a
grasp of the past but also as a me
inductive and structural.

Style as Object

The study has two main divisions. In the first, Schapiro

proposes his definition of style, and in the second, he surveys
art-historical approaches from the biological-dialectic systems
of Wölfflin and Riegl through technical, iconographical, ra-
cial, and social interpretations of the nature and structure of
styles. The criticism of these systems is characteristically pene-
trating, and no less valid after a quarter of a century, but it is
certainly the first portion that accounts for the continued
vitality and contemporaneity of the article.
The first of the four parts of the definition distinguishes the
ways in which style is interpreted by the archaeologist, the
historian of art, the historian of culture or philosopher of
history, and the critic. The second of these is worth quoting in
full not only as a succinct statement of Schapiro's thesis but as
a description of the method that has given a special character
and clarity to his writings:

To the historian of art, style is an essential object of investiga-

tion. He studies its inner correspondences, its life-history, and
the problems of its formation and change. He, too, uses style as
a criterion of the date and place of origin of works, and as a
means of tracing relationships between schools of art. But the
style is, above all, a system of forms with a quality and a mean-
ingful expression through which the personality of the artists
and the broad outlook of a group are visible. It is also a vehicle
of expression within the group, communicating and fixing cer-
tain values of religious, social and moral life through the emo-
tional suggestiveness of forms. It is, besides, a common ground
against which innovations and the individuality of particular
works may be measured. By considering the succession of works
in time and space and by matching the variations of style with

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 ON REREADING "STYLE" 155

historical events and with the varying

culture, the historian of art attempts, w
sense psychology and social theory, to
of style or specific traits. The historica
group styles also discloses typical stag
development of forms.

The characterization of style as an

and as a "system" of forms gives the
Riegl's Kunstwollen, but without the
Schapiro, style is not determined b
but by psychological, social, and othe
yet be fully defined.
Part II outlines the main features
tified: "form elements or motives,
qualities (including an all-over quali
'expression')." A second order of ele
matter, materials - though they may
a style, do not invariably do so, since
while a style changes. Though the def
and structure, Schapiro is careful
characterization of qualities, thus p
from the limited quantitative descrip
and their interactions that constit
art-historical discourse. Reflecting
Schapiro points out that it is the ve
tivities we gain from the art of ou
perceptions and discoveries in the a
conversely, may affect the evolution
possibility of interaction between sty
leads to the observation that "the p
culture - a kind of inertia in the phy
discern linkages in two successive
characterized as opposed, often so
closest analysis discovers them.
The third part deals with the impa
perception of the past: the qualities

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156 SOCIAL RESEARCH

by earlier ages, began to be appr

and surrealism brought to the
and functions of the unconscio
tives on native cultures and gre
of exotic arts of all sorts. The
criticism, however, on formal st
possibilities of elementary com
colors, brought with it a disinter
and viewers in the role of cont
reinforced a tendency to repre
immanent development of form
creased role of iconography in
to the interaction of content
tween changes in style and cha
In discussing the increased relat
content a claim to attention, Sch
language, with an internal ord
ting a varied intensity or delic
further articulates his view of s
tion, a construct that has an e
expressions that employ it as a
The fourth and final portion o
the intriguing question of the pe
acter of a style into the parts of
to which fragments such as m
essential traits of the work from
expressive means of the period
Schapiro does not accept the posi
an individual or a group, is a p
vealing "hidden correspondenc
principle which determines both
the patterning of the whole," because, he says, "the
homogeneity of a style or a technique" need not be raised to
the level of an aesthetic unity. There are, indeed, many in-
stances in individual works of style incongruities that are tradi-
tional (the mixture of refined naturalism in the heads with

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 ON REREADING "STYLE" 157

rough abstraction in the bodies of cer

or strategic (Shakespeare's insertion of c
most tense moments of his tragedies
notably in medieval manuscripts and sculptures, may be
different in character and even in level of development from
the dominant field, and this fact obliges the interpreter to be
on the alert for incongruities.
The demand for consistency in works of art Schapiro iden-
tifies as a modern one (presumably by modern he means the
centuries between 1400 and 1900 or somewhat later): the
builders of Chartres made no attempt to make the later facade
tower match the earlier one, and individual artists, particularly
in recent times, have done works in radically different styles
within a short span of time, Picasso being an obvious example.
In any given time, furthermore, works done by different social
groups or to serve different functions may be disparate in
style, a phenomenon that is more evident in modern society
than in the more closed social conditions of the past. Schapiro
then widens his perspective to examine the relationships of
different arts at given monents in the past, and finds that at
one time there may be great dissimilarities, even within the
visual arts (figurai art vs. architecture in tenth- and eleventh-
century England), while at another the expressions of an
entire culture may appear homogeneous ("Baroque" is used to
characterize the visual arts, music, literature, garden design,
and intellectual constructs). Schapiro is critical of historians
who represent this phenomenon as organic, and suggests that
the unity resembles "a machine with limited freedom of mo-
tion," the parts of which are dissimilar but functionally in-
terdependent.

The Language Simile

The virtue of this definition of style is that it removed the

concept from the sphere of values, and it is indicative of its

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 158 SOCIAL RESEARCH

rejection of aesthetic overtones th

of anthropological essays. Style in
of dealing with collections of w
place, group, or individual by d
language, those common traits
mode of communication. The lan
suggests, however, a vehicle of
existence independent of the wo
through it, a suggestion that is
words "object" and "system of f
above. The style-vehicle and th
seen as standing in a relation com
parole in Saussurian semiology.
have arrived at this distinction independently of the
semiologists and have then discovered later the affinity of his
formulation with theirs (this led to a close alliance and to an
article on the role of format in two-dimensional pictures and
reliefs6).
I have difficulty with the parallel of style and language
because verbal languages survive through diverse literary
styles; Chaucer and Joyce both wrote in English. We do refer
to an architectural language when referring to systems such as
the classical orders which, like verbal languages, have a
syntax - established relationships - and appear in the differing
styles of Greece, Rome, the Renaissance, Baroque and Neo-
classicism, etc. I may, however, be taking too literally a sugges-
tion that Schapiro meant as an aside to illuminate a particular
point, but certainly style in Schapiro's formulation has an
existence more independent of particular works than in mine,
and since I can explain the difference only by restating my
position, I do so as briefly as possible, and with apologies.
I define style as essentially a depiction after the fact based
6 Meyer Schapiro, "Field and Vehicle in Image Signs," Semiotica 1 (1967): 3; Words
and Pictures: On the Literal and the Symbolic in the Illustration of a Text (The Hague:
Mouton, 1973).

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 ON REREADING "STYLE" 159

on the observer's perception of tra

works. It could not, therefore, be a
particular artist or work adheres. The
means of classifying different works
one work in isolation does not, by
defineable style, but merely traits or
ity as distinct from manners - unt
other works to see in what respect it
is thus the linking aspect of art. W
delineating the style of Romanesque o
or of the art of Van Gogh, I would
within certain limits, an unrestrict
they emerged. At any moment in th
tures of the next moment are unpr
successive work can alter the shape an
style. At every moment the option is
artist to abandon major or minor feat
he has been working and to pursue
may become a new style, a radical reo
ing style, or a dead end.
This characterization fails to accou
cohesiveness of styles in the past I att
text of art, which was not discussed i
(except in reviewing Marxist and allie
tion of a style, the rate and degree of
attitude of the audience, including a
the desireable limits of tradition and innovation.
I suggest that the difference between the "Style" of Schapiro
and the "Style" of Ackerman can be explained (apart from the
fact that the former laid the groundwork) by the fact that at
that time the great bulk of Schapiro's scholarship had been
devoted to Romanesque art - an art, that is, which exhibits
quintessential^ what might be represented as langues of local,
regional, and national extent - while my work had been on
Renaissance art. Renaissance aesthetics, while invariably em-

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160 SOCIAL RESEARCH

phasizing the guiding hand of

premium on originality, and o
Michelangelo, the subject of m
was more an inventor than an
own). But I believe the differen
is resolvable; the concept of s
language is not focal in Scha
works, on both medieval and m
falls both on the openness of th
social, political, and intellectua
features in a past style.

Style Is the Protagonist

Schapiro had written "The N

before the essay on style,8 an
avant-garde art of the nineteen
before him a type of style struc
the Middle Ages. His essay, i
ference; he cites not only the ap
one time and place, but in the w
differing validity of a style co
and of modern art is revealed in
far less on form (and hence on
subjects. The nineteenth and t
lated him to apply methods de
cial criticism, and iconograph
thoroughly delineates an artist
Cézanne9 and Van Gogh,10 the p
define a style, and the word "st

7 For the medieval attitude toward indiv

Schapiro, "On the Aesthetic Attitude in R
Schapiro, Romanesque Art: Selected Papers,
° Meyer Schapiro, lhe Nature ot Abstract Art, Marxist Quarterly 1 (1937): 2-23.
9 Paul Cézanne, text by Meyer Schapiro, 2nd ed. (New York: Abrams, 1962).
10 Vincent van Gogh (New York: Abrams, 1950).

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 ON REREADING "STYLE" 161

is, I think, that we need the concept l

highly individualized art of recent tim
earlier art. Surrealism and pop art are
programs than by style criteria, whil
structivism, and Abstract Expressioni
facilitate criticism of works and artists that have little of either
program or style in common.
But Schapiro has shown in what way a style theory is crucial
to the understanding of the Middle Ages. Rereading his
studies on Romanesque art with the "Style" essay in mind, I
realized that his conception of style was not simply an articula-
tion of the art historian's primary construct for presenting the
character and interrelationships of works of art, but was also
the framework of his method of research. In each of his major
medieval studies, the fact that style is the protagonist permits
him to start his investigation inductively, meticulously examin-
ing single elements one at a time, first describing their parts,
then their whole, then the structure that organizes the ele-
ments, and then the comparison of one structure to another.
The process is guided by the foreknowledge that as the parts
are pieced together, they will systematically delineate the
formal scheme that is the essential component of a style and,
once this process is completed, the characterization of the
mode of expression, of the "qualities," will reveal the full power
of signification of the work.11 In harmony with his conviction
that the traits of style reside in details as well as in whole,
Schapiro is as attentive to the peripheral aspects of images as
he is to the focus of the artist's intention: to the frame and the
form of ornament,12 the costume, furnishing, architecture,
script,13 and every aspect of representation: the nature of the

11 The method was revealed first in the article that was based on Schapiro's thesis,
"The Romanesque Sculpture of Moissac, I and II" (1931), reprinted in Schapiro,
Romanesque Art, pp. 131-260. "The Sculptures of Souillac" (1939), ibid., pp. 102-130,
however, better represents the integration of form and meaning.
12 Notably in the treatment of the Parma manuscript (note 15), where border decora-
tion plays a significant role in localizing the work.
13 Again in the discussion of the Parma manuscript, and at Silos (note 14).

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 162 SOCIAL RESEARCH

space, the degree of abstractne

portions, gesture, glance, and m
The centrality of the style co
indicated particularly by his attr
parate styles engage in a dialect
in the title of "From Mozarabic to Romanesque in Silos"
(1939).14 The Parma Ildefonsus (1964)15 focuses on the clash of
the Italo-Byzantine and the Burgundian styles (with its German
roots) at Cluny and refers in passing to the impact of folk art
on the extraordinary capitals there. "A Relief in Rodez and
the Beginnings of Romanesque Sculpture in Southern France"
(1963)16 is a study stimulated by the outcropping of Carolin-
gian elements in Romanesque France, and Merovingian or-
nament is discovered as the dominant form in the lintel of the

Moissac portal, contrasting with the tympanum above ("The

Romanesque Sculpture of Moissac," 1931). Some of these
studies also point to style differences deriving from a shift in
materials and techniques: the Parma manuscript is described
as dependent on sculptural forms and, conversely, the linear
style of the Rodez relief is derived from painting and
goldsmith work.
Since the very origins of systematic art history, style has
been perceived not only as the context in which the natures of
works of art are most clearly grasped but also as the means of
placing them in history. In periods of anonymous artists and
infrequently dated monuments, the placing of works of art in
time and space depends on linking them through style with
similar works that may have influenced them or have been
influenced by them. While Schapiro's work did not change the
direction of this methodological function of the style concept,
it did give it a clearer articulation by the example of his
14 Meyer Schapiro, "From Mozarabic to Romanesque in Silos" (1939), in his
Romanesque Art, pp. 28-101.
15 Meyer Schapiro, The Parma Ildefonsus: A Romanesque Illuminated Manuscript Jrom
Cluny and Related Works (New York: New York University Press, 1964).
16 Meyer Schapiro, "A Relief in Rodez and the Beginnings of Romanesque
Sculpture in Southern France" (1963), in his Romanesque Art, pp. 285-305.

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 ON REREADING "STYLE" 163

meticulous description of visual evidence fr

tion and elitism that typically accompani
tions of the preceding generation.
The implicit presence of the guiding str
the concept of style, and the capacity of th
fuse form and meaning in a given work an
ties to other aspects of the contemporary c
of Schapiro's achievement in his writings
distinguished his approach on the one han
rootlessness of Crocean and formalist art
other from the historical isolation of the work of art that was
the mark of the New Criticism.

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