Art is as old as mankind. It is present in all stages of civilisation throughout the world. It no more stands still than does Nature, which is constantly in a state of flux. Its face, down the ages, changes with the generations of men. It is the function of the history of art to elucidate these changes.
The writing of history must be more than a listing of consecutive events. It should distinguish important happenings from those of less significance, if it is to give a true and balanced picture. Likewise, the art historian must not only trace and record the works of art of all periods, but also classify them. Since art as an expression of the human consciousness is manifestly linked with the great cultural movements of an era, its designations are derived from the main epochs into which world history is divided. We refer to the art of Antiquity, of the Middle Ages, of the Renaissance and of the Modern Age.
This is a very broad classification, but it is still valid. The decline of ancient Greece and Rome and the beginning of a new age between the time of the Barbarian Invasions and Charlemagne can be traced as clearly in art as in other fields. Again, the changes that took place in art during the Renaissance, around 1500, marked the end of the Middle Ages as clearly as did the discovery of the New World and the Reformation.
But such simplifications also have their drawbacks. Recorded history goes no farther back than the written word; everything prior to that belongs to prehistory. Civilisations that did not leave written records used to be overlooked. But the inception of writing is quite independent of the existence of art. Gradually, the art of prehistoric times has been brought to light by the spades of the archaeologists.
Civilisations that were ignored by historians because they left no writings such as those of Africa and Ancient America, the South Seas and the Polar Regions — produced their own characteristic art styles, and the study of these has contributed much to the development of art today. It is also a mistake to consider the art of Antiquity — that of Egypt, Crete and Mesopotamia, of Ancient Greece and Rome -as merely a preliminary stage of medieval art.
Nor must we forget the contribution made by the true racial forebears of medieval Europe — the Saxons, Celts and Illyrians. The art of the Middle Ages seems retrogressive compared with that of Ancient Greece; in relation to the prehistoric art of its own region, however, it shows a progressive, organic development. To ignore European prehistoric art is to suggest that the Middle Ages had no childhood or youth.
The art historian of today must consider all the cultural areas of the globe in relation to each other. Although influences from other civilisations can frequently be recognised — particularly if they coincide with a certain development — each area has yet a character of its own. European art is immediately distinguishable from the no less rich art of the Far East; for that matter, the art of Western Europe is quite distinct from that of Eastern Europe.
The Byzantine influence, emanating from Constantinople, extended over the Balkan countries and Russia, and lasted until well into the 19th century. Although there is nothing in the history books to suggest that Europe was ever a cultural entity, the study of art clearly shows how the transition from the Romanesque to the Gothic, from Renaissance to Baroque and thence to modern art was experienced in common by all the nations of Europe.
Art is such a delicate instrument that it can register still slighter gradations. Despite certain obvious traits that they possess in common, the different European nations have their own national styles. French Gothic differs from Gothic in England, Germany or Italy. The expert can without difficulty discover much finer distinctions. He can tell whether a Madonna of about 1500 was made in northern or southern Germany, and he can also readily distinguish between a drawing by Dürer and one by Grünewald. He recognises the artist as the smallest unit in the moulding of a particular period style.
But this question of style goes farther than that. When the question is put to us, ‘What style is that?’, we tend to think in terms, not of a specific artist or even a particular country, but of the period that gave rise to the work in question. A national or an individual style is determined by certain constant factors. We recognise a master because of something changeless in him, even though an early work will differ from the product of his maturity.
The concept of a period style, however, is based on the idea of change. Nobody will speak of an ‘early German’ or a ‘late German’ style — but of different phases of Gothic art. True, the arts of some other cultural regions have not tended to alter so much as those of Europe. Egyptian art shows comparatively few changes; certain aspects of Byzantine art, too, altered very little between the 14th century and the 19th. European art, on the other hand, is ever ready to swing from one contrast to the next — it would seem that change is in its very nature.
The Early Christian centuries occupy a key position between the classical and medieval periods. During the 3rd and 4th centuries the Christians began to adapt classical art to their purposes. The earliest works of art were produced in a pagan environment, and their style naturally derived from that of coeval pagan art. But it contained new elements which were soon to develop into a transcendental, abstract style, thus foreshadowing the tendencies of the medieval period.
There is often, for instance, a significant neglect of the third dimension and a lack of individuality in the rendering of faces. These characteristics were developed to an extreme in the solemn, unyielding art of 6th-century Byzantium, though Byzantine art, too, exhibited a duality of styles, the hieratic and the classical. Carolingian art (8th and 9th centuries) gave fresh life to late antique forms, transplanting them to the North and merging them with native, Northern, purely abstract traditions. In this way the Carolingian epoch became the basis for the entire post-antique development of style in European art.
The Carolingian style was international, but after the break-up of Charlemagne’s empire individual countries began to evolve styles of their own. Ottonian art (10th and early 11th centuries) is characterized by a rather rigid, monumental style which is quite different from that of contemporary France, England, Italy and Spain, although all stem from Carolingian example. English art at that time entered upon one of the most important phases of its history. The foremost place in the art of the Saxon period is perhaps occupied by the Winchester school of painting, which shows an entirely original relationship between figures and ornament, a remarkable fusion of abstract and classical tendencies in a new expressionist style.
The Romanesque style of the 11th and 12th centuries was, above all, an architectural style and marked the beginning of the great medieval building period all over Europe. It represented a complete break-away from dependence on antique models and was accompanied by sculptural decoration on a large scale. It was a monumental style in which all forms were reduced to their simplest elements. The country which more than any other contributed to the clarification and systematic organisation of the Romanesque was France. Though the style varied in different countries, it was, like the Carolingian, international.
The Gothic style (12th to 15th centuries) has a more dynamic character. Diagonal lines and oblique views replace the ‘frontal’ treatment. Solid masses are broken up and a sense of space is introduced; there is attenuation, particularly in the upward direction, suggesting a desire to counteract the force of gravity.
The Renaissance (c. 1500) seeks to offset his effect of restlessness and dispersal. But the compensatory period of restraint did not last very long.
A rigid monumentality was as alien to the Renaissance as it was to the late Gothic. Whereas medieval art was symbolic and ‘removed from life’, the Renaissance artists now imbued it with their experience of the world about them. The effort to render natural appearances, which ended with the decadent photographic realism of the 19th century, had its roots in the Renaissance. But soon there is once more a reaction against this ‘classical’ phase. The Mannerism of the late Renaissance (second half of the 16th century) already anticipates Baroque art. Forms were interpreted in an ingenious but somewhat convoluted manner.
Baroque art proper (17th and 18th centuries) introduces new movement after the restraint and balance of the Renaissance. But the new dynamism cannot be compared to that of Gothic; the latter rarefied and spiritualised, whereas Baroque emphasises and elaborates, form. It exalts bodily vigour and manages to combine a down-to-earth forcefulness with mystical elements, thereby achieving a certain urgency and impact.
The forcefulness of Baroque art was transformed into grace and a frivolous light-heartedness during the Rococo period. The forms have become very intricate, and thus point to the end of a long process of development. The neo-classic Greek Revival (c. 1800) has all the signs of a spent force, insofar as original architecture ceased to exist. Greek and Roman forms at first continue to be used by capable architects and are still interpreted with a certain vigour, but the eclecticism of the 19th century soon reduced all architecture to an imitation of the antique past.
Since style means harmony between the life of the mind and physical existence, and seeing that the human beings of the early machine age could have little in common with the men who built the Pitti Palace or with the Court of Louis XIV, it is hardly surprising that this period of masquerading has no longer any individuality of style. Painting alone made one significant further advance. Impressionism, developing out of the naturalism of the 19th century, produced landscapes that captured light and atmosphere as they are revealed only in fleeting moments. But Impressionism also laid the foundation of the abstract painting of our own times.
It needed the modern art of the 20th century to produce once more a new and characteristic style of architecture.
Thanks to the new materials and their potentialities, present-day buildings are quite unlike those of any previous era. Painters and sculptors, what is more, go about their work as if painting and sculpture were something entirely novel. It is not unlike the earliest days of art when all manner of new forms of expression were allowed to evolve naturally from the chosen media. Such daring experiments undoubtedly resulted from a desire to explore virgin territory.
Such a brief and simplified description of the changes that have taken place over the years suggest — not for the first time — that there may be a law of evolution in art corresponding to that which has been found to occur in Nature. This view was strengthened when the same type of rhythm was found to exist in prehistoric art as in that of Ancient Greece and Rome.
Ancient Greek art began between the 8th and 6th centuries B.C. with the so-called archaic phase. The term archaic is now used for the early stages of various cultures, though strictly speaking it should be applied only to Greece. The next phase in Greek art was the classic (5th and 4th centuries B.C.), and this was followed by a development which is now often termed ‘baroque’. Finally, we have the Hellenistic phase ( 4th century B.C. to the Birth of Christ), and a closing phase not altogether unlike the art of the 19th century. It betrays strong naturalistic trends; indeed, the painting of that time has sometimes been labelled ‘impressionistic’.
At the end of this development a repetition of archaic forms can be noticed, resembling the eclecticism of the 19th century. Even the poetry of earlier centuries was imitated in the 2nd century A.D. Nevertheless, the great differences between the art of Antiquity and that of Western Europe show how much freedom can be exercised even within the bounds of the ‘laws of natural development’.
Classical Greek art was to dominate the art of the Christian West — with the notable exception of Italy — for a very short time only, during the Renaissance. The culture of Northern and Western Europe is expressed much more aptly by the Gothic. There could scarcely be a greater difference than that between the Greek temple and the Gothic cathedral.
Where does such a study of the evolution of styles lead us? It opens our eyes to the relationship of works of art to their period, of the artist to his work. It also shows the influences of the various periods upon buildings that it took many decades to complete. The expert can place a work of art, and he can group anonymous works according to different schools and masters. He is also able to identify fakes. But all this is by no means simple, since an artist frequently goes through many stages in his development.
Would two plays as different as Hamlet and As You Like It really both be attributed to Shakespeare had we not been told that he was the author of each? This applies, too, to painters such as El Greco, Goya, Turner, Beckmann, Picasso and many others. But stylistic criteria alone do not bring us any closer to the true nature of a work of art. An artist’s work can only be understood if we open our minds as well as our eyes. We must take this further step without prejudice, and we can achieve the desired end without possessing any specialist knowledge. All the same, it has been proved over and over again that understanding will be all the greater if we know something about a work of art before we look at it. The connoisseur truly appreciates works of art.
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