Meyer Schapiro, “Style” in Aesthetics Today, ed. Morris Philipson (Chicago, 1953).Schapiro’s essay, “Style,” deals with the much broader relationship between style and its cultural history. His overall claim seems to be that the content of art functions as part of a “dominant set of beliefs, ideas, and interests [that are] supported by institutions and the forms of everyday life,” and that these in turn shape what we know as the common style. However, he also mentions many specialized theories dissecting the development and organization of style through time, and yet these do not distract the reader from the controlling theme in that they serve to support the idea that there are many parts to a whole. As a reader, I came to the conclusion that it is in fact very difficult to systemize style in one or a few formulas, and that despite a complicated understanding of all the avenues of dissection, Schapiro did achieve his greater claim through the individual representation and combined confusion of its many parts.To the art historian, “style,” is important in determining the date, period, and/or origin of an artwork, and in doing so involves some mode of measurement and recognition of universally understood system of forms. This also brings to mind the stressed importance on the style-dependent value of a work of art. Here, the style surrounding the artist and his/her work involves the culture(s) existing within it. Thus, the style of an art is directly related to its value and importance in the art world. Although classical styles are thought to be more boundary-specific than more modern ones, and thus easier to recognize and classify, we can’t ignore their fluidity into other surrounding styles not just of their time period, but also well into the modern forms of art. Traditionally, “style” may have been period/time-specific and culture-specific, but that is ...
