Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc.

Style as Evidence
Author(s): Jules David Prown
Source: Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 197-210
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Henry Francis du Pont
Winterthur Museum, Inc.
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 Style as Evidence

Jules David Prown

JAMES ACKERMAN OBSERVES in his de- Art and architecture belong to a larger class of
scriptive definition of art history as a scholarly artifacts usually described as material culture. But
discipline that what distinguishes art historians they stand apart from other artifacts-for exam-
from other historians is that their primary ple, tools or mechanical devices-in that they are
data are works of art.1 Although they share with especially responsive to formal analysis. This re-
historians the fundamental goal of enlarging our flects the nature of art objects and architecture, as
understanding of man through increased knowl- well as the fact that art history has a longer tradi-
edge of the past and in the process may utilize tion of object analysis than most other disciplines.
many of the same techniques and source materials, Scholars in a variety of fields which can be in-
art historians are methodologically exceptional in formed by the data embodied in things (including
that aspect of art history known as formal or stylis- but not restricted to art objects)-history, an-
tic analysis. The terms "formal analysis" and thropology, sociology, philosophy, and others-
"stylistic analysis" apply to those aspects of art his- have something to learn from art history and its
torical investigation that concentrate on the art special but not arcane methodologies, just as art
object itself, its configuration and style. "Form" historians surely have much to learn from other
and "style" have overlapping but different mean-
ings. Form is restricted to the configuration of the other modes of studying art which make art history in and of
object itself, while style refers to a distinctive man- itself an interdisciplinary field-the technical analysis of mate-
ner or mode which, whether consciously intended rials, investigations into social and cultural history to illuminate
or not, bears a relationship with other objects the lives of artists and the circumstances of patronage, icono-
graphical studies of content (a province of intellectual history),
marked in their form by similar qualities. The ar- consideration of philosophical problems of aesthetics, studies in
gument of this essay is that style is inescapably the psychology and physiology of perception, and the quantita-
tive analysis of objects common to archaeology, anthropology,
culturally expressive, that the formal data em- and sociology. This restriction is adopted solely in order to de-
bodied in objects are therefore of value as cultural
velop a theoretical argument and to demonstrate as clearly as
evidence, and that the analysis of style can be use- possible the value of style as evidence. In actual practice, while
ful for other than purely art historical studies.2 there is some procedural advantage in keeping modes of in-
vestigation discrete, it is obviously desirable to bring into play as
many approaches as lie within the competence of the in-
Jules David Prown is professor, Department of the History vestigator and relate to the material under study. In arguing for
of Art, Yale University. the evidential significance of style, I do not intend to draw qual-
For helpful suggestions regarding this essay, the author is itative distinctions between "high art" and "low art" or between
grateful to James Ackerman, Peter Gay, Henry Glassie, George art and other kinds of artifacts. I will indicate below some rea-
Kubler, Charles Montgomery, Shirley Martin Prown, Robert sons why certain categories of objects are more culturally ex-
Thompson, Bryan Wolf, and colleagues at the National pressive through their style than others, but I hold no brief for
Humanities Institute at Yale University in 1976-77 and
any particular class distinction in art. The extent to which ob-
1978-79. jects convey information through their form seems to be more a
James S. Ackerman, "Western Art History," in James S. matter of category-the type of objects rather than of the social
Ackerman and Rhys Carpenter, Art and Archaeology,Humanistic class that used or enjoyed them. The American objects I use as
Scholarship in America: The Princeton Studies (Englewood examples tend to be high art, but that reflects my familiarity
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 127. with this material. It is clear that other categories of objects can
2 In
concentrating on the perception and analysis of form provide formal evidence. For example, Henry Glassie has dis-
and style, I will necessarily eliminate from consideration here
covered a wealth of meanings in the unassuming physical prop-
erties of Virginia folk housing (Folk Housing in Middle
? 1980 by The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. Virginia [Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1975], esp.
0084-04 16/80/1503-0001 $1 .50 chap. 7, "Reason in Architecture," pp. 114-75).
 198 WinterthurPortfolio

disciplines and their methodologies. (Linguistics is they are consciously purposeful. Functional inten-
an obvious example.) The fact is, though, that his- tion obscures style. The configuration of a func-
torical scholars, other than art and music historians tional object, such as a tool or machine, is almost
and archaeologists, generally prefer to work with completely determined by its purpose, and style is
verbal data.3 The twentieth-century scholar using a peripheral consideration. Form in such a case
documents, literature, diaries, letters, philosoph- clearly follows function. The configuration of an
ical writings, or other forms of verbal expression as object or activity purposefully concerned with a
source material has a sense of communicating di- message, such as a story or play, is strongly con-
rectly with the past as he experiences the same ditioned by that message. Form, in part, again fol-
mode of verbal communication with which he is lows function. Music, on the other hand, is rela-
familiar in his own daily existence. While it may be tively nonpurposive and is therefore more purely
that the medium has become today's message, this expressive of style. Form is dominant, and function
theory has not been applied retroactively; for his- flows from it.
torians the messages from the past are in words Among the visual arts, painting is, like litera-
and rarely in other media. Even when the words ture, often heavily loaded with content, serving as a
are in a foreign or extinct language, they can be vehicle for some sort of communication. Style in
translated or deciphered, and the scholar can take painting is affected and sometimes obscured by the
comfort in the sense that he is dealing with a direct requirements of the subject matter. Works of ar-
statement made by another person, once alive-an chitecture and the decorative arts are normally less
intelligence who speaks across the years. overtly concerned with subject matter than paint-
Historians are less at ease when they are called ing, but they do have an intended function. How-
on to consider as evidence nonverbal materials ever, unlike tools or machines, their formal com-
which have survived from the past, the mute heri- ponent is of at least equal importance with their
tage of things produced over the centuries by the functional component. As a rule, function is easier
minds and hands of men. Every time a person in to pin down than content. The function of a house,
the past manipulated matter in space in a particu- a chair, or a teapot is usually easily defined,
lar way to satisfy his practical or aesthetic needs, he whereas the meaning of a story, a play, or a paint-
made a type of statement, albeit a nonverbal state- ing can be elusive. The difficulty that one encoun-
ment that is considerably more difficult for most of ters in comprehending function resides in the de-
us to comprehend than a written statement. Yet it gree of complexity. The function of a piece of sci-
is the nonverbal, unspoken, perhaps even uncon- entific equipment, although precise and specific,
scious, nature of this statement that gives it par- may be difficult or impossible for the nonspecialist
ticular importance. to decipher. Where function and form are
In any age there are certain widely shared partners, as in architecture and the decorative arts,
beliefs-assumptions, attitudes, values-that are so it is easier to perceive form if the function is not too
obvious that they remain unstated. As such, they
complex. Therefore we can usually discern style
are most clearly perceivable, not in what a society most readily and clearly in the decorative arts
says it is doing in its histories, literature, or public where the function is simple and constant.
and private documents, but rather in the way in Function is the constant against which stylistic
which it does things. The way in which something variables play. For example, chairs are quite lim-
is done, produced, or expressed is its style. Style is ited in their configurational possibilities by their
manifested in the form of things rather than in functional requirements; to hold the human body
content.4 Certain aspects of human activity or cre- in a sitting position, the seat should provide a hori-
ation are more purely expressive of style than zontal plane at a certain height above the floor, a
others, in inverse proportion to the extent to which substructure is required to carry the weight of the
chair's occupant, and a back lends vertical support.
3 The remainder of this paragraph and the next few
para-
Yet there is great variety in the configuration of
graphs are taken, with some alterations, from my article, "The chairs produced in different times or in different
Work of Art and Historical Scholarship," Ventures8, no. 2
(Fall
1968): 58-60. I am grateful to the dean of the Yale Graduate places. This variety reflects shifts in style rather
School for permission to incorporate that material here. than shifts in the programmatic requirements of
4 To say that form and content are discrete is not to
say that chairs. In the case of chairs, style can be factored
they are unrelated. They affect and modify each other.
Moreover, the out as separate from the seating function, which by
principal argument of this essay is that style pos-
sesses significant meaning, or content. On the other hand, con- and large does not change, and from overt mean-
tent by itself does not in any obvious sense
possess style. ing, which is not present except in elaborately dec-
Style as Evidence 199

orated examples. This style, now isolable and the most basic functional characteristics with the
identifiable, must necessarily reflect values of the Philadelphia chair-the seat a reasonable distance
individual and of the society that produced the above the ground, bracing below, and vertical sup-
object. In a Philadelphia side chair of 1796 (fig. i), port for the back. The elaborate carving responds
for instance, there is a great deal going on that has to very different values or attitudes or needs that
nothing to do with function. The painted decora- this society found important enough to be worth
tion, the outward flare of the rear legs, the shape of expressing.
the spade feet, and above all the treatment of the It might be noted here that chairs are particu-
back, with its oval outline and the replication of larly revealing of cultural values because they so
feathers and bows in painted wood, are unrelated easily become human surrogates, as is obviously
to function, but obviously these elements were of the case with the Bamileke chair. We use such
sufficient importance to the maker, the purchaser, human analogues as feet, legs, back, and seat in
and, by indirection, the society to which they be- our descriptive terminology for chairs, even for
longed to make the effort worthwhile. such an abstract example as the Philadelphia chair.
A West African chair (fig. 2), the throne of a It is not unreasonable to speculate that aspects of
traditional ruler of the Bamileke people in what is an object that seem to echo the human anatomy
now the United Republic of Cameroon, shares only may reflect in abstract terms the ways in which in-
dividuals in a society perceive themselves. This is
overt in the Bamileke' chair where the human ele-
ments look human and is covert or repressed in the
Philadelphia chair-which in itself tells us some-
thing about the two cultures.
Although a society may prevaricate or in-
tentionally distort actuality in its utterances (jour-
nalism, propaganda, diplomatic communications,

Fig. 2. Armchair, Bamileke people, United Republicof

Fig. i. Side chair, Philadelphia,1796. (M.and M. Karolik Cameroon,undated. From RaymondLecoq,LesBamileke
Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.) (Paris:Editions Africaines, 1953), p. 97, fig. 66.
200 WinterthurPortfolio

advertising) or in its pictorial statements (portrai-

ture, mythological or religious art, socialist re-
alism), a society does not bother to deceive itself or
others in such mundane things as most buildings
or the furniture or the pots that it makes for its
own use. Architecture and the decorative arts are
thus a kind of abstract art out of the past. They are
like music in that they are more concerned with
style than they are with content. However, there is
an essential difference in that music is expressed in
time, whereas architecture and decorative arts exist
in space. The perception of style in music requires
exposition in time, as opposed to the plastic arts in
which the perception of style can be explosively
instantaneous. This immediate sensory confronta-
tion through objects with the beliefs of another so-
ciety, removed in time and/or place from one's
own, should theoretically provide insights into that
society.
If the thesis that a society in a particular time or
place deposits a cultural stylistic fingerprint, as it
were, on what it produces is correct, two con-
clusions follow by which the thesis can be tested.
First, we would expect to find shared stylistic ele- Fig. 3. John Singleton Copley, Paul Revere. Boston,
ments in the objects-furniture, silver, archi- 1765-70. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of Joseph
W. Revere, William B. Revere, and Edward H. R. Re-
tecture-produced in the same place at the same vere.)
time. Second, we would expect to find a change
in style concurrent with a shift in cultural values. gleaming silver, soft flesh, fabric, hair.6 With Re-
As a case in point, the discussion that follows vere feeling the heft of the teapot, the painting
considers stylistic commonalities on either side conveys the essence of the dominant aesthetic sen-
of the striking instance of marked stylistic change sibility of the third quarter of the eighteenth cen-
in the arts in America that occurred between the tury in colonial America, namely, a delight in the
third and fourth quarters of the eighteenth cen- substantiality, the corporeal reality, of things.
tury over the watershed years of the revolutionary A heavy, solid prerevolutionary Philadelphia
war when America made the transition from col- rococo (Chippendale-style) side chair (fig. 4) inter-
ony to nation.5 acts with the space that surrounds and penetrates
it. Its outline is irregular, with knees and ears jut-
John Singleton Copley's portrait of Paul Revere ting out in different directions. In contrast, a post-
(fig. 3) represents the Boston silversmith in the act revolutionary side chair from Salem, Mas-
of making a teapot. The composition hinges on a sachusetts (fig. 5), of the mid-179os, like the
responsive play between the solid spherical shapes painted chair discussed earlier (fig. i), represents a
of the head and the teapot, the former the source completely different aesthetic. The forms are self-
of creativity and the latter the thing created. The contained; the shield-shaped back enclosing an urn
picture celebrates worldly stuffs-polished wood, and drapery swag does not interact with sur-
rounding space. Its parts are more slender, and
5
It should be noted that the objects illustrating the present indeed the chair is much lighter to lift than its
essay were chosen for the clarity with which they display certain rococo counterpart. It also breaks more easily, re-
stylistic features. In that sense they are not typical. Nor are they
typical in quality; theirs is exceptionally high. But the stylistic flecting a willingness of the producing culture to
elements themselves are commonly found in a large number of sacrifice a practical benefit (durability) for other
surviving buildings, pieces of furniture and silver, and paintings values.
of the second half of the eighteenth century in America and are
6
typical. For an overlapping but more general analysis of this It does so with a skill and delight in the texture of things
stylistic transition, see my essay, "Style in American Art: 1750- not seen since the days of Vermeer, DeHooch, and other Dutch
18oo," in American Art, 1750-800o: Toward Independence, ed. masters who painted in and for a similarly prosperous, mercan-
Charles F. Montgomery and Patricia E. Kane, catalogue of the tile, and Protestant society almost a century and a half earlier-a
Yale University/Victoria and Albert Museum Bicentennial ex- parallel which also suggests the extent to which style expresses
hibition (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1976), pp. 32-39. the values of the society that produced it.
Style as Evidence 201

Fig. 4. Side chair, Philadelphia. 1760-80.

(Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, Yale Uni-
versity Art Gallery.)

Fig. 5. Side chair, carving attributed to

Samuel McIntire, Salem, Massachusetts, ca.
1795. (M. and M. Karolik Collection,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.)
202 WinterthurPortfolio

Fig. 6. Card table, New York, 1760-70. (MabelBrady Garvan Collection,Yale University Art Gallery.)

A prerevolutionary Chippendale-style New In a postrevolutionary, neoclassical Massachusetts

York card table (fig. 6) is substantial, weighty. The card table (fig. 7), the curve and reverse curve give
primary material is mahogany shaped into curves way, notably in the legs, to straight lines. The table
and reverse curves characteristic of the rococo is simpler and more direct than its ornate rococo
style. Along the apron or skirt the wood is carved counterpart. The rococo table interacts with the
into a gadrooned band, like an applied twisted surrounding space, while the neoclassical table
rope, which breaks up the light that falls upon it tends to be self-contained and aloof, its severe out-
into highlights and shadows. The knees are carved line setting it apart from the space in which it
with leaf forms, and the legs terminate in claw- exists. The surface of the neoclassical table is more
and-ball feet. The decorative details here, as in precise and clean-cut than the earlier piece; the
most rococo furniture, derive from real, or at least carved mahogany is replaced by sliced veneers
possible, organic natural forms. The twisted rope, applied to the surface. On the apron of the neo-
leaf forms, and claw-and-ball feet are carved out of classical card table, where rope gadrooning on the
wood and have their own three-dimensional, pal- rococo table actually breaks the light striking it into
pable existence, replicating organic natural objects. highlight and shadow, a band of alternating light
Style as Evidence 203

Fig. 7. Card table, Massachusetts, 1785-1815. (Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, Yale University Art Gallery.)

and dark wood inlays provides an abstraction of A tea set by Abraham Dubois (fig. 8) of about
the same visual effect. Instead of palpable details 1795 is similarly closed in form, the smooth sur-
like leaves and claw-and-ball feet, there are two- faces setting off the urn and Roman helmet shapes
dimensional inlaid images of urns and eagles.7 from their surroundings. Neoclassical objects fre-
quently embody geometrical shapes and designs, as
7
Formal analysis can describe these differences and focus in the circles and squares forming the base plinths
attention on factors causing varied perceptual responses which, of the Dubois tea service. Geometry, an abstract,
as this essay aims to demonstrate, is an important and often
intellectual activity, produces designs that lie at the
neglected procedure. Nevertheless, as suggested by this card
table, a more complete understanding requires utilization of a opposite end of the formal spectrum from irregu-
broader array of scholarly tools-iconography to identify the lar shapes found in nature, such as the shells,
classical motifs; history to understand classical antiquity and its
meaning for the latter eighteenth century, especially for the
leaves, and birds' heads that run riot on an object
new American Republic created in the image of ancient Rome; such as the earlier rococo Joseph Richardson
philosophy to understand the Enlightenment and the teakettle and stand (fig. 9). The colonial pleasure in
significance of decorative motifs that are the creations of the the palpability of objects as opposed to the federal
minds of men rather than replications of things found in na-
ture, like leaves, .shells, etc. period's preference for abstraction is again evident
204 WinterthurPortfolio

Fig. 8. Abraham Dubois, tea set. Philadelphia,

1785-95. (Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, Yale
University Art Gallery.)

Fig. 9. Joseph Richardson, teakettle on stand.

Philadelphia, 1745-55 (Mabel Brady Garvan
Collection, Yale University Art Gallery.)
Style as Evidence 205

if one lifts comparable objects; a neoclassical teapot jects produced in a given time and place cannot be
or card table is invariably much lighter than its considered coincidence; clearly cultural prefer-
rococo counterpart. ences were being expressed. And stylistic shifts, as
Intellectual pleasure in geometrical design is between rococo and neoclassical objects, mark a
evident in the inlay patterns on a veneered neoclas- change in cultural values. Our analysis of objects
sical Baltimore sideboard (fig. io). In the sideboard has obviously yielded information, but what do
there are two doors at the extreme left and right, objects tell us that we do not know and, in some
but one covers a cupboard and the other drawers; ways, know in much greater detail from other,
disparate functions are masked behind a symmet- largely verbal, sources?
rical facade. There is a comparable indulgence in The change in values manifested in neoclassical
geometry in the room shapes of Gore Place, the objects obviously relates to the arrival and accep-
home of Christopher Gore, in Waltham, Mas- tance in America of Enlightenment ideas. Based on
sachusetts (fig. 11). Service areas, closets, and a conviction that man is inherently good and ra-
stairways are tucked away in a willful intellectual tional but corrupted by faulty institutions of
exercise, like the drawers in the sideboard, in order church and state, Enlightenment theory pointed to
not to obtrude upon the geometric purity of the classical antiquity as proof of man's capacity to
room shapes. create an ideal social and political structure and
The cool surfaces of sheet silver and of wood concluded that it was therefore possible in modern
veneers on neoclassical objects were repeated to times to recreate a society equally admirable. This
some extent by the brickwork of neoclassical ar- goal of social betterment contributed significantly
chitecture, as in Gore Place (fig. 12). The surface or to pressure for political change and ultimately, in
skin is taut. Window and door openings are cut America and France in the latter years of the
directly into the brick, and these, along with the eighteenth century, led to revolution. The War of
pediments of the wings, provide a series of Independence brought about in America a politi-
geometrical shapes-squares, rectangles, semicir- cal system embodying Enlightenment thought,
cles, and triangles. The house and the sideboard with high regard for man's reason and for man's
share such design elements as hard surfaces, inte- capacity through the exercise of reason to create a
rior intellectual ingenuity masked by exterior better world, with a vision of antiquity as the pro-
symmetry, and the use of geometrical designs; the totype of that world. We know this without re-
sides of both appear sliced and featureless to stress course to surviving artifacts, although neoclassical
frontality. The appeal is planar rather than plastic, objects confirm our understanding. Abstract and
optical rather than haptic. geometrical designs are assertions of the dominion
The stylistic difference between pre- of the mind, although almost certainly they were
revolutionary and postrevolutionary objects ex- not consciously so intended. Classical shapes and
tends even to picture frames. The elaborate 1769 motifs testify to the paradigmatic role of antiquity.
carved wood frame on Copley's portrait of Isaac We could easily go a step beyond simple confirma-
Smith (fig. 13) has the rococo characteristics of tion and conclude that the fact that intellect was
penetrating and being penetrated by space. In- applied to problems of design in furniture or silver
deed, the frame unites the painted world of Isaac or architecture during this period,just as men used
Smith with the physical world in which the painting their minds to create a more ideal political system,
and the viewer exist. It relates the portrait to the testifies to the pervasiveness and consistency of a
interior in which it hangs and in its own day linked particular set of cultural values. But how does this
the sitter with his own house and worldly goods. By stylistic analysis of American neoclassical objects
contrast, the later neoclassical frame (of un- enlarge our understanding of those cultural values
determined origin) around a Gilbert Stuart por- and of the society that produced them?
trait (fig. 14), a simple rectangle with an interior We have isolated and identified several basic
oval spandrel, separates the painted figure from its
recurring stylistic elements found in American
physical surroundings with a clean geometrical neoclassical objects-geometrical shapes that are
fence. The interaction between the painted figure mental constructs as opposed to natural forms,
and the surrounding world is visual, not physical. sheer surface planes that isolate self-contained ob-
jects from their surroundings, abstract two-
We have considered evidence of stylistic com- dimensional representations of three-dimensional
monalities in two periods and of stylistic change elements. These works appeal to the eye and to the
between those periods. The manifestations of mind rather than to the hand of the beholder.
identical elements of style in a broad range of ob-
They stand aloof, and there is little promise of tac-
206 Winterthur Portfolio

Fig. o. Sideboard, Baltimore, 1785-

1815. (Mabel Brady Garvan Collec-
tion, Yale University Art Gallery.)

Fig. 11. Floor plan, Gore Place, Wal-

tham, Massachusetts, 18o6. From
Talbot Hamlin, Greek Revival Ar-
chitecturein America(London and New
York: Oxford University Press,
1944), P. 1I, fig. 1.
Style as Evidence 207

Fig. 12. Gore Place, Waltham,Massachusetts,1806. (Photo, courtesy MabelBrady GarvanCollection,Yale University
Art Gallery.)

tile pleasure in the cool, hard, sometimes angular luminate beliefs embodied within the object itself,
surfaces. rather than communicative signs oriented toward
Analysis of the stylistic features of objects qual- some external aim, can constitute primary material
itatively alters our understanding of the time and not only for art historians but also for all students
place, the culture, that produced them. Although of society and culture.
analysis of style usually does not provide new fac- The analysis of the stylistic character of Ameri-
tual information about the engendering culture, it can neoclassical objects helps us to understand
does provide a different, more subjective, more both the facts and the feelings of an age that dis-
visceral mode of understanding, an affective mode trusted art as a luxury that led ineluctably to ex-
triggered by sensory perceptions. The artifact travagance, vice, folly, effeminacy, corruption,
through its form acts as an "artistic sign," not as a and, ultimately, national decay.9 We understand
"communicative sign," to use Mukarovsky's terms. better the dilemma of individuals within that soci-
Unlike most linguistic signs, including the docu- ety, like John Adams, whose (as one scholar has put
ments and records that are primary sources for it) "emotional response to the arts, his driving, un-
historians, it does not communicate information controllable, sensuous appreciation of the physical
about something outside of itself. "The under- things around him ... was immediate, it changed
standing that the artistic sign establishes among according to his mood, it surprised him, and more
people does -not pertain to things, even when they than anything else it frightened him."10 It fright-
are represented in the work, but to a certain attitude ened him because he shared Enlightenment con-
toward things, a certain attitude on the part of man victions regarding the corrupting power of art.
toward the entire reality that surrounds him, not Adams wrote to his wife from Paris in 1778, with
only to that reality which is directly represented in
the given case."8 Artifacts as artistic signs that il- 9 See Neil Harris, The Artist in American
Society:The Formative
Years, I790o-860 (New York: George Braziller, 1966), pp.
Jan Mukarovsky, "The Essence of the Visual Arts," in 30-36.
Semiotics of Art: Prague School Contributions, ed. Ladislav 10Wendell Garrett, "John Adams and the Limited Role of
Matejka and Irwin R. Titunik (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, the Fine Arts," in WinterthurPortfolio 1 (Winterthur, Del.: Henry
1977), p. 237- Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, 1964), p. 243.
 208 WinterthurPortfolio

regard to the richness and magnificence of Paris is reason to believe that, although some people
and Versailles, "I cannot help suspecting that the have finer tuning of one sense or another, the sen-
more elegance, the less virtue, in all times and sory apparatus and perceptions of all individuals
countries."" Through our perception of the cool- are not and have not been drastically dissimilar.
ness, the distance, the abstract qualities, the in- This conclusion is beyond physiological or philo-
tellectual as opposed to sensual appeal of neoclassi- sophical verification. But in the absence of proof to
cal objects, we have firsthand experience of an age the contrary, the assumption of common sensory
that distrusted art. For the postrevolutionary equipment and perceptions is reasonable, allowing
American mind, earlier rococo objects, with their for the facts that one's cultural perspective un-
exuberance and sensual appeal, represented in- doubtedly colors perception and that senses de-
dulgence in feelings and emotions; they aroused velop or atrophy over time (our sense of smell, for
irrational responses; they embodied aspects of example, is probably less highly developed than
human nature that could imply social and political that of our prehistoric ancestors). The premise,
instability. The neoclassical objects were aestheti- and it is admittedly a large one, is that rough is
cally sanitized, art made safe for John Adams and rough, wet is wet, hot is hot, and red is red to all
his contemporaries. human perceivers. Corollary assumptions are that
Through stylistic analysis of objects, we en- physical man himself provides a constant measure
counter the past at first hand; we have direct sen- in regard to scale (big, small) and that there are
sory experience of surviving historical events, not constants in man's experience of the physical world
necessarily important events, but authentic events (the pull of gravity, the cycle of day and night). In
nonetheless.12 This affective mode of apprehen- confronting authentic objects of another period or
sion through the senses that allows us to put our- place and allowing for changes in the physical con-
selves, figuratively speaking, inside the skins of in- dition and context of the objects, just as we have
dividuals who commissioned, made, used, or en- allowed for some change in human perception, we
joyed these objects, to see with their eyes and touch do in fact perceive something of what its producers
with their hands, to identify with them empatheti- and users perceived. We empathize with them sen-
cally, is clearly a different way of engaging the past sorially and are affected in ways that must bear
than abstractly through the written word. Instead some relationship to the ways in which they were
of our minds making intellectual contact with affected. This is confirmed by the capacity of art to
minds of the past, our senses make affective con- retain or become reinfused with freshness and
tact with senses of the past. This has certain ad- significance through the ages. In any era people
vantages. The minds of men differ remarkably will respond to certain older works of art because
from time to time and place to place. The inability their formal qualities resonate with contemporary
of one human being to understand the mind of formal values. A century ago Vermeer and Vivaldi
another, even within a single nation or culture, is were ignored; today they are valued, but Murillo,
all too clear to us in the twentieth century. The gap Troyon, and Clementi are less highly regarded
of understanding between cultures is even greater. than they were. Art remains relatively constant in
We apparently begin to understand and appreciate its transmission of affective aesthetic qualities, but
the values of different cultures, especially those the cultural preferences of human perceivers
technologically less advanced, only when they are change from generation to generation. Ars longa,
on the verge of annihilation. The gulf between vita brevis.
minds over time is no less great. It would be a Before concluding, I would like to suggest that,
disturbing experience, for instance, for a contem- in yielding a greater affective undestanding of
porary American, sharing something by way of other cultures, stylistic analysis can lead to more
language but little in terms of cultural values, to try concrete and original cultural interpretations.13
to communicate with a seventeenth-century
American, to penetrate the toughness and in-
13 This
flexibility of the seventeenth-century mind. may also be true of our own culture. Style is as much
reflective of the values of a contemporary and familiar
As different as minds may be or become, there society as
of those far removed in time and/or place. It is more difficult,
however, to perceive values we share, perhaps unconsciously.
We are partially blinded by familiarity. If one is
Garrett, "John Adams," p. 244. looking for
reflections of culture in objects, one's cultural
12
Peter Gay, Art and Act: On Causes in History-Manet, perspective is,
among other distorting factors, a polarizing lens that reduces
Gropius, Mondrian (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), notes: those reflections that resonate with one's own culture. And
"The most undramatic work of art presents
precisely the same when we are looking directly for reflections of our own culture,
causal puzzles as the eruption of a war, the
making of a treaty, it is as if the polarizing lens were revolved to the
optimum
or the rise of a class" (p. 3).
setting for blocking out reflections.
Style as Evidence 209

Fig. 14. Gilbert Stuart, Mrs. Loftus Tottenham.Dublin, ca.

1790. (Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips
Fig. 13. John Singleton Copley, Isaac Smith. Boston, Academy.)
1769. (Yale University Art Gallery, gift of Maitland Ful-
ler Griggs.)
do not ring true. The process can be rapid, even
This can be little more than a suggestion here, automatic, and often unconscious. Con-
however, since the case is complex to argue. noisseurship is an efficient and effective procedure
Moreover, the evidence is scanty, in part because not only for would-be acquirers of works of art but
we have only begun to exploit the value of stylistic also for scholars in general. By applying stylistic
analysis for the study of culture. There are, how- standards, it provides a shortcut to historical truth,
ever, a few obvious examples. In the case of an a way to know quickly what fits and is appropriate
obliterated culture, pre-Homeric or pre-Co- for a particular time and place and what is false,
lumbian, for example, which has little or no sur- faked, untrue. As it works for art objects art can
viving literature, stylistic analysis of surviving ar- work for other classes of objects or categories of
tifacts is one of the fundamental ways of knowing human behavior or activity which are marked by a
that culture (others are quantification and labora- particular style (dress, coiffures, manners, forms of
tory analysis). The history of art itself has long em- address, dance steps, military formations, rhetoric,
ployed stylistic analysis in combination with other music, etc.) to the extent that stylistic components
investigative techniques to achieve its results. can be winnowed out from function or content.
Perhaps the clearest evidence for the practical util- The applicability of stylistic analysis to data other
ity of stylistic analysis lies in its traditional applica- than art objects is still largely a hypothetical truism;
tion in the work of sorting out true objects from it remains to be demonstrated on a broad scale,
false, of determining what is and what is not an but, to point to a familiar example, Claude Levi-
authentic work of a particular hand, or of a par- Strauss has made significant cultural inter-
ticular area, or of a particular time. This process is pretations on the basis of the formal aspects of
known is connoisseurship. Once stylistic criteria painted face markings and of village plans in his
have been established by the examination of ob- studies of South American tribes.14
jects known to be authentic and have been ingested It seems clear, then, that objects reflect cultural
by the scholar (or connoisseur), it becomes possible values in their style, and that these values can
for him, by application of these internalized stylis- 14 Claude
Levi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques, trans. John
tic standards, to discern objects that are authentic Weightman and Doreen Weightman (New York: Atheneum
and to reject those objects or parts of objects that Publishers, 1974), esp. pp. 178-97, 215-46.
210 WinterthurPortfolio

therefore be apprehended through stylistic more rapid, almost instinctive, because the process
analysis. This mode of affective engagement is sensory rather than intellectual. Stylistic analysis,
through the senses yields a different kind of cul- a standard art historical procedure, can undoubt-
tural understanding than can be obtained through edly be a useful tool for scholars in other fields who
verbal sources. It therefore enlarges our knowl- are interested in cultural understanding and can
edge of other cultures. Moreover, its internal, vis- overcome inhibitions they may have about working
ceral character makes subsequent understanding with nonverbal materials.