| Observing the study of western art history from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century, you would find that five art historians, Vasari,Winckelmann,Hegel,Riegl and Wolfflin, established systemic theories of art history. They regarded the development of history as a continual process. They adopted biological mode, evolutional mode and formalistic mode separately. These modes are very important, and they impulsed the progress of art history's methodology. Firstly, Vasari wasn't satisfied with the bald description of artists'lives and their works. He pointed that the progress of art presented biological periodicity and the progress was beyond the contribution of each individual artist. He adopted biological mode. Although he wasn't the first to do this, he regarded the progress of architecture,sculpture and painting as a whole. And he explained the rootstock of style. Vasari's methodology emphasized the main body and the direction of the study on art history. Secondly, Winckelmann amended Vasari's biological mode. In his wring, he turned the artist's biography to art works and the aesthetic character of art. He combined the content of his wring with biological mode. Thirdly, Hegel gave up the original biological mode. He conceded style changes in a dialectic pattern and denied the view of historical cycle. The significance of his corkscrew evolutional mode is his logic clew of art history. Fourthly, Riegl also adopted evolutional mode and he broke through Hegel's purely dialectic method. He inducted perception to his method and he used it to discover the inner necessity of the progress in art history. He tried to find scientific testification for his evolutional viewpoint. He combined macroscopical grasp with microcosmic investigation. His method generated durative infection. Finally, Wolfflin's study turned to formal factor completely. He discussed the transition of perception and discovered the inner rule of development to art. We must learn these modes, if we want to study western art history. On the whole, these art historians were wild about building configuration of systemic explain. They established a universal concept at first. They regarded various styles of art as idiographic explaination of the universal concept. Secondly, they build up their elucidatory truss. This thesis analyses each art historian's universal concept and how they built up their elucidatory truss. From their modes, we can see that their topical focus turned authors'subjective judgment to the objective study of art works. In addition, I make a parallel compare in biological mode and evolutional mode in order to stand out their character. Observing the relation in three modes, you would find that the study of western art history's methodology is a continuous process. Furthermore these modes are very important and they inspired the later study of art history. To a certain extent, the later study is based on them. The article is divided into five parts. The first part: adopt biological mode to grasp art history. Vasari and Winckelmann established rules of their judgment. They adored classical art, so their rules have some same factors. But their attitudes to nature are very different, so their rules are different. They saw the process of art's development or eclipse as the process of various styles in comparision with their rules'accord or departure. Despite the different rule they use the same method. The second part: adopt evolutional mode to grasp art history. Hegel and Riegl took Geist and Kunstwollen as the jumping-off point of their studies. Hegel regarded the development of Geist is in a dialectic way. And he discussed the dialectic way of art works between the content and the form. Riegl regarded the development of Kunstwollen is in a linear way. This inner necessity—the need to move from "tactile"to"optical"... |
