Artistic Style as the Expression of Ideals

Philosophers' Imprint 21 (NO. 8):1-18 (2021)
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Abstract

What is artistic style? In the literature one answer to this question has proved influential: the view that artistic style is the expression of personality. In what follows we elaborate upon and evaluatively compare the two most plausible versions of this view with a new proposal—that style is the expression of the artist’s ideals for her art. We proceed by comparing the views’ answers to certain questions we think a theory of individual artistic style should address: Are there limits on what range of features can figure in a style? Can flaws be stylistic? Are there limits on the range of art forms across which a given style can be exhibited? To what extent is a style a kind of unity, and why? What makes style an artistic achievement? Why do we care about style? By considering the different views' answers to these questions we argue that our proposal is a workable theory of individual style and suggest that it fares better on the whole than both versions of the influential and widely accepted view.

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Author Profiles

Robert Hopkins
New York University
Nick Riggle
University of San Diego

Citations of this work

Unconscious Intelligence in the Skilled Control of Expert Action.Spencer Ivy - 2023 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 30 (3):59-83.

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References found in this work

The Principles of Art.R. G. Collingwood - 1938 - Philosophy 13 (52):492-496.
The transfiguration of the commonplace.Arthur C. Danto - 1974 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 33 (2):139-148.
Personal Style and Artistic Style.Nick Riggle - 2015 - Philosophical Quarterly 65 (261):711-731.
Music in the moment.Jerrold Levinson - 1997 - Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Style and the Products and Processes of Art.Kendall Walton - 1979 - In Leonard B. Meyer & Berel Lang (eds.), The Concept of style. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 45--66.

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