Style

The representative and unique appearance of an artistic work as a whole. The word originates from the Greek στ λο, and its original meaning is a fixed straight body whose length is greater than its width. In the writings of the Roman writers Terence and Cicero, the word evolved to mean script or style, indicating a specific way of expressing thoughts in writing. English, French style and German stil all come from this. The word style in Chinese has already appeared in the works of Jin people (see Ge Hong's "Baopuzi", etc.), which refers to a person's demeanor and character. In Liu Xie's "The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons" during the Southern Dynasties, the style and pattern of the article were shifted. As late as the Tang Dynasty's painting history works, style has been used as a term for evaluating the art of painting. Since modern times, people have widely used the term in aesthetics, literature, art, literary criticism and other fields.

Style is different from general artistic characteristics or creative personality. It is relatively stable, more intrinsic and profound expressed through artworks, and thus more essentially reflects the era, nation or the artist's personal thoughts. External imprints of inner characteristics such as concepts, aesthetic ideals, and spiritual temperament. The formation of style is a sign that an era, nation or artist has transcended the infantile stage in art, got rid of the shackles of various stereotypes, and thus tended to or reached maturity.

The essential significance of style is that it is not only the result of the artist's unique and distinctive expression of the aesthetic object, but also the result of the art appreciator's correct appreciation, understanding, and taste of the artwork. Therefore, it is In a deeper sense, it reveals one of the essential characteristics of artistic creation and appreciation - the infinite richness and diversity of the real world and aesthetic objects.

Style is formed by the unity of the unique content and form of an artwork, and the unity of the individual characteristics of the artist as the creative subject and the objective characteristics determined by the subject matter, genre of the work, and historical conditions such as society and the times. of. The formation of style has its subjective and objective reasons. Subjectively, artists will inevitably form various relatively stable characteristics that are different from other artists in their artistic creations, consciously or unconsciously, due to their different life experiences, ideological concepts, artistic qualities, emotional tendencies, personality characteristics, and aesthetic ideals. personality and distinctive features. Artistic style is the natural expression and concrete expression of creative personality. The French writer G.-L.L. de Buffon has a famous saying: "Style is the person." Hegel further developed this: "Style here generally refers to the individual artist's completeness in terms of expression and twists and turns of style." We can see some of the characteristics of his personality. "Liu Xie said: "...he is talented and handsome, his temperament is strong and soft, his knowledge is shallow and profound, his habits are elegant and Zheng, and he is inspired by his emotions and condensed by his pen. "Di Yunqiu, Wen Yuanbo is weird." It also talks about the subjective conditions that lead to different artistic styles.

Objectively, the formation of an artist’s creative personality must be affected by the social and historical conditions of the era, society, nation, class, etc. to which he belongs; and the objective object specifically represented by the artwork, the chosen The subject matter and the genre and art category to which it belongs also have an inherent restrictive effect on the formation of style. This is the objective condition for the formation of style. Being divorced from the objective social environment in which one lives and pursuing a certain style subjectively and arbitrarily regardless of the characteristics of the subject matter, genre, etc. will inevitably lead to artificiality, hypocrisy and superficiality.

Specifically, style is reflected in the various elements of a work of art. It is manifested not only in the consistency and uniqueness of the artist's choice of subject matter, the exploration of the theme, the depth and uniqueness of understanding, but also in the use of creative techniques, the way of shaping images, and the control of artistic language. of originality. Artworks with a truly original style can produce huge artistic appeal, thereby successfully communicating the artist's unique thoughts, emotions, aesthetic ideals, etc. with the appreciator.

Artistic styles are characterized by diversity and identity. The infinite diversity of the real world itself, the different creative personalities of artists, and the diversity of aesthetic needs of art appreciators determine the diversity of artistic styles. Even works by the same artist do not rule out the possibility of diverse styles. It is the diversity of artistic styles that greatly promotes the prosperity and development of art.

On the other hand, the diverse styles of the same artist present a dominant style characteristic as a whole due to the constraints of their creative personality; the stylistic differences between different artists cannot help but be affected by certain aspects of their lives. The aesthetic needs of an era, nation and class and the constraints of artistic development show the consistency of style. The diversity and consistency of styles are interconnected and interpenetrated, presenting an intricate phenomenon. The distinction should be paid attention to when making art criticism. In plastic arts, the diversity and identity of styles often have very distinct expressions. Just like the outstanding creations of Italian Renaissance art, Michelangelo's majesty, Leonardo da Vinci, L.'s depth, and Raphael's elegance are all different; while Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance and Baroque are typical styles of their respective eras; for example, the paintings of the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties are "simple in trace but dull in meaning", and the paintings in the early Tang Dynasty are "powerful and magnificent", all reflecting the styles of different times.

Aesthetically, styles can be roughly divided into various types. In the actual development process of art, the same type of style often forms an art school; the development and evolution of various art schools not only constitute the development process of art, but also reflect the changes in social ideological trends and aesthetic ideals of each era.

The study of style has also formed the specialized discipline of stylistics.