Journal of Art Historiography (Dec 2012)
Wölfflin, Architecture and the Problem of Stilwandlung
Abstract
This article argues that more so than style, it was the mechanism that caused style change that galvanized Wölfflin’s inquiry starting with his doctoral dissertation (1886) to the Principles of Art History (1915). The late 19th century broadly-based discussion of style in architecture (that gathered Semper, Göller, Riegl and many others) provided him with the “laboratory” where he first developed the concepts of subject/object relationship and reception/perception that informed his mature work. This initial and very productive dialogue with architecture, also meant that Wölfflin had an effect upon architecture culture both in his own time and subsequently, through the work of his student Sigfried Giedion.
