[Book review] Principles of art history : the problem of the development of style in early modern art

Abstract

The Getty Trust is providing an essential service to academia through its research arm by re-publishing original texts that shaped the study of art and architecture. With seminal writings such as Samuel Quiccheberg's Inscriptiones (1565), the first treatise on museums, and Gabriele Paleotti's Discorso ... (1592), on sacred and profane art in the wake of the Counter-Reformation, the 'Texts and Documents' series take art historians back to their professional roots, in the manner of taking another look at famous paintings only to observe something new, perhaps even undiscovered by others. Texts from the early modem period as well as the twentieth century allow the historian to trace the history of ideas, and ultimately to recognize the road travelled in getting the history of art to where it stands today, in the world of both the specialist as well as that of the lay person. The latest stellar addition is Heinrich Wolfflin 's Principles of Art History, which was first published in German in 1915 and soon became essential reading for specialists in Baroque art and architecture. Wolfflin's authoritative work gained further traction when it was translated into English in 1932.