ABSTRACT
Style is a particular manner and skill in painting and drawing which comes from the particular genius of each individual in his way of applying and using ideas; this style, manner or taste comes from nature and intelligence. 'Style' is one of the art historian's indefinable but indispensable terms. This chapter shows what importance he attached to 'particular genius' in the shaping of an artist's style. To recognize the broad differences between Mannerist and Baroque is simple enough. But it is quite another matter to define 'Baroque style'. Style must be considered in the particular as well as in the general sense. The consciousness of style – especially the cultivation of a distinctive personal manner – is characteristic of the Renaissance as well as of the Baroque. Style, in the sense used here, is the visible manifestation of the artist's faculties of imagination and execution.
