ABSTRACT
Having examined the properties of art works, including their creation, the next task is to discuss the formation of complex hypotheses by which one moves from an understanding of the history of individual or small groups of works to a valid history of art for large regions. The core of such hypotheses is to be an account of the succession of styles, for art history is above all a history of shapes. Many hold that shapes have their own dynamic and point to impressive long-lasting drifts of whole styles to prove it. Once the correct stylistic sequence is found, technological and iconographical questions can be woven within it, just as changing social circumstances of use and meaning should be. Most scholars in the field have attempted to develop coherent frameworks based on similarities of form, either over space or over time, extending the techniques of stylistic seriation discussed in Chapter 5. In this chapter I shall first examine such attempts and propose an alternate model of presenting formal change over time, then I shall argue that stylistic sequences by themselves do not lead to a history of art. It is not merely a question of placing such sequences in the context of technology, iconography or general history. Rather, a general historical sequence must be the fundamental framework, the point of departure for any history of art, a history in which formal development is only one of the elements, however essential, along with technological and iconographical development.
