7
7
Types of Historicism
Ezra Pound said, "a return to origins invigorates because it is a return to nature and reason."1 If we survey the architecture, visual arts, and literature of the past several centuries, it is clear that this retrospective "return to origins" has remained a cultural constant, even after the advent of modernism.
Part Three documents the uninterrupted continuity of the historicist tradition in the arts since the eighteenth century through a survey of representative works in each of four categories: adaptive, derivative, pure, and eclectic. As defined in my monograph, Historicism and the Question of Originality in the Arts (revised edition, 2003), adaptive historicist art is that in which historical material is interwoven with elements considered contemporary or new at the time of creation. Derivative historicist art is based on one or more clearly discernible historical models. Pure historicist art authentically expresses the essence, manners, forms, or styles of a period earlier than that in which it was created. Eclectic historicist art is that in which elements of two or more historical periods are blended.2
These categories are by no means mutually exclusive, and many of the examples introduced in chapters 8–19 actually exhibit characteristics of two or more of the above types. I have attempted, nevertheless, to select works largely illustrative of the categories under which they are presented.
Part Three is not organized as a continuous narrative but as a series of annotated examples grouped chronologically by artistic medium (architecture, the visual arts, or literature) and type. Readers are thus afforded a certain flexibility in how they approach this material. Some may find it useful, for example, to consider all of the examples in a given category side by side with their musical analogues in Part Four (chaps. 21–24). Others may prefer to focus on a single historicist type or creative medium.
To the best of my knowledge, both the typology I have introduced here and the interdisciplinary manner in which it has been applied are the first contributions of their kind to historicist research. I hope that they will prove both enlightening and useful to others engaged in the practice or study of historicist art and aesthetics.
