Late Antique Style and the Idea of Modes

There is no better place to consider the question of style in late antique art than Vienna. It was here that the modern discipline of art history took shape in a series of studies devoted to the art of the later Roman period, specifically Franz Wickhoff’s Wiener Genesis (1895) and Alois Riegl’s Spätrömische Kunst-Industrie (1901). Of the many contributions made by Wickhoff and Riegl in their quest for a scientific method that would move the study of art beyond the realm of connoisseurship perhaps the most significant was the proposal that style – that is the manipulation of line, color, and composition – could be a bearer of meaning. Riegl in particular was a champion of this idea, and in attributing such agency to form he suggested that the visual arts had the capacity to communicate ideas in ways other than iconography. This paper will explore the importance of this proposal for the study of late antique art. To do so it will first offer an overview of attitudes towards Roman and late Roman art in the nineteenth century before characterizing Riegl’s contribution. It will then consider the impact of his thinking in the twentieth century, paying particular attention to the work of Ernst Kitzinger (1912-2003) and the theory of artistic modes he used to explain Riegl’s observations. The paper will conclude by suggesting ways in which Kitzinger’s ideas might be refined by applying classifications of musical modes and rhetorical styles that were common in antiquity and late antiquity to works of visual art.