Talk:Style (visual arts)

Ye olde comment
The definitions and descriptions on this page only refer to painting in the Euro-American world. Painting in India, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East follow different canons, and have very different and distinctive histories. They need comparable wikipedia accounts of their own.

To work in
Johnbod (talk) 14:39, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Word Origins
Does anyone have any information on the circulation of the word 'style'? Rather than simply examples of 'style' - where/when has the word been introduced? Would be interesting to trace back. The sources provided are all post 1970s. My current thoughts are that the word is a miss-translation of the noun 'Staël' - the principality? If anyone has any evidence of use of the word pre 1800s that would be great.
 * It comes via French from the Latin stylus for a writing instrument. It developed the "manner of expression" meaning in Latin too. The OED first cites this meaning in English at c. 1330 - "Style. 13". Johnbod (talk) 14:21, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Stŷlos in ancient greek, meaning pillar.

Signature Style
As the article already talks about individual style (albeit on a vague note), my proposal is that we can add one more section that can further enhance the discussion of style in this wiki. Signature Style is already a popular term in art history and criticism and art buying circuits. A 'Signature Style' is instantly recognizable, consistent, distinctive and elegant in several ways in which artists have expressed themselves from millenniums. It is different from Individual style in the ways that an individual style might be limited to one or two artists but a 'Signature Style' can be a pre-cursor of an art movement. Alternatively, if gained significance within a set of artist community, a certain 'signature style' can be a [art of the largesse of artists and their habits. Signature style is formed by the artist puts on paint, construct compositions, and come up with a choice of colors. Signature style can also be about finding a niche and staying true to it. Good Examples of strong signature style could be - Cubist artworks of Picasso, Pop Art Style of Andy Warhol, Impressionist style of Vincent Van Gogh. In abstract American art, many artists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem De Kooning have been instrumental in bringing forth new processes and new technique for the creation of their artworks.

SriSriChinmaya (SriSriChinmaya) — Preceding undated comment added 06:41, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, just seen this. I don't see any definable difference between "signature" and "individual" style, so I have merged the two sections. Johnbod (talk) 16:04, 13 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I am working on finer aspects of style in visual arts. I will try to come up with better sentence structure and logical argument. SriSriChinmaya (SriSriChinmaya) — Preceding undated comment added 04:12, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

"Signature Style" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Signature Style and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 January 24 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 08:33, 24 January 2022 (UTC)


 * redirect Signature Style is going to a page that talks about a U.S. retailer brand. I think it should go to disambiguation 'Signature Style' wiki page, if there is one. In case, there is not a particular wiki page (which I tried to search and could not find ) then I can submit a draft for the same to the discussion board. Please guide me how to proceed. @Laterthanyouthink SriSriChinmaya (talk) 12:01, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
 * No, Signature Style comes here, per the discussion above. The clothing brand is Signature Styles apparently, which redirects to Spiegel (US retailer) though the brand doesn't seem to be mentioned there (and the company has now gone bust & ceased to operate). Nothing needs doing. Johnbod (talk) 12:38, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi . If you click on the link above you will see that there was a discussion about the redirects and it has been closed. "Signature Styles" redirects to the US retailer, while "signature style" redirects to a section in this article. I don't think that a disambiguation page is warranted unless a third use becomes apparent. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 13:34, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Johnbod (talk) 14:19, 8 April 2022 (UTC)