Introduction: Psychology and the Riddle of Style

“Art being a thing of the mind, it follows that any scientific study of art will be psychology. It may be other things as well, but psychology it will always be.” (Max J. Friedländer, Von Kunst und Kennerschaft)
If art were only, or mainly, an expression of personal vision, there could be no history of art.
It was thus not difficult to counter the psychological arguments of the impressionists that their paintings showed the world “as we really see it” with equally valid psychological arguments for the reliance of traditional art on intellectual knowledge. 
“…even the simplest sense impression that looks like merely the raw material for the operations of the mind is already a mental fact, and what we call the external world is really the result of a complex psychological process.”
The historian’s task is not to judge but to explain.
…recession and foreshortening would have introduced a subjective element. 
“Every style aims at a faithful rendering of nature and nothing else, but each has its own conception of nature…”
Not that I deny that historians, like other students of groups, often find attitudes, beliefs, or tastes that are shared by many and might well be described as the mentality or outlook dominant in a class, generation, or nation. Nor do I doubt that changes in the intellectual climate and changes in fashion or taste are often symptomatic of social change, or that an investigation of these connections can be worth while. Both in the writings of Riegl himself and in those of his followers and interpreters, such as Worringer, Dvorák, and Sedlmayr, there is a wealth of challenging historical problems and suggestions, but I would assert that what is their greatest pride is in fact their fatal flaw: by throwing out the idea of skill they have not only surrendered vital evidence, they have made it impossible to realize their ambition, a valid psychology of stylistic change.
…art is born of art, not of nature. 
The more we become aware of the enormous pull in man to repeat what he has learned, the greater will be our admiration for those exceptional beings who could break this spell and make a significant advance on which others could build.
“The progress of learning is from indefinite to definite, not from sensation to perception. We do not learn to have percepts but to differentiate them.” (J. J. Gibson)