Editing Style (visual arts) (section)

==Overview==
Any piece of art is in theory capable of being analysed in terms of style; neither periods nor artists can avoid having a style, except by complete incompetence,<ref>[[George Kubler]] goes further "No human acts escape style", Kubler in Lang, 167; II, 3 in his list; Elkins, s. 2</ref> and conversely natural objects or sights cannot be said to have a style, as style only results from choices made by a maker.<ref>Lang, 177–178</ref>  Whether the artist makes a conscious choice of style, or can identify his own style, hardly matters.  Artists in recent developed societies tend to be highly conscious of their own style, arguably over-conscious, whereas for earlier artists stylistic choices were probably "largely unselfconscious".<ref>Elsner, 106–107, 107 quoted</ref>

Most stylistic periods are identified and defined later by art historians, but artists may choose to define and name their own style. The names of most older styles are the invention of art historians and would not have been understood by the practitioners of those styles. Some originated as terms of derision, including [[Gothic style|Gothic]], [[Baroque]], and [[Rococo]].<ref>Gombrich, 131; Honour & Fleming, 13–14; Elkins, s. 2</ref>  [[Cubism]] on the other hand was a conscious identification made by a few artists; the word itself seems to have originated with critics rather than painters, but was rapidly accepted by the artists.

Western art, like that of some other cultures, most notably [[Chinese art]], has a marked tendency to revive at intervals "classic" styles from the past.<ref>Honour & Fleming, 13</ref>  In critical analysis of the visual arts, the style of a work of art is typically treated as distinct from its [[iconography]], which covers the subject and the ''content'' of the work, though for [[Jas Elsner]] this distinction is "not, of course, true in any actual example; but it has proved rhetorically extremely useful".<ref>Elsner, 107–108, 108 quoted</ref>