Wölfflin argued that changes in style cannot be equated with intellectual development; ‘we still have to find the path from the cell of the scholar to the mason’s yard’ [77]. He also argued that we, as humans, regard buildings as analogous to the human form; i.e. in our perceptions of architecture as light or heavy; this is what he refers to as the Eingefühl (empathy or more literally into-feeling). The Hegelian notion of teleological history is important here, as is Hegel’s concept of the Geist (spirit), the dialectical development of which is closely associated with developments in the arts. Importantly, Wölfflin moves from a concept of the Geist to a concept of Lebensgefühl (life-feeling) which moves significance from the spirit to the corporeal [78]. Wölfflin relates the idea of representations of movement and deportment from the arts (painting, fashion etc.) and reflects them onto architecture – for example he refers to the precise, tense movements and ‘thin nose’ of the Gothic in comparison with the ‘loosened and liberated’ forms of the Renaissance [78]. So in actual fact he is examining Lebensgefühl not as it is lived but as it is represented.
Significant, though they were, Wölfflin’s concepts were criticised by architects as they rendered buildings as images by removing the aspect of space and viewing the structure only from the exterior.
Riegl’s desire to systematise art and fit it into the development of history were highly influential as they brought into the fore art that was previously overlooked as degenerate. Riegl analysed periods of art without making valued judgements about their output. He argued, unlike Wölfflin, that art could have different objectives at different times and didn’t operate in the confines of development, high point, degeneration.
Riegl, Alois, ‘The Main Characteristics of the Late Roman Kunstwollen (1901)’ in The Vienna School Reader: Politics and Art Historical Method in the 1930s, Wood, Christopher S. (ed.), (New York: Zone Books, 2000), pp. 87-104.