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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2016
My concern is with the change in style in the visual arts which occurred with the emergence of Late Antiquity. The discussion is intended to fall into three parts; in the first part I review how art historians have approached Late Antique art and examine some of the theoretical positions that have arisen through attempts to explain style in art; in the second part I shall endeavour to formulate my own theoretical explanation and I shall go on, in the third part, using some examples, to consider how this theoretical formulation is particularly valuable in the analysis of the art of the Late Antique period.
1 For a comparison of the formal and aesthetic qualities of Classical and Late Antique art see Onians, John, ‘Abstraction and Imagination in Late Antiquity’, Art History 3 (March 1980) 1–24 Google Scholar
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5 A study which attributes the change in style to a lack of craftmanship is Bernard Berenson, The Arch of Constantine or the Decline of Form (London 1954).
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