lling for a break from traditional methods of investigating and determining style for value purposes. Since individual “freedom of choice” and modern culture permits a greater mix of styles, the older systems of defining specific styles become obsolete. It may however, be very difficult to change something that has been so ingrained into the institutional norm of academic minds especially when it concerns the more historical styles of the past, and the almost-universally understood values placed on each. “Value” is so important in this society that to “modernize” mindsets about its relationship to style would be a long road in taking to the future. In terms of style and the way it functions, one must look at it as a means of communication and common language. Once again looking at the smaller parts of the whole, style works to relate and communicate between works of art under a bigger language of styles. The system of devices working within a particular style conveys a message to the larger group. The work attributes itself to a “qualitative whole,” and brings a qualitative value to a style. In the past, the most successful in communicating the certain language of style has been repeated and thus developed into a norm. Not only can an artwork communicate a style, but the influence of a style on a work or an artist within the current or past style is possible as well. Therefore, I think that the relationship is bi-directional in nature and in construction. Schapiro had also mentioned in his essay specific theories of styles such as the organic, cyclical, polar, material, and dominant-personality, as well as other parts dealing with the patterns of art within each of the time/place, social, and cultural structures. The development of style through these patterns or systems are not so much weighted one more than the other, but taken as a collective whole by the readers as Schapir...
