Oswald Spengler. The Decline of the West. An abridged edition by
Helmut Werner. English abridged edition prepared by Arthur Helps
from the translation by Charles Francis Atkinson. New York:
oxford University Press c199 [1926, 1928, 1932]. xxxx,415, xvix.
THE HISTORY OF STYLE AS AN ORGANISM [107+]
I. Spring
A.Every Spring has two definitely ornamental and non-
imitative arts - Carolingian (between styles [107])
B.Dawn of culture, architecture as ornament comes into being
suddenly and with such a force of expression that for a century
mere decoration-as-such shrinks away fromit in awe.
C.Form-world of springtime at its highest: architecture is
lord and ornament is vassal (ornament in the service of all-
ruling architectural idea)
1. statuary groups of Gothic cathedrals
2. hymn strophe
3. parallel motion of arts in church music
D. AD 1000 - awakening at one moment Romanesque arrives
a.dynamic of space
b.inner and outer construction placed in fixed
relation
E.Gothic/Medieval
II. Summer
A.Late period of a style - group of civic and worldly
special arts devote themselves to pleasing and clever imitation,
become personal
B.Renaissance/Baroque
III. Autumn
A.Soul depicts its happiness, conscious of self-completion
1.return to Nature (Rousseau)
a.reveals itself in the form-world of the arts as
a sensitive longing and presentiment of the end.. [204]
b.features of last decades of a Culture...
(1)Perfectly clear intellect, jouous
urbanity, pain of a farewell -
B.Haydn and Mozart, Dresden shepherdesses, pictures of
Watteau
C.Transition consists of
1.Classicism - sentimental regard for Ornamentation
(rules, laws, types) that has long been archaic and soulless
2.Romanticism - sentimental Imitation, not of life, but
of an older Imitation
IV. Winter
A.At the last when Civilization sets in, true ornament and,
with it, great art as a whole are extinguished
1.Not architectural style, but taste
2.Methods of painting and mannerisms of writing, old
forms and new, home and foreign, come and go with the fashion.
3.Pictorial and literary stock-in-trade destitute of
any deeper significance, employed according to taste
B.Final or industrial form of Ornament - no longer
historical, no longer in the condition of "becoming" [104]
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