“Baroque domes were symbols as well as spatial constructions, and they were bigger in scale and higher outside than inside in order to dominate their urban setting and communicate their symbolic message.”(1)
“…the perception [use] of objects… is not merely physical. The things are always perceived with a meaning, because they participate in activities which belong to a series of interrelated object-levels. Any house, thus, immediately symbolises aspects of the cultural objects basic to a form of life.”(2)
Different methodologies produce different results. Or, it can be said that adopting a certain given methodology allows for a certain amount of penetration into the past for the historian to compile a version of history to be discussed in the present. The historian’s perspective on any subject reveal as much as it conceals – it is the historian always shifting his gaze onto the object to attain a complete view, whilst the object is both ever still in its permanence yet also ephemeral in the shifting temporal image it reveals.
Heinrich Wolfflin’s particular methodology in his study Renaissance and Baroque is the initial premise for this essay, and in particular his neglect of the presence of iconography in his subject material. Peter Murray states in the introduction to Renaissance and Baroque “…the problem of discovering what the artist intended to represent as distinct from a description of what is actually present…”(3) is the ‘issue’ of iconography. Further, Murray claims that although this type of methodology is problematic when studying works of art, as they are constituted of basically representational objects, this technique is better suited to architectural criticism where iconography is utilised less by the artist/architect. “There is such a thing as iconography in architecture and it is far more important than sometimes realised, but it must necessarily be much less specific than in those forms of painting and sculpture which are basically representational.”(4) The weight of legitimacy in Wolfflin’s methodology, in Murray’s opinion, resides in the tentative ‘but’ of his remark. After conceding that there is a problem when Wolfflin criticises art and also architecture, Murray downplays this inadequacy in methodology by presenting a concession that the architect’s own intentions on representation are less prevalent in buildings, and so iconography in buildings can be seemingly neglected. In this key sentence, embedded in the Introduction, Murray simultaneously concedes a defeat whilst insisting on a winning position for Wolfflin’s attack on 16th-17th century architecture. In this one sentence, the whole of Wolfflin’s Renaissance and Baroque is simultaneously undermined and championed, but championed in a weak suggestive argument with little grounding for legitimacy, [this sentence appears in the heart in the Introduction, is placed at the end of a paragraph with the next paragraph initiating a shift in subject].
One can argue that Wolfflin is right to limit his tools of investigation, as to incorporate an understanding of iconography and semantics may seem ambitious. However, is Wolfflin ambitious in suggesting that he can propose a Theory of Architecture based purely on a visual denominator common and linking all works produced in the same epoch? What are the ramifications of Wolfflin’s neglect? Are there any? If there are, how deep are the ramifications felt? And how damaging are they to Wolfflin’s production?
Leaving to one side the subject of what the architect wishes to represent, Wolfflin’s methodology is separating form from content and therefore disassociating “form from its decorative function vis-à-vis the subject.”(5) A methodological bias to form over content allows, or we shall say reduces, Wolfflin to a purely optical analysis of architecture.(6) To Wolfflin, forms speak and communicate meaning, yet imbedded content remains silent as he attempts to reach the building’s structure through the building itself.(7) Norberg-Schulz suggests a flaw in Wolfflin’s critique by stating that his concepts are of “…limited use…More and more do we realise that the artistic form is so complex that it cannot be described by means of a few ‘basic concepts’”.(8) It is here that Norberg-Schulz suggests that a more successful methodology [with successfulness judged to be one which is ‘more flexible’], to be one where complex interrelated sign systems are explored. A purely descriptive narrative of form does not suffice for Norberg-Schulz.
It is not, however, simple enough to state that Wolfflin neglects iconography when analysing architecture. To neglect the iconography of a building is to disregard the effect of physical form on the [human] body. To disregard this is sure akin to the disregard of the body itself, if we regard the body as an instrument which exists to receive what objects reveal. And it is clear that Wolfflin does extract logic from a display of form, façade, physical structure and a system of proportion which links these factors together. For instance, when Wolfflin uses concrete(9) examples and describes his objects as having “…cramped niches, windows disproportionate to their allotted space, and paintings much too large for the surfaces they fill…”(10), and then confirms this alliance to the facade and formal by positing the theory that the “…aesthetic charm of this approach is the resolution of the discords…”(11), it is clear that the iconography of the object is Wolfflin’s language of communication, and it is this that he strives to translate.
The surface holds the key to Wolfflin’s analysis and methodology, not the space. This is evident not only in the language that Wolfflin adopts, but also strongly in the visual material he uses to convey his logic. It is clear that Wolfflin attempts to produce an ‘antidote’ to Burkhart’s mode of criticism, but his analysis is still based on an anti-spatial concept of space. Wolfflin utilises language such as massiveness and movement, but never does he use these terms to describe a viewer moving through space. The building as a utility is not taken to be as such in Wolfflin’s account, but just an object to be viewed, such as a work of art hanging on the wall in a white-washed interior of a gallery. A dominance and preference of elevations and plans over perspectives, photographs [which in any extent are interpreted as flat elevations by Wolfflin], and most important when trying to understand the spatial characteristics of a building, the section, hangs over Wolfflin’s work. Wolfflin’s methodology is that of stillness and static meditation. It is never the viewer who moves through space, in and out of columns, but columns who move in and out of the static viewer/s. And it is interesting to note that when Wolfflin does use material ideally suited for a description of a spatial experience, i.e. section/photograph, he still insists on an anti-spatial critique.
“He raised its height to correspond with its alterations to the façade, articulated it with the superimposed pilasters and gave it restless windows that are reminiscent of the forms of the Laurenziana, as well as a lively composite cornice.”(12) This statement highlights Wolfflin’s anti-spatial, and therefore anti-body, depiction of architecture; a ‘height’ corresponds not to the user but to a comparative façade, and reference to the body is further suppressed by the alliance of human actions to building elements with the ‘restless’ windows. This corporeal method of critique in this example prescribes to the inhabitant of the building the role of purely a viewer, but not user, and in turn demands that the object be strictly viewed and not used.
Wolfflin’s particular attitude to the analysis of buildings is further highlighted by the photos and perspective he uses. The above quote refers to plate 16 in Renaissance and Baroque, which shows a view of a courtyard. Slightly right of centre in the picture is a man who is standing, or rather leaning, against a column. He is motionless, static and is depicted as such.
Again, in plate 15, another man stands in stasis whilst the columns behind are described to be full of life and movement as they “…pushed against the giant piers.”(13)
And finally, an emphasis on an anti-spatial view of a building is strengthened by plate 5 where in front of a Roman cathedral stands a lone traffic conductor, with no traffic around him to conduct. As with all the other depictions of humans in Wolfflin’s pictorial examples, the conductor becomes the static statue, immobile in space.
The use and function of the conductor’s actions is questioned due to the absence of traffic, and thus Wolfflin questions the validity of bodily movement through space, to experience space. Architecture is reduced to ‘sides’, ‘fronts’, ‘backs’ and ‘facades’. This is the architecture of the anti-spatial, “…it is the architecture of communication over space; communication dominates space as an element in the architecture and in the landscape.”(14) And as Venturi and Scott Brown claim, it is the architecture of style and signs which is anti-spatial.(15) The existence and interpretation of signs and symbols in works of architecture becomes Wolfflin’s modus operandi, and his syntactic(16) approach not only positions his analysis within a framework of production, but also positions Wolfflin himself within an ideological framework as a producer. Just as an architect, Wolfflin also produces and will be held to account for his productions.
Herein lies the dilemma of Wolfflin’s methodology. If it is the anti-spatial which Wolfflin examines, and if it can be accepted that styles, signs and symbols are that which are read, or deciphered, or translated, by the critic, the iconography of the object is being considered. Every building creates associations in the mind of the beholder, regardless of what the architect’s original intentions were. So what does Murray refer to when he speaks of Wolfflin’s neglect?(17) It is clear, as argued above, that iconography as displayed as representations of signs and symbols, is being examined by Wolfflin – but what is the iconography in the architecture he studies? Murray defined the problem of iconography as that of discovering what the artist intended, but in this instance was referring to the critique of objects of representation in a traditional art from. The artist creates and represents an idea with signifiers and symbols. The architect also performs this same task, but Wolfflin critiques the product [object] without the acknowledgement of the producer. It is not the case, as Murray laments, that Wolfflin tries not to decipher the architect’s intentions. It is the case, however, that he draws no attachment to the producer’s intended meaning for these signs and symbols. One cannot, therefore, discount the role that iconography in the object plays in Wolfflin’s work. It is prevalent, and it is the undercurrent of communicative signs and symbols that links Wolfflin to the objects. Just as his pictorial depictions of buildings show the human body in stasis and in isolation with nothing but the object present, also Wolfflin sees himself as the human body in isolation with nothing but the object. Both the view and the viewed are lonely objects. The viewer is divorced from its primary action [that of movement and experience], and the viewed is divorced from its creator, the architect.
As a result of Wolfflin’s methodology and analysis, two definitions are presented by the critic within Renaissance and Baroque. Firstly, a particular manner in which one discusses and critiques buildings, and secondly, how one characterises styles. When Wolfflin mentions that “What matters are not the individual products of an age, but the fundamental temper which produced them…”(18), he is not referring to the architect as producer and instigator of this ‘fundamental temper’. Wolfflin tries to define the mood of an era, and of a style, where the Hegelian theory of human development leaving its footprint in objects of art and architecture is embraced. If art and architecture is a result of a duality between the Idea and Matter, it is the Idea that Wolfflin seeks to uncover through Matter. Thus, whilst Wolfflin preoccupies himself with styles, signs and symbols [iconography], Idea and the Matter, he not only neglects the architect and spatial experience [and not iconography per se as discussed], but therefore also the social as inhabitant of the spatial experience.
Further, Wolfflin method also fails to acknowledge Lefebvre’s insistence of architecture’s power to inform society. “That space signifies is incontestable. But what it signifies is dos and don’ts – and this brings us … to power.”(19) But how can architecture inform if it has no subjects to inform? Wolfflin has succeeded in stripping architecture down to its basic aesthetic elements before he views the object, but in doing so has also sterilized the object. Wolfflin seeks a ‘pure’ object to study under his microscope as he feels that only then will purity be achieved in his production. But here Wolfflin’s version of ‘the pure’ reads more like a ‘lifeless’ object – the buildings are a theatre production without an audience [or even for Wolfflin, without a director/writer/creator]. Only Wolfflin stands as a perceiver. He has privileged only himself with the act of perception. And he suggests that only he is capable of undertaking it.
So, the question now becomes not what are the ramifications of a neglect of iconography in Wolfflin’s methodology, but instead: What are the ramifications of a neglect of the architect and the social, as perceiver/viewer, in Wolfflin’s methodology?
Wolfflin studies signs and symbols in isolation and does not prescribe to de Saussure’s notion that “…semantics is the science which studies the life of signs within a society.”(20) It is a separation of meaning and being which is Wolfflin’s goal. Meaning, defined as an act performed by the architect, and being, defined as the act performed by the building itself. Panofsky also commented on a distinction between meaning and being in architecture, but Wolfflin has further confused this approach by exploding the two terms into smaller fragments; Meaning fragments into the creator [the architect] and the expression, and being fragments into the structure and the subject [society]. Two issues are raised here.
Firstly, where it was earlier discussed that Wolfflin neglects the architect and his meanings to concentrate on the being element of the building he analyses, we now find evidence in Renaissance and Baroque that this theory is itself challenged. The architect has a voice and Wolfflin does listen. When Wolfflin speaks of evocatively of architecture presenting a prevalent mood(21) it is not the mood of the architect he speaks of. He does, however, in a limited capacity refer to architects [the creators] as the designers of buildings he analyses. “Bramante’s forms have ceased to excite the imagination that architecture had to resort to more forceful expressive means…”(22), and “Milizia complained that the architect could have made better use of the site…”(23) both point toward a recognition by Wolfflin to the architect, of an acknowledgement of the architect, but intriguingly in a somewhat disapproving manner and voice. Of course, Wolfflin does allow the creators authorship of the buildings. For example, he mentions “Michelangelo’s project for the Palazzo Farnese…”(24), or the “…façade of Chiesa Nuova by Fausto Rughesi…”(25), and by doing so allows the architect [the creator] to have a direct link with the building [the structure], if not the prevalent mood of the epoch. However, in the instances where Wolfflin does make reference to the architect’s role as not only a designer of spaces, but of people with expertise, he does so repeatedly in a negative fashion. [Of course, Wolfflin is never trying to judge the success of the architect or his meanings – Wolfflin strives to act as a translator and interpreter, and thus is not privy to react to what he actually translates and communicates]. Again, when Wolfflin states that “Bramante’s style seemed trivial and made way for more far-fetched relationships…”(26), it is at these points in Renaissance and Baroque that he ceases to critique the architecture for meaning out of its being [which when he does, he does so with scant regard for the merits of the meaning based on a successful or unsuccessful being], but critiques the creator using negative prose to suggest an unsuccessful practice. Therefore, although Wolfflin’s methodology neglects the inhabitants [the subject] and the architect [the creator], Wolfflin himself does not neglect the architect. This attitude reveals Wolfflin as having a tainted view of the architect, thus in turn tainting and informing his critique. Has a negative attitude to architects informed Wolfflin’s method?
Secondly, Wolfflin’s fragmentation of being into the structure and the subject questions his own position when he critiques architecture. “The physical reality of architecture consists of the fabric of buildings, and possibly also of the people living in them…” This statement could be expanded by adding ‘…and of people around them’(27).
It has already been argued of the difficulty in Wolfflin’s method which results in an anti-spatial rendering of architecture in space, but the fragmentation of terms also alludes to a duality in architectural form; the form itself embedded with signs and symbols [defined above as the structure], and of the perceiving society [defined above as the subject]. The form has visual quality, and was conceived under the criteria of visual quality and function – therefore, it must be critiqued with these criteria in mind. This is a key point, considering the typology of building Wolfflin studies as being that of public consumption. “What exactly are the great cathedrals? The answer is that they were political acts…”(28), and only are they political acts because the buildings were employed by governing forces to inform society. With no subject to inform, the buildings are empty gestures. They exist to act, and with nothing/no society to inform, they cease to exist. One can apply this thought to Wolfflin’s work as well. One can now determine that Wolfflin’s anti-spatial methodology renders his critique baseless – if there is no building without the subject, then there can be no use of a critique of a building performed with no subject to inform.
A [public] building with no public to inform is a powerless structure, and therefore no building at all. Wolfflin tries to categorise the mood of an epoch in isolation. He tries to attach an emotion to built form and uses corporeal theory heavily in his method. Only two bodies are prevalent in Wolfflin’s work; that of the building he studies, and that of his own. He positions both himself and the building outside of society – the building has no place, and it is not a place. Wolfflin examines the object as a piece of art. Thus we can state that Wolfflin attempts an analysis of singular objects, developed over centuries and compartmentalised into stylistic epochs, but not objects grouped in a city with inhabitants. For surely to attempt this would require a passage, of movement, of the human body from building to building, and place to place, and so would be contrary to Wolfflin’s methodology. Wolfflin does not parade the building. The building parades Wolfflin, and Wolfflin alone, and reveals its mood.
“What people want to see is their own meanings in the environment – with their own systems of values, from their own frames of reference, shaped by the expressive systems that they share with their community but not necessarily with the designer.”(29)
What does Wolfflin’s dialogue with the building reveal? Can Wolfflin achieve what he attempts? Can he reduce a building to an anti-spatial work of art, and thus truly deem his critique an a-social production? As argued, that he reduces space to works of art is undisputable. However, it would be a large assumption to state that this then allows for a ‘pure’ reading of ‘pure’ objects. Wolfflin strives for this goal, but is deceived by his own being. His method separates society from his object so as not to ‘contaminate’ the study, but Wolfflin himself neglects the ramifications of the presence of his own being in his methodology. After stripping the object bare, he then allows his own presence to contaminate the study. This undermines his method and his production, for Wolfflin is himself a product of society [the subject] and therefore cannot completely purge the object of society. Wolfflin’s translations of the structure are not of the building itself, but of himself. With his a-social method, he applies values gleaned from society as apposed to reading values emitted from a building with no subject to inform.
In essence, a neglect of the architect’s [the creator] intentions, in the form of signs and symbols, in Wolfflin’s method is of little regard. “Architects are deluding themselves if they believe that they are addressing submissive audiences, eager to communicate… Nothing could be further from the truth.”(30) The critic will apply their own signs and symbols onto the object, and draw meaning from them. Society informs as much as the buildings themselves. Wolfflin’s attempt to condemn society to a subordinate role has only highlighted its existence and its effect. The very entity that Wolfflin seeks to remove has struck back to become Wolfflin himself. Renaissance and Baroque therefore it not only a critique of buildings, but of the critic as society also. Regardless of Wolfflin’s intentions and neglects, Renaissance and Baroque is a study of bodies, both as buildings and humans, in space and society. Wolfflin is betrayed by himself, and the society has grasped this opportunity and bled into his methodology. The spatial has informed Wolfflin’s production more than he knows, and perhaps more than he would have liked to admit.