Cognitive style

Cognitive Style is based on certain skills one possesses or specific way of thinking. This style of thinking produces the use of the period eye in the interpretation of fifteenth century Italian art. In his essay, “Painting and Experience in Fifteenth century Italy, Michael Baxandall claims that this use of cognitive style, making up the period eye is shared by those making up what he calls the “patronizing class,” consisting of merchants who are educated and male. He calls this a Quattrocento cognitive style, requiring a higher class of skills in order to interpret a picture. While this specific group’s cognitive style was affected by many characteristics, particularly profession, Baxandall states that the Quattrocento men share a certain level of common skill which they used when interpreting a picture.

Michael Baxandall, “The Period Eye,” Art and Experience in Renaissance Italy, New York: Oxford UP, 1972.

1 Adrian Randolph, “Gendering the Period Eye: Deschi da Parto ad Renaissance Visual Culture,” Art History 27/4 (September 2004), p. 543.