Abstract
The study follows structure as the highest degree in the hierarchy of order questions the traditional linear conception of progression of art history, which divides art into time-specific periods and subperiods, resulting in a static and closed schema. This questioning is supported by progresive theoreticians and historians of art such as P.
Francastel, H. Belting, the historians centered around the famous Annales magazine J.
Le Goff and J.-C. Schmitt, and the estheticians and music theorists such as T.
W. Adorno, R.
Scruton or J. W.
Hill. This study prefers the cohesive notion of art history as a complex net of relations which are not constrained by the "boxes" of art periods denying the dynamicity of changes, and instead takes the opposite route than said linear picture of art history: in contrast to the strict division into art periods and their subperiods, the author distinguishes significantly longer evolutionary phases, which he calls "epoques." These epoques share the same system of concepts and are very similar to what Francastel calls "visual order" (e.g.
Francastel sees the visual order of the renaissance period as a process spanning four centuries from 1450s to the 19th century.) This study is a modified version of the last subchapter of the second chapter GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF ORDER from the upcoming academic publication Visual Arts and Music. Tectonics and structure II/1.