Capitalisation question - artistic movements / styles

Hi all,
Probably a stupid question but would you capitalise things like gothic or romanesque or renaissance when describing a building's architectural style? It seems to look odd no matter what way I do it.
Thanks in advance,
Z

Alessandra Kelley said:

I'm an artist (not actually a writer). They are capitalised, the Renaissance just because it always has been ever since the Italians coined the term to describe themselves, Gothic and Romanesque because they are named for peoples, the Goths and the Romans.

Let's leave aside that Gothic was an insulting term coined during the Renaissance to denigrate their immediate artistic forbears. And I'm not sure Romanesque was intended as flattery either.

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So what about something like 'Early Gothic'? Both capitals?

Basically I have an issue with the capitals-no capitals thing thanks to my former employment, as my boss had a thing about it. Her theory was that words that had lost their previous meaning (ie if we say a Gothic cathedral now we're not implying it was built by the Goths) then it should no longer be capitalised. Apparently this was from the Guardian newspaper style guide. I was taught what she would call the 'old fashioned' way of capitalising but now because of the many arguments, she gets me wondering. (And we can't even mention French windows round that office or there'll be a four month long argument...)

Edited - saying that since my MC is an illustrator of architectural texts from the 19th Century he would use the traditional way, so since it's first person, I should too. Cool. Just thinking aloud.

Alessandra Kelley said:

Early Gothic is not recognised as a distinct style from Gothic, so I belive it would be called "early Gothic." It's not like "Old High German."

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It is here in the Czech Republic because we have two very distinct styles. For instance, St Anezka's convent is Early Gothic, St Vitus' Cathedral is Gothic. The two movements were very different and had different history behind them here. And the story is set in CZ, so that's what I'm going with.

As far as the Renaissance Italians were concerned, that old architecture was built by Goths -- tasteless barbarians, anyway. Non-Romans, certainly. It was a calculated insult.

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Renaissance Italians don't really come into the story anywhere I was asking generally about artistic movements, not just those three I listed. Just putting a few off the top of my head. What I said was my boss has this theory that in modern writing, as in not by people in the Renaissance, some terms have lost their original sense and taken on a meaning of their own. Her argument was, for instance, that 'French windows' is now a style of windows that's not necessarily made in France, but can be found anywhere, and is almost a proper noun in its own right. Basically it all started over whether or not to put a capital on parmesan because it's one of those names that's protected by EU law, related to where the cheese was originally made. The older members of staff disagreed with dropping all capitals entirely, which was boss's idea, but I'm not joking when I say this argument has gone on for nigh on four years now and has still never been concluded.

Even Neo-Classical and Romantic are capitalised, if you're talking of the art/architecture movements. A nineteenth-century artist or historian would probably capitalise them.

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Thanks, that was my question exactly. It was also my first instinct (but it's a long time since I studied Art History and like I said, ex-boss has me questioning everything these days!)