Eclecticism is a kind of mixed style in the fine arts: “the borrowing of a variety of styles from different sources and combining them” (Hume 1998, 5). Significantly, Eclecticism hardly ever constituted a specific style in art: it is characterized by the fact that it was not a particular style. In general, the term describes the combination in a single work of a variety of influences—mainly of elements from different historical styles in architecture, painting, and the graphic and decorative arts. In music the term used may be either eclecticism or polystylism.

The term eclecticism is used to describe the combination, in a single work, of elements from different historical styles, chiefly in architecture and, by implication, in the fine and decorative arts. The term is sometimes also loosely applied to the general stylistic variety of 19th-century architecture after Neo-classicism (c. 1820), although the revivals of styles in that period have, since the 1970s, generally been referred to as aspects of historicism.

This art does not combine certain types of art, and the term actually describes any combination of different styles, both in visual art, in architecture, and in the field of music. The term is mainly used to describe a combination of styles of art, architecture or classical music, and modern styles, or borrowing or quoting classical elements in modern art genres.

Eclecticism plays an important role in critical discussions and evaluations but is somehow distant from the actual forms of the artifacts to which it is applied, and its meaning is thus rather indistinct. The simplest definition of the term—that every work of art represents the combination of a variety of influences—is so basic as to be of little use. In some ways Eclecticism is reminiscent of Mannerism in that the term was used pejoratively for much of the period of its currency, although, unlike Mannerism, Eclecticism never amounted to a movement or constituted a specific style: it is characterized precisely by the fact that it was not a particular style.

Characteristics:
To distinguish between simultaneous, synthetic and formal eclecticism. Simultaneous eclecticism is the first stage of development since 1830 when different stylized means or constructions exist in a confrontational way, contrasting with their diversity. The foundations of simultaneous eclecticism were laid by the German architects Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Friedrich von Gärtner and Leo von Klenze.

The second phase was synthetic eclecticism, which seeks to alleviate oppositional styles by combining them into one object. The most typical example was the so- the synthetic cathedral of architect August Boileau, where the author tried to combine Byzantine, classical and gothic elements in combination with metal. He developed mainly in Austria and France and Germany (eg Kreuzkirche in Berlin by Johannes Otzen). Targeted synthetic eclecticism can be perceived as an imperfect aesthetic composition that does not have an unambiguous character and inter-compositional intercourse. Besides these so-called non-subsidies, however, there are also eminent buildings, especially post-modern radical eclecticism, which was also represented by Robert Venturi. In these cases, the result was positive, in the sense that architects, postmodern artists did not share these elements with historical value but used them as a means of their personal view of architecture.

The final phase is formal eclecticism that emphasizes the style of beautiful art. Applied mainly in the USA. In Europe, eclecticism manifested itself particularly at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in the need to create representative buildings with the use of historical styles.

Eclecticism arts:
Eclecticism is a mixed style in the fine arts, whose features are taken from various sources and styles. Considerably, eclecticism almost never constituted a specific style in art: it is characterized by the fact that this was not a particular style. In general, the term describes the combination with a work only of a variety of influences – mainly elements of different historical styles in architecture, painting, and graphic and decorative arts.

The term “eclectic” was first used by Johann Joachim Winckelmann to characterize Carracci’s art, which incorporated elements of the Renaissance and classical traditions into his paintings. Indeed, Agostino, Annibale and Lodovico Carracci had tried to combine in the line of Michelangelo’s art, the color of Titian, the chiaroscuro of Correggio, the symmetry of Raphael and grace.

In the 18th century, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the head of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, was one of the most influential advocates of eclecticism. In the sixth of his famous Academic Discourses (1774), he wrote that the painter can use the work of antiquity as “magazine of common property, always open to the public, whence every man has a right to take what materials he pleases”. that he is pleased In the 19th century, in England, John Ruskin also pleaded for eclecticism.

Eclecticism architecture:
In architecture, eclecticism defines those architectures linked to a historical conception of architecture on the one hand and which at the same time tend to a syncretic unity, with the mixture of elements taken from different historical movements but also exotic and contemporary. The first manifestations took place in 18th-century England and lasted throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Also similar to this line are some experiments of the Court of the Bourbons of Naples that in Palermo, during the period of refuge from the Neapolitan Republic of 1799, as in the Chinese Palazzina.

The first examples of eclectic architecture were built in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, particularly in the Palazzina Cinese in Palermo.

In the manifestations of eclecticism of the early nineteenth century, the forms taken were generally the classical ones. In fact, the Neoclassical Architecture developed mainly with the recovery of concepts and forms of Greek classicism (neo-Greek architecture), of the Renaissance (neo-Renaissance architecture) and of the Baroque (neo-baroque architecture). In the decades that followed, trends in the recovery of medieval architecture developed with Neo-Gothic, Neo-Romanesque and Neo-Byzantine architecture. Towards the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there were many references to exotic architecture (especially of the East) such as neo-governmental architecture, Islamic Architecture (Neo-Roman architecture), but also Chinese and Indian architecture.

Eclecticism was an important concept in Western architecture during the mid- and late 19th century, and it reappeared in a new guise in the latter part of the 20th century. In the twentieth century, stylistic features of modernist architecture and Art Nouveau are also added.

Eclecticism music:
Eclecticism style in music describes the use of different musical styles from the artist’s main style, or the combination of several historical styles. This term is sometimes used to describe (disparagingly) a non-original creator using other creative styles.