Izidor Cankar structured his magnum opus on the ‘evolution of artistic style’, the monumental History of Visual Art in Western Europe (Zgodovina likovne umetnosti v Zahodni Evropi) from the Early Christian period to the beginnings of the Baroque, around a concept of the ‘systematics of style’, which he had presented earlier in his Introduction to Understanding Visual Art (Uvod v umevanje likovne umetnosti. Sistematika stila). In his Introduction, he did not men- tion his professor from Vienna university Max Dvořák, even though it is obvious that Cankar borrowed Dvořák’s key terminological contrast between idealism and naturalism. However, he clearly foregrounded Dvořák as his methodological model in the preface to his History. In the present contribution, Cankar’s evolutionary-historical survey of artistic creativity is compared to Dvořák’s vision of the course of art history, as can be inferred from his various essays. It is argued that Dvořák and Cankar’s approaches to art history are comparable not only in terminology but also in content, in their fundamental conviction that art history is essentially a Geistesgeschichte.Izidor Cankar je svoj »razvoj stila«, monumentalno Zgodovino likovne umetnosti v Zahodni Evropi od starokrščanske dobe do začetkov baročne umetnosti, napisal na podlagi svoje »sistematike stila«, že razgrnjene v Uvodu v umevanje likovne umetnosti. Sistematika stila. Svojega profesorja na dunajski univerzi Maxa Dvořáka v Uvodu ni omenil, čeprav je očitno, da je prevzel njegovo terminološko nasprotje med idealizmom in naturalizmom; zato pa je Dvořáka jasno izpostavil kot svoj metodološki vzor v predgovoru k Zgodovini. V prispevku primerjamo Cankarjev razvojno-zgodovinski pregled umetniške ustvarjalnosti z Dvořákovo predstavo o poteku zgodovine umetnosti, kakor jo je mogoče razbrati iz njegovih posameznih spisov, ter ugotovimo, da sta si sorodna ne le v izrazoslovju, temveč tudi v vsebini, v temeljnem prepričanju, da je umetnostna zgodovina v bistvu »zgodovina duha« (Geistesgeschichte)
