Art Books

CHAPTER I. ARCHITECTURE--CIVIL AND MILITARY. Archaeologists, when visiting Egypt, have so concentrated their attention upon temples and tombs, that not one has devoted himself to a careful examination of the existing remains of private dwellings and military buildings. Few countries, nevertheless, have preserved so many relics of their ancient civil architecture. Setting aside towns of Roman or... more...

THIS exhibition has been arranged with a desire to meet the convenience of those who are interested in manifestations of the arts of different countries over which Islam held sway at one time or other in the past. An effort has been made to show under one roof representative examples of works produced at different epochs and stages of the civilizations referred to, so that they may be seen, and perhaps... more...

INTRODUCTION It is a happy memory that associates the foundation of our Royal Academy with the delivery of these inaugural discourses by Sir Joshua Reynolds, on the opening of the schools, and at the first annual meetings for the distribution of its prizes.  They laid down principles of art from the point of view of a man of genius who had made his power felt, and with the clear good sense which is... more...

ABOUT CENSORSHIP Since, time and again, it has been proved, in this country of free institutions, that the great majority of our fellow-countrymen consider the only Censorship that now obtains amongst us, namely the Censorship of Plays, a bulwark for the preservation of their comfort and sensibility against the spiritual researches and speculations of bolder and too active spirits—it has become time... more...

PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1887. The following lectures were the most important piece of my literary work done with unabated power, best motive, and happiest concurrence of circumstance. They were written and delivered while my mother yet lived, and had vividest sympathy in all I was attempting;—while also my friends put unbroken trust in me, and the course of study I had followed seemed to fit me for... more...

CHAPTER I THE DRAMATIC CRITIC   His Qualifications The production of a play in the Russian tongue renders topical a phrase once used, not unhappily, by Mr Cecil Raleigh concerning the qualifications of the dramatic critic. After listening to a somewhat extravagant speech about the duties of the critic, he said that the dramatic critic ought, apparently, to be a "polyglot archangel." During the... more...

THE STORY OF STEAM That which was utterly unknown to the most splendid civilizations of the past is in our time the chief power of civilization, daily engaged in making that history of a new era that is yet to be written in words. It has been demonstrated long since that men's lives are to be influenced not by theory, or belief, or argument and reason, so much as by that course of daily life which... more...

THE PERIOD OF MODERN ART IN ROMEBut ah, that spring should vanish with the Rose!That youth’s sweet-scented manuscript should close?The nightingale that in the branches sang,Oh, where and whither flown again,—who knows? Omar Khayyam. Rome, as the picturesque city of the Popes in the middle years of the nineteenth century, was resplendent in local color. It was the Rome of sunny winters; the Rome of... more...

There is a hill-crowned city by a silver sea, near a Golden Gate. For ages the water has washed from an almost land-locked bay against this hill-crowned city, and on its northern side has created of the shore an amphitheatre stretching for some three miles to the western headlands. Behind this amphitheatre rises, in terraces, the steep hills of this water-lashed city, and in part, a forest of pines... more...

A BALLADE OF ART COLLECTORS Oh Lord! We are the covetous.  Our neighbours' goods afflict us sore.From Frisco to the Bosphorus  All sightly stuff, the less the more,We want it in our hoard and store.  Nor sacrilege doth us appal—Egyptian vault—fane at Cawnpore—  Collector folk are sinners all. Our envoys plot in partibus.  They've small regard for chancel door,Or Buddhist bolts... more...