Art Books

PREFACE. 1. I must pray the readers of the following Lectures to remember that the duty at present laid on me at Oxford is of an exceptionally complex character. Directly, it is to awaken the interest of my pupils in a study which they have hitherto found unattractive, and imagined to be useless; but more imperatively, it is to define the principles by which the study itself should be guided; and to... more...

BLACK AND WHITE If there be nothing new under the sun there are some things a good deal less old than others. The illustration of books, and even more of magazines, may be said to have been born in our time, so far as variety and abundance are the signs of it; or born, at any rate, the comprehensive, ingenious, sympathetic spirit in which we conceive and practise it. If the centuries are ever arraigned... more...

EARLY ITALIAN ART—GIOTTO, 1276-1337—ANDREA PISANO. 1280-1345—ORCAGNA, 1315-1376 GHIBERTI, 1381-1455—MASACCIO, 1402-1428 OR 1429—FRA ANGELICO, 1387-1455. A pencil and paper, a box of colours, and a scrap-book, form so often a child's favourite toys that one might expect that a very large portion of men and women would prove painters. But, as we grow in years and knowledge, the discrepancy... more...

SINCE CÉZANNE With anyone who concludes that this preliminary essay is merely to justify the rather appetizing title of my book I shall be at no pains to quarrel. If privately I think it does more, publicly I shall not avow it. Historically and critically, I admit, the thing is as slight as a sketch contained in five-and-thirty pages must be, and certainly it adds nothing to what I have said, in the... more...

Foreword This handbook is designed to furnish the information necessary for intelligent appreciation of the purely artistic features of the Exposition. It is planned first to explain the symbolism of the architecture, sculpture and painting; and second, to point out the special qualities that give each artistic unit its individual appeal. It is made for the intelligent observer who, having enjoyed the... 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 Sculpture and Mural Decorations "In this fair world of dreams and vagary,Where all is weak and clothed in failing forms,Where skies and trees and beauties speak of change,And always wear a garb that's like our minds,We hear a cry from those who are aboutAnd from within we hear a quiet voiceThat drives us on to do, and do, and do." The persistent necessity for creation is strikingly... more...

CHAPTER I The Duomo I: Its Construction The City of the Miracle—The Marble Companions—Twilight andImmensity—Arnolfo di Cambio—Dante's seat—Ruskin's "Shepherd"—Giottothe various—Giotto's fun—The indomitable Brunelleschi—Makers ofFlorence—The present façade. All visitors to Florence make first for the Duomo. Let us do the same. The real name of the Duomo is the... 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...