Evolution in Art: As Illustrated by the Life-histories of Designs

Evolution in Art: As Illustrated by the Life-histories of Designs

Notwithstanding the immense number of books, dissertations, and papers which have been written on pictorial and decorative art, I venture to add one more to their number. I profess to be neither an artist nor an art critic, but simply a biologist who has had his attention turned to the subject of decorative art. One of my objects is to show that delineations have an individuality and a life-history which can be studied quite irrespectively of their artistic merit. We are not now concerned with the sthetic aspect of the arts of design, nor with those theories of art which artists and art critics like to discuss, and concerning which John Collier, in his masterly little Primer of Art, has expressed himself in no uncertain terms. According to this author, art may, speaking broadly, be defined as a creative operation of the intelligence, the making of something either with a view to utility or pleasure. As a matter of fact the term art now has a tendency to be confined to designate the Fine Arts as opposed to the Useful Arts; not only so, but instead of including personal decoration, ornamentation, painting, sculpture, dancing, poetry, music, and the drama, the term is very often limited to ornamentation, painting, and sculpture. It is with these three that we are now more immediately concerned, and[2] more particularly with the first of them, or decorative art. In this narrower sense art may be defined as the making of something to please the eye.... As to what is pleasing, that each person must decide for himself. Art has also a physical and a physiological aspect, such as the questions of harmony of line and colour, which lie at the root of all art. With Dr. Collier, we may leave these untouched, not because they are unimportant, but because, not enough is known about them to make their discussion in the least profitable. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 46079
Author: Haddon, Alfred C. (Alfred Cort)
Release Date: Jun 23, 2014
Format: eBook
Language: English