My Favorite Book

Painting(The Best Book Ever Written)

Below are excerpts from a book entitled Painting. The copy I have was printed in 1935. It is the size of an average textbook, and is the best book ever written.

ART
"Many attempts have been made to explain the essential nature of art, the quality which distinguishes art from all other manifestations of human activity. but most of them lack the clearness. do not cover the whole field. or are capable of being extended to non-artistic activities. A number of writers and aesthetics, from Plato and Schiller to K.Lange, recognising the non-utilitarian, impaterialistic character of art, explain it as a form of play- a theory which cannot be reconciled with the now generally accepted notion that superstisous fear of the unknown forces of nature is one of the main springs of artistic creation in primitive man who, by the productions of his art, tries to placate the mysterious hostile powers or to create symbols of stability and rest in the bewildering turmoil of the universe."


ART AND NATURE
"It is true that the arts of painting and sculpture, less abstract than the art of music, neccessitiate a higher degree of verisimilitude to nature; but it is equally certain that the aesthetic appeal of the painters or sculptors work, though enhanced by the pleasure of recognition and association with familiar visual experience, is based on abstract qualities akin to the to the the qualities or music, the difference being merely the medium-sound in the one case, from form and colour int he other. But whereas our ears are trained to be susceptible to the rhythmic combination of sounds and to accept the musical work of art without probing into the representational meaning of these sounds, the aesthetic education of our eyes has been comparatively neglected. Instinctively we turn to the painting or piece of sculpture with a feeling of curiosity as to its meaning. Instinctively we compare it with our own experience of natural appearance and are apt to make its verisimilitude the criterion of its artistic merit, disregarding, at first sight at least, the abstract rhythym of form and colour which distinguishes the work of art from the mechanical imitation or nature. The associations of the subject are apt to blind us to the essential art qualities."


"The function of art is the creation of beauty. indeed, it may be said that there is no beauty outside art, or, to be more exact, no beauty that has not been revealed by art, Nothing in nature is either beautiful or ugly, for beauty and ugliness are not positive attributes by the artist's emotional reactions to some outside stimulus. Beauty thus resolves itself into objectified aesthetic emotion. The artist has the power to make this emotion visible or audible to others, and to make them partake of this pleasurable excitement. We become aware of beauty and acquire the habit of transferring it from the work of art to the aspect of nature which was the source of its inspiration. We learn to see the beauty in a tree, in a mountain, and even in things which, before the artist had opened our eyes, left us cold or even repelled us. A toothless old hag becomes beautiful under Rembrandt's magic touch. because he saw his subject emotionally and taught us to see it in the same way."


" That beauty is not an attribute of nature, but of art, or of the artist's mind, need scarcely be demonstrated."


"The function of art is almost as difficult to define as the meaning of art. The main purpose of art is to give pleasure; and for this reason art is held by many to be a useless luxury for the idle. From a materialistic point of view art certainly is useless. in so far as it produces nothing of strictly utilitarian character."


"It is the art of each race that gives its civilization its distinct character and rhythm. It reflects, if it does not actually condition, the whole manner of life of a nation or period. Life and art are closely, inseparably interwoven, but life passes-the life of individuals and the life of nations-and art remains."


"History becomes a living reality to us through art, Without it, it would be a dead letter."


"Without art, life would be intolerable, inconceivable. The human imagination requires food as imperiously as the human body, and art is the inexhaustible spring from which our imagination draws sustenance."


PRINCIPLES IN ART(exerpts soon to come, to know when Join This Site to recieve email updates.)