The Essentials of Aesthetics in Music, Poetry, Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Volume 8The object of this book is to determine for the reader, if possible, the qualities causing excellence in the higher arts, and to increase his appreciation of them. The phenomena of the arts of the highest class have been traced to their sources in material nature and in the human mind; the different arts have been shown to be developed by exactly similar methods; and these methods have been shown to characterize the entire work of artistic imagination, from the formulation of physical concepts to that of their most physical expressions in rhythm, proportion, and harmony. Conjointly with these subjects, the effects of all the arts together upon everything that makes for culture and for humanity have been considered in themselves, as well as in their relations to religion and to science, to both of which art is somewhat allied, and yet in such ways as to make it important that the three should be differentiated. - Preface. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
according action æsthetic appear applied architecture art-composition artistic arts of sight association beauty blue building cause Chapter character characteristic Charles Blanc CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL chords complementary colours conception condition connection conscious considered contrast corresponding curves degree developed drawing effects expression expressional external fact figures FINGER GESTURE G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS give Greek harmony hues human human voice illustration imagination imitation indicated influence instance Laocoön latter light and shade lines manifest meaning measurements mental Mentioned on pages merely methods mind movements musical scale nature notice objects outlines painter painting perceived photograph picture pitch poems poet poetic poetry Pollice Verso principle produced proportion reason recognise reference repre represent representation result rhythm sculpture seems sense side sounds subconscious subordinate suggested supposed syllable termed theory things thought or feeling thoughts and emotions tints and shades tion Titian true unity vibrations whole words yellow
Popular passages
Page 28 - The sound must seem an echo to the sense : Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows ; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar : When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow ; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Page 27 - Thy soft response renewing— What makes that ship drive on so fast? What is the ocean doing?' Second Voice 'Still as a slave before his lord, The ocean hath no blast; His great bright eye most silently Up to the Moon is cast— If he may know which way to go; For she guides him smooth or grim. See, brother, see! how graciously She looketh down on him.
Page 112 - Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.
Page 176 - Commander ; he, above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent, Stood like a tower ; his form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appeared Less than Archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured...
Page 267 - Why should that name be sounded more than yours? Write them together: yours is as fair a name: Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well. Weigh them, it is as heavy: conjure with 'em, 'Brutus' will start a spirit as soon as 'Caesar'.
Page 204 - ... purpose waste in air : So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth Arise to thee ; the children call, and I Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.
Page 195 - Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow: Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main. Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise, And bid alternate passions fall and rise!
Page 149 - Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, Beneath them; and descending they were ware That all the decks were dense with stately forms Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream— by these Three queens with crowns of gold— and from them rose A cry that...
Page 179 - As full of spirit as the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun at Midsummer ; Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. I saw young Harry, — with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd, Rise from the ground, like feather'd Mercury, And vaulted with such ease into his seat, As if an angel dropt down from the clouds, To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
Page 291 - Took the face-cloth from the face ; Yet she neither moved nor wept. Rose a nurse of ninety years, Set his child upon her knee — Like summer tempest came her tears — " Sweet my child, I live for thee.