The Philosophy of Art

The now famous name of Taine was first introduced to the American public by the issue, in 1865, of a small imported edition of this work. That edition has long been out of print here and in Europe. That the book is now re-issued may be subject of special satisfaction to those who already possess the Author's Ideal in Art Art in the Netherlands and Art in Greece as this work (now published in a style uniform with others named) is properly the forerunner of them all; containing, as it does, the principles laid down in the Author's first course of lectures, and constantly referred to in the later courses which now form the books before alluded to.
In preparing this edition for the press, the translator, by bringing to bear the experience gained in the later works, has made it a great improvement on the previous edition.
The translation herewith presented to the reader consists of a course of Lectures delivered during the winter of 1864, before the Students of Art of the École des Beaux Arts at Paris, by H. Taine, Professeur d'Esthétique et d' Histoire de l'Art in that institution.
These lectures, as a system of Æsthetics, consist of an application of the experimental method to art, in the same manner as it is applied to the sciences. Whatever utility the system possesses is due to this principle. The author undertakes to explain art by social influences and other causes; humanity at different times and places, climate, and other conditions, furnish the facts on which the theory rests. The artistic development of any age or people is made intelligible through a series of historical inductions terminating in a few inferential laws, constituting what the title of the book declares it to be— the philosophy of art.
Such a system seems to possess many advantages. Among others, it tends to emancipate the student of art, as well as the amateur, from metaphysical and visionary theories growing out of false theories and traditional misconceptions; he is not misled by an exclusive adherence to particular schools, masters, or epochs. It also tends to render criticism less capricious, and therefore less injurious; dictating no conventional standard of judgment, it promotes a spirit of charity towards all works. As there is no attempt to do more than explain art according to natural laws, the reader must judge whether, like all systems assuming to bring order out of confusion, this one fulfils its mission.