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The art of painting, which in the days of Gothic church-building contributed so much both to the education and the pleasure of the community at large, has admittedly come to appeal to ever-narrowing circles, until to-day it cannot be said to play any part in popular life at all. This book seeks to discover the causes of its decline in influence. A brief review of the chief contemporary movements in painting gives point to a suggestion made by more than one thoughtful critic that the chief need of Western painting is spirituality. Since this is a quality which those competent to judge are at one in attributing to Eastern art, the author, in a chapter on Far Eastern Painting, sets forth the ideals underlying the great painting of China and Japan, and contrasts these ideals with those which have inspired painters and public in the West. This leads to an inquiry into the uses of imagination and suggestion in art, and to an attempt to find a broad enough definition for "spirituality" not to exclude many widely divergent achievements of Western painting. Finally, the possibility of training the sense of beauty is discussed in the light of successful instances.
Incidentally the book touches on many questions which, though of interest to picture-lovers, often remain unasked; such, for instance, as what we look for in a picture; how far subject is important; why it may happen that the interest of one picture, which pleases at first, soon wanes, while that of another grows steadily stronger; the value of technique, of different media of expression, of mere resemblance, etc.
Without going into the technicalities of æsthetics, the author aims at investigating certain first principles which are overlooked at times by possessors of even the widest knowledge of individual schools.
By CONSTANCE MAUD and MARY MAUD.
As You Like It—The Tempest—King Lear—Twelfth Night—The Merchant of Venice—A Midsummer Night's Dream—Macbeth—Hamlet—Romeo and Juliet.
With Illustrations from the famous Boydell prints. Crown 8vo.
5s. net.