ON THE NATURE OF THE WORK OF ART.
Object of this Study—The Method employed—The search for Aggregates on which the Work of Art depends.
First Aggregate, the Entire Production of the Artist—Second Aggregate, the School to which he belongs; examples, Shakespeare, Rubens. Third Aggregate, Contemporary Society; examples, Greece, Spain, in the Sixteenth Century.
Conditions determining appearance and character of Works of Art; examples, Greek Tragedy, Gothic Architecture, Dutch Painting, French Tragedy—Comparison of Climate and Natural Productions with a Moral Temperature, and its effect—Application of this method to Italian Art.
Objects and method of Æsthetics—Opposition of the Historic and Dogmatic Methods—Laws—Sympathy for all Schools—The Analogy between Æsthetics and Botany, and between the Natural and the Moral Sciences.
What is the Object of Art—The Research Experimental and not Ideal—Comparisons and Eliminations of Works of Art sufficient.
Division of the Arts into two groups—On the one hand, Painting, Sculpture and Poesy; and, on the other, Architecture and Music. First group—Imitation apparently the end of Art—Reasons for this derived from ordinary experience, and from the lives of great men; Michael Angelo, Corneille—Reasons derived from the History of Art and Literature; Pompeii and Ravenna—Classic Style under Louis XIV., and Academic Style under Louis XV.