“The Art [in any given case] proposes to itself an end to be attained, defines the end, and hands it over to the Science. The Science receives it, considers it as a phenomenon or effect to be studied, and having investigated its causes and conditions, sends it back to Art with a theorem of the causes and combinations by which it could be produced. Art then examines these combinations of circumstances, and according as any of them are or are not in human power, pronounces the end attainable or not. The only one of the premises, therefore, which Art supplies, is the original major premise, which asserts that the attainment of the given end is desirable. Science, then, lends to Art the proposition (obtained by a series of inductions or deductions) that the performance of certain actions will attain the end. From these premises Art concludes that the performance of these actions is desirable, and finding it also practicable, converts the theorem into a rule or precept.... The grounds, then, of every rule of Art are to be found in the theorems of Science. An Art, or a body of Art, consists of the rules, together with as much of the speculative propositions as comprises the justification of these rules. The complete Art of any matter includes a selection of such a portion from the Science as is necessary to show on what conditions the effects, which the Art aims at producing, depend. And Art in general consists of the truths of Science arranged in the most convenient order for practice, instead of the order which is most convenient for thought. Science groups and arranges its truths so as to enable us to take in at one view as much as possible of the general order of the universe. Art, though it must assume the same general laws, follows them only into such of their detailed consequences as have led to the formation of rules of conduct, and brings together from parts of the field of Science most remote from one another, the truths relating to the production of the different and heterogeneous causes necessary to each effect which the exigencies of practical life require to be produced.”—(Mill’s Logic, vol. ii. pp. 542-549).
The whole discussion may be summed up thus. Science consists in knowing, Art consists in doing. What I must do in order to know, is Art subservient to Science: what I must know in order to do, is Science subservient to Art.
Art, then, is defined by two broad distinctions: first, its popular distinction from Nature; and next, its practical and theoretic distinction from Science. Both of these distinctions are observed in the terms of our definition given above. Within the proper limits of this definition, the conception of Art, and the use of the word for it, have undergone sundry variations. These variations correspond to certain vicissitudes or developments in the order of historical facts and in society. The requirements of society, stimulating the ingenuity of its individual members, have led to the invention of arts and groups of arts, constantly progressing, with the progress of civilization, in number, in complexity, and in resource. The religious imagination of early societies, who find themselves in possession of such an art or group of arts, forgets the history of the invention, and assigns it to the inspiration or special grace of some god or hero. So the Greeks assigned the arts of agriculture to Triptolemus, those of spinning and navigation to Athena, and of music to Apollo. At one stage of civilization one art or group of arts is held in higher esteem, another at another. In societies, like most of those of the ancient world, where slaves were employed in domestic service, and upon the handicrafts supplying the immediate utilities of life—food, shelter and clothing—these constituted a group of servile arts. The arts of husbandry or agriculture, on the other hand, have alternately been regarded as servile and as honourable according as their exercise has been in the hands of a subject class, as under feudal institutions, or, as under the Roman republic, of free cultivators. Under feudal institutions, or in a society in a state of permanent war, the allied arts of war and of government have been held the only honourable class. In commercial states, like the republics of Italy, the arts of gain, or of production (other than agricultural) and distribution, have made good their title to equal estimation and greater power beside the art of captains. But among peaceful arts, industries or trades, some have always been held to be of higher and others of lower rank; the higher rank being assigned to those that required larger operations, higher training, or more thoughtful conduct, and yielded ampler returns—the lower rank to those which called for simple manual exercise, especially if such exercise was of a disagreeable or degrading kind. In the cities of Italy, where both commerce and manufactures were for the first time organized on a considerable scale, the name arte, Art, was retained to designate the gilds or corporations by which the several industries were exercised; and, according to the nature of the industry, the art was classed as higher or lower (maggiore and minore).
The arts of which we have hitherto spoken have arisen from positive requirements, and supply what are strictly utilities, in societies; not excluding the art of war, at least so far as concerns one-half of war, the defensive half. But war continued to be an honourable pursuit, because it was a pursuit associated with birth, power and wealth, as well as with the virtue of courage, in cases where it had no longer the plea of utility, but was purely aggressive or predatory; and the arts of the chase have stood in this respect in an analogous position to those of war.
There are other arts which have not had their origin in positive practical needs, but have been practised from the first for pleasure or amusement. The most primitive human beings of whom we have any knowledge, the cave-dwellers of the palaeolithic period, had not only the useful art of chipping stones into spear-heads, knife-heads and arrow-heads, and making shafts or handles of these implements out of bone; they had also the ornamental art of scratching upon the bone handle the outlines of the animals they saw—mammoth, rhinoceros or reindeer—or of carving such a handle into a rude resemblance of one of these animals. Here we have a skill exercised, in the first case, for pure fancy or pleasure, and in the second, for adding an element of fancy or pleasure to an element of utility. Here, therefore, is the germ of all those arts which produce imitations of natural objects for purposes of entertainment or delight, as painting, sculpture, and their subordinates; and of all those which fashion useful objects in one way rather than another because the one way gives pleasure and the other does not, as architecture and the subordinate decorative arts of furniture, pottery and the rest. Arts that work in a kindred way with different materials are those of dancing and music. Dancing works with the physical movements of human beings. Music works with sound. Between that imitative and plastic group, and the group of these which only produce motion or sound and pass away, there is the intermediate group of eloquence and the drama, which deal with the expression of human feeling in spoken words and acted gestures. There is also the comprehensive art of poetry, which works with the material of written words, and can ideally represent the whole material of human life and experience. Of all these arts the end is not use but pleasure, or pleasure before use, or at least pleasure and use conjointly. In modern language, there has grown up a usage which has put them into a class by themselves under the name of the Fine Arts, as distinguished from the Useful or Mechanical Arts. (See [Aesthetics] and [Fine Arts].) Nay more, to them alone is often appropriated the use of the generic word Art, as if they and they only were the arts κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν. And further yet, custom has reduced the number which the class-word is meant to include. When Art and the works of Art are now currently spoken of in this sense, not even music or poetry is frequently denoted, but only architecture, sculpture and painting by themselves, or with their subordinate and decorative branches. In correspondence with this usage, another usage has removed from the class of arts, and put into a contrasted class of manufactures, a large number of industries and their products, to which the generic term Art, according to our definition, properly applies. The definition covers the mechanical arts, which can be efficiently exercised by mere trained habit, rote or calculation, just as well as the fine arts, which have to be exercised by a higher order of powers. But the word Art, becoming appropriated to the fine arts, has been treated as if it necessarily carried along with it, and as if works to be called works of art must necessarily possess, the attributes of free individual skill and invention, expressing themselves in ever new combinations of pleasurable contrivance, and seeking perfection not as a means towards some ulterior practical end but as an ideal end in itself.
(S. C.)
ARTA (Narda, i.e. ἐν Ἄρδα, or Zarta, i.e. εἰς Ἄρτα), a town of Greece, in the province of Arta, 59 m. N.N.W. of Mesolonghi. Pop. about 7000. It is built on the site of the ancient Ambracia (q.v.), its present designation being derived from a corruption of the name of the river Arachthus (Arta) on which it stands. This enters the Gulf of Arta some distance south of the town. The river forms the frontier between Greece and Turkey, and is crossed by a picturesque bridge, which is neutral ground. There are a few remains of old cyclopean walls. The town contains also a Byzantine castle, built on the lofty site of the ancient citadel; a palace belonging to the Greek metropolitan; a number of mosques, synagogues and churches, the most remarkable being the church of the Virgin of Consolation, founded in 819. The streets of the town were widened and improved in 1869. Manufacture of woollens, cottons, Russia leather and embroidery is carried on, and there is trade in cattle, wine, tobacco, hemp, hides and grain. Much of the neighbouring plain is very fertile, and the town is surrounded with gardens and orchards, in which orange, lemon and citron come to great perfection. In 1083 Arta was taken by Bohemund of Tarentum; in 1449 by the Turks; in 1688 by the Venetians. In 1797 it was held by the French, but in the following year, 1798, Ali Pasha of Iannina captured it. During the Greek War of Independence it suffered severely, and was the scene of several conflicts, in which the ultimate success was with the Turks. An insurrection in 1854 was at once repressed. It was ceded to Greece in 1881. In the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 the Greeks gained some temporary successes at Arta during April and May.
ARTA, GULF OF (anc. Sinus Ambracius), an inlet of the Ionian Sea, 25 m. long and 10 broad, most of the northern shores of which belong to Turkey, the southern and eastern to Greece. Its only important affluent, besides the Arta, is the Luro (anc. Charadra), also from the north. The gulf abounds with mullets, soles and eels. Around its shores are numerous ruins of ancient cities: Actium at the entrance, where the famous battle was fought in 31 B.C.; Nicopolis, Argos, Limnaea and Olpae; and several flourishing towns, such as Preveza, Arta (anc. Ambracia), Karavasara or Karbasaras, and Vonitza.