Raymond, George Lansing. Essentials of aesthetics in music, poetry, painting, sculpture, and architecture. **$2.50. Putnam.
7–3936.
A handbook in which the author “traces the phenomena of the arts to their sources in material nature and the human mind; he shows that the different arts have been developed by similar methods and that these methods characterize the entire work of artistic imagination.... There are chapters on nature, art, beauty, artistic mental action, form, and significance, the personality of the authors, art composition, rhythm and proportion.... There are a large number of half-tone illustrations and pen-and-ink sketches.” (N. Y. Times.)
“Some of his essays, notably that on Rhythm, are full of interesting suggestion, and prove that their author, whatever else he may lack, is a master of literary style.”
| + − | Int. Studio. 31: 249. My. ’07. 290w. | |
| + | N. Y. Times. 12: 273. Ap. 27, ’07. 550w. |
“It can be said that its superior in an effective, all-around discussion of its subject is not in sight.”
| + | Outlook. 85: 621. Mr. 16, ’07. 270w. |
“As a whole, the work lacks those psychological foundations which many of us consider desirable in a treatise on aesthetics. As a result, the subject matter is more that of art theory than of aesthetics in any broad sense. Yet the pervading tone is one of sanity and tolerance which will commend the book to many. We cannot, perhaps, agree entirely with the author’s own estimate of his work.” Robert Morris Ogden.
| − + | Psychol. Bull. 4: 225. Jl. 15, ’07. 1310w. |