Art and Common Sense (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Art and Common Sense

The doctrine, to tell the truth, is honeycombed with superstition and its ritual is packed with cant phrases. Artists and critics alike are addicted to an oracular jargon, only the smallest part of which can justify itself as legitimate technical terminology. What is more, this mode of expression, which might, perhaps, be condoned as only a mode of expression, is too often but the outward and Visible Sign of an inward and invisible bigotry, which would reserve the appreciation of art to a chosen few. Well, there is an Old saying anent the fabrication of Silk purses which has never lost its point. While the catholic appreciation of art is partly a matter of experience and education it is also a matter of instinct and one may possess that instinct or not, by the whim of nature, 'as one may possess or lack an ear for music. There are people who could not be lured by years of a patient mentor's loving kindness to comprehend even the rudiments of a fine picture. But What, pray, have they to do with the question? To drag them in would be about as relevant as to drag an untutored rustic into a discussion of European diplo macy. No, the real significance of the grand, gloomy and peculiar hypothesis of art lies in the unconfessed but nevertheless unmistakable tendency of its advo cates to detach their subject from common under.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.