A

General View of the Fine Arts,

Critical and Bistorical.

With an Introduction

BY

D. Buntington, E. A., A. M.

Dew York.

Published by G. P. Putnam, Broadwaq.

1851.

D

TY

LIBRARY
DEC 21 1962

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850,

BY GEORGE P. PUTNAM,

In the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.

STEREOTYPED BY BILLIN & BROTHERS,

10 NORTH WILLIAM-STREET, N. Y.

J. F. TROW, PRINTER,

ANN-STREET, N, Y.

Contents.

INTRODUCTION

.....

ORIGIN OF THE FINE ARTS.-Application of the term art.-Five fine arts.-

Their object.-Art enduring.-First practisers.-Grecian apologue.-The

Nine.-Promethean fire.-Egyptian priesthood.-Origin of the lyre.-Eden.

-Art an effort.-Jubal.-Ark.-Tower of Babel.-Temples.-Derivations of

styles.-Egyptian.-Indian.-Grecian.-Gothic.-Love of beauty in child-

hood.-Imaginative faculties.-Education

ADVANTAGES OF THE CULTIVATION OF THE FINE ARTS.-Propriety of culti-

vating the taste.-Health.-Addison.-Affinity between beauty and virtue.

-Legislators of Greece.-Emblems.-Wordsworth.-Statue.-Parables of

the painter.-Enthusiasm.-Love of fame.-Sympathy.-Nature's lessons.—

Office of artist.-Poetry the interpreter of nature.-Power of being indefi-

nitely multiplied.-Highest office of poetry.-Close observation of nature.-

Moral advantages.-Savage tribes.-Art a universal language.-Greece.-

Italy..

PAGE

11

15-22

22-30

A FEW GENERAL RULES OF CRITICISM.-Rules of criticism not arbitrary.-

Fashion.-Manner.-Ideal representation.-Talent and Genius.-Chaos of

artist.-Art the natural language of the higher faculties.-Singleness of

aim.-Completeness.—Truthfulness.-Proportion.-Single objects.-Con-

trast.-Uniformity.—Variety.-A faultless critic.-Axiom of Coleridge..... 30-35

PAINTING.

Highest object of painting.-Noblest field of the painter.-Evidence of skill.—

Term nature in respect to art.-Three modes of seeing nature.-Common

place.-Selected.-Idealized.-Highest style.-Beauty the perfection of an

object in its kind.-Highest effort of genius.-End of painting twofold.-

Requisites for success.-History.-Landscape.-Still-life.-Historical paint-

ing. Florentine school.-Roman school.-Venetian school.-Lombard,

Bolognese, or Eclectic school.-Flemish school.-Dutch school.-Distin-

guishing an original from a copy.-Water-colour.-Crayon.—Miniature.—

Oil painting.-Fresco.-Encaustic.-Elydoric.-Mosaic.-Glass.... . . . . . . . .

36-49