LITMIR.BIZ

      II

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      If we now investigate the required mode of such scientific investigation, we are here again face to face with two contradictory modes of handling the subject, each of which appears to exclude the other and to permit us to arrive at no satisfactory result.

      On the one hand we observe the science of art, merely so to speak, from an external point of view busying itself with actual works of art, cataloguing them in a history of art, drawing up a sort of commentary upon extant works, or propounding theories which are intended to supply the general points of view for artistic criticism no less than artistic production.

      On the other hand we find science wholly giving itself up in its independence and self-assured to the contemplation of the beautiful, offering generalizations which do not concern the specific characteristics of a work of art, producing in short an abstract philosophy of the beautiful.

1. With regard to the first mentioned method of study, the starting-point of which is the empirical study of definite facts, such is the path everyone must tread who means to study art at all. And just as everyone nowadays, even though he does not actually concern himself with physical science, yet deems it indispensable to his intellectual equipment to have some kind of knowledge of the principles of that science21, so too it is generally considered more or less essential to any man of real cultivation, that he should possess some general knowledge of art; and indeed the pretension to be ranked as dilletante, or even as genuine connoisseur, meets with comparatively few exceptions.

(a) If however knowledge of this kind is really to claim the rank of connoisseurship of the first class it must be both varied in its character and of the widest range. It is an indispensable condition to such that it should possess an accurate knowledge of the well-nigh limitless field of particular works of art both of ancient and modern times, some of which have already disappeared, while others are only to be found in distant countries or portions of the globe, and which it is the misfortune of our situation to be unable to inspect. Add to this that every work of art belongs to one age, one nationality, and depends upon particular historical or other ends and ideas. On account of this it is indispensable that the finest type of art-scholarship should have at its command not merely historical knowledge of a wide range, but knowledge that is highly specialized. In other words, a work of art is associated with particular22 detail in a peculiar sense, and a specific treatment, is imperative to the comprehension and interpretation of it. And in conclusion this connoisseurship of the finest class does not merely imply like every other a retentive memory, but also a keen imaginative sense, in order to hold clearly before the mind the images of such artistic representations in all their characteristic lines, and above all, to have them ready for comparison with other works of art.

(b) Within the limits of such a method of study which is primarily historical23, distinct points of view will soon assert themselves which in the contemplation of such works we are not suffered to lose sight of, inasmuch as they are indispensable to a critical verdict. Such points of view, as is the case with other sciences the commencement of which is empirical, are summarized, after their due collection as separate units and comparison, in general criteria and propositions, emerging in a yet further stage of formal generalization in "Theories of the arts." This is not the place to dwell at length upon literature of this kind; we will merely recall a few specimens of such work in the most general way. There is, for instance, the "Poetics" of Aristotle, which contains a theory of tragedy still of real interest. With still more pertinency among the ancients the "Ars Poetica" of Horace and the Essay on the "Sublime" by Longinus will exemplify generally the manner in which this type of theorizing is carried out. The general theses which are therein formulated are intended to stand as premises and rules, in accordance with which works of art ought to be produced, their necessity being above all insisted on in times of the decadence of poetry and art. They are, in short, prescriptions to the practitioner. The prescriptions, however, of these physicians of art were even less successful in their curative effect on art than are the ordinary ones in the restoration of bodily health.

      As to such theories I will merely remark that although in their detail they contain much that is instructive, yet what they have to say is based on a very limited range of artistic production, which passed no doubt for the superlatively beautiful ones, but for all that occupied but a very restricted portion of the entire field of survey. From a further point of view such generalizations

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