Book Description

Excerpt from A General and Bibliographical Dictionary of the Fine Arts In the present state of intellectual society, when the Sovereign and the Legislature of the country are giving such splendid encouragement to the Fine Arts; when every class of the people is daily becoming more interested in their cultivation; when new societies for their encouragement are being established, and those already in existence are increasing; a Dictionary exclusively devoted to the Literature of the Fine Arts is peculiarly necessary. Such a work has never before appeared in the English language: and, although there are treatises in the French, Italian, and other modern languages, yet they are inapplicable in many requisites to the English student, professor, or patron of the British School of Art. With the French the Fine Arts comprise not only Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Engraving, but also poetry, music, and the dramatic art, which in England are separately classed among the Polite arts, as well as dancing, fencing, mimetic action, and other bodily accomplishments, which we do not admit into either. The Italians are more select in their arrangement, but their disquisitions rarely extend to the English school, and are consequently defective in information concerning an important feature in modern art; as the time is now arrived when no treatise on the Fine Arts can be complete in which the English school, its artists, its mode of practice, and its works are omitted. The present Work, therefore, professes to give in alphabetical order the essence of the best Treatises in the English, the French, and the Italian languages, on the Theory and Practice of the Fine Arts, divested of all extraneous matter, and adapted to the present state of British Art and Literature. 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.