{"product_id":"2940012327581","title":"What Is Art?","description":"Originally published in London in 1884. (193 pages).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Publisher has copy-edited this book to improve the formatting, style and accuracy of the text to make it readable. This did not involve changing the substance of the text.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePreface:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA Preface is an appeal to the public. It is the authors manifesto to the public. My work from beginning to end is an outcry against oppression and prejudice; a demand for freedom and for fair play. I have no other manifesto. I make no other appeal. Further preface is needless.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eContents:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI. What Is Art? ----- II. Art In Its Highest Form ----- III. Mystery In Art ----- IV. Religion In Art, And Mammon Worship ----- V. The Career Of A Painter ----- VI. The Artist In Society ----- VII. Art Nurture ----- VIII. Art Culture: Technique And Style ----- IX. Realism In Art ----- X. Art Cant: Aestheticism ----- Xl The Progress Of Art In England ----- XII. Art Struggles ----- XIII. Art Recognition And Art Criticism ----- XIV. Genius And Its Prerogatives ----- XV. An Appeal For Freedom Of Thought In Art\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExcerpts:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e......What is Art? It is Worship. It is Religion. It is Poetry. It is Truth. It is the apotheosis of the sublime, of the ethereal. True art has no special mission. Its mission is to elevate, to ennoble, to beautify, and to refine. The pulpit, the drama, and poetry have no other mission. Men have become too serious to have time merely to be amused. Men want recreation; they crave change; they demand originality. To the advanced, in our day, to be simply tickled is no real amusement. It is vacuity, it is boredom. It awakens no responsive chord in the heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e......Unfortunately art is regarded too much in the light of the \"pretty,\" with which, in sooth, it hath no concern whatsoever. Art is looked upon as being something external to ordinary men, something to be thought about when one has made \"a lot of money.\" Then the English parvenu sets his energies to work to procure pictures. If he be unambitious he will content himself with so many wall decorations— the gleanings of shop-front windows; if he be desirous of being considered a man of taste he endeavors to discover men who are regarded as being rising artists, and he snatches up their work at the lowest market prices, not with the desire to relieve them from anxious cares concerning money, so that they may do better work, but with the desire to possess himself of pictures which will increase in value. This is his ambition, this, and the ambition to procure the works of great artists at a cheaper rate than can his friends. Men who think that it is time enough to turn their attention to religion when they have obtained a fortune by the total disregard of its most elementary teachings, naturally regard art, which they falsely believe to be something very much lower than religion, in the same light.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e......It may safely be concluded, that man is no lover of art who is continually talking about the money value of his pictures. Such men put pictures on their walls in the same spirit that Mr. Murdle put jewels upon his wife's breast, and society applauds in the one instance as in the other. They discourse upon the relative merits of pictures, as they would discourse upon the relative merits of their horses or their wines. Such comparisons are odious and disgusting. One cannot compare a Ruskin and a Beaconsfield, one cannot compare primroses and violets; the one may appeal to your fancy more than the other, but how are you to say the one is better than the other? No tribunal has decided these cases, and no tribunal ever can decide them.","brand":"Digital Text Publishing Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47078880248048,"sku":"2940012327581","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012327581_p0.jpg?v=1763567290","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012327581","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}