History of Ancient Art

The application of the historic method to the study of the Fine Arts, begun with imperfect means by Winckelmann one hundred and twenty years ago, has been productive of the best results in our own days. It has introduced order into a subject previously confused, disclosing the natural progress of the arts, and the relations of the arts of the different races by whom they have been successively practised. It has also had the more important result of securing to the fine arts their due place in the history of mankind as the chief record of various stages of civilization, and as the most trustworthy expression of the faith, the sentiments, and the emotions of past ages, and often even of their institutions and modes of life. The recognition of the significance of the fine arts in these respects is, indeed, as yet but partial, and the historical study of art does not hold the place in the scheme of liberal education which it is certain before long to attain. One reason of this fact lies in the circumstance that few of the general historical treatises on the fine arts that have been produced during the last fifty years have been works of sufficient learning or judgment to give them authority as satisfactory sources of instruction. Errors of statement and vague speculations have abounded in them. The subject, moreover, has been confused, especially in Germany, by the intrusion of metaphysics into its domain, in the guise of a professed but spurious science of æsthetics.

Under these conditions, a history of the fine arts that should state correctly what is known concerning their works, and should treat their various manifestations with intelligence and in just proportion, would be of great value to the student. Such, within its limits as a manual and for the period which it covers, is Dr. Reber’s History of Ancient Art. So far as I am aware, there is no compend of information on the subject in any language so trustworthy and so judicious as this. It serves equally well as an introduction to the study and as a treatise to which the advanced student may refer with advantage to refresh his knowledge of the outlines of any part of the field.

The work was originally published in 1871; but so rapid has been the progress of discovery during the last ten years that, in order to bring the book up to the requirements of the present time, a thorough revision of it was needed, together with the addition of much new matter and many new illustrations. This labor of revision and addition has been jointly performed by the author and the translator, the latter having had the advantage of doing the greater part of his work with the immediate assistance of Dr. Reber himself, and of bringing to it fresh resources of his own, the result of original study and investigation. The translator having been absent from the country, engaged in archæological research, during the printing of the volume, the last revision and the correction of the text have been in the hands of Professor William R. Ware, of the School of Mines of Columbia College.

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, May, 1882.