A Sketch of the History of Painiting- Set of 2 Volumes (An Old and Rare Book)

THAT the degree of excellence in the fine arts attainable by any nation is limited according to the nature of its climate, was a favourite theme with a few writers in the latter part of the last century. That any considerable excess of either heat or cold may materially influence the human mind and cha racter as well as body is sufficiently evident; but that the differences of climate in the various regions of the temperate zone can have any important in fluence in regulating the greater or less degree of the intellectual faculty of man, is a theory which appears to be contrary to the evidence of experience; and in the case of the fine arts, is sufficiently con tradicted by the present high state of excellence of many branches of art in nations of Europe where formerly the arts of Painting and Sculpture scarcely existed, and of 'which the climates vary considerably from those of Greece and Italy. If a particular and warm climate were requisite towards the de velopment of a natural taste and ability for art, then every nation within the Grecian latitudes might, according to the similarity of climate, ex pect to possess artists more or less Grecian in quality and degree. An opposite conclusion would be equally justifiable by the present state of art in Europe, and a warm climate might be said to be prejudicial to the development of art. The arts have scarcely a home in Greece at present; and they are in a very languid state and of a low degree in other southern countries of Europe when com pared with the high character of the modern German schools, or with their state in other northern parts, not even excepting the ice-girt capital of Russia.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages