THE HISTORY OF ART.* M. FArrnE's History of Art (of
which the second of the four volumes now appears in translation)-is more a search after the historical and topographical causes for the various manifesta- tions of visual art than a history of those manifestations themselves. M. Faure has compressed this enormous subject into four volumes, and the " argument," though sometimes so concentrated as to be obscure and sometimes so rapid as to be thin, is impressive and stimulating. Issuing from the placid certainty of China as from the active culture of Japan, from the blood fury of the primitive Mexicans as from the demo- cracy of the mediaeval French Communes, from the fanaticism of Islam, from the imitative Germans, the assimilative English and the gentle pantheism of St. Francis of Assisi, we find the manifestations of a universal aesthetic impulse. Art in its unity and diversity is like the city of the world, or is, perhaps, the soul of it. The mystery deepens when, with M. Faure, we traverse its immensity in seven-league boots. He has chosen, in the volume before us, to regard the Middle Ages as a state of mind, a religious and philosophic synthesis, rather than as an historical period. He has done wisely, because art has no connexion with chronology. He has shown, however, that it has a very direct connexion, at least in its manifesta- tions, with national temperament and philosophic conceptions. With the Chinese, for example, as an outcome of their static and dogmatic faith, art demonstrates truth, instead of offering new intuitions ; art turns in upon itself, and the basic form is the sphere—self-contained, certain, intellectual. 'Ili-India, on the other hand, art is as confused, as mystic, as outreaching as the creeds and castes. It is an art of movement rather than form. There is not that linear abstraction that expresses the rhythm of life, but life itself forced, rebelling, into unity. In Japan we find the antithesis. Linear rhythm is the principal means of expression for the Japanese artist, and through it he expresses life in the terms of its minutest phenomena. He forces nothing, but creates with the ease and grace of laboriously acquired knowledge. It is curious that in the art of the African savage, born in the overbloWn, bestial forests of the tropics, we find the pure form which is the basis of European art. Can a similarity here be traced between physical and mental conditions ? We believe that M. Faure is too patronizing to Negro art. It is a traditional fault of perception, although not, perhaps, so reprehensible as his failure before the stupendous art of Byzantium. But he is consistent. He bows in professorial worship before some of the vulgarities of Gothic. Though we are full of gratitude for his great accomplishment, instructed and stimulated by the magical story lie has told us, we may still " humbly agree to differ " with him over his valuations. The quantity and excellence of the illustrations to his book are for his readers the visible proofs or disproof's of his contentions, according to the nature of their aesthetic appreciations. We have disagreed where the Latin tag Vainly warns us that we cannot dispute, but for the scholarship and insight of the author and the ability of the translator we can offer, in their respective tongues, the sincerest praise. Hommage a M. Faure and Honour to Mr. Pach.
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