The Principles of Aesthetics

The Principles of Aesthetics

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Title: The Principles Of Aesthetics
Author: Dewitt H. Parker
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THE PRINCIPLES OF AESTHETICS
BY
DEWITT H. PARKER
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
MICHIGAN

PREFACE
This book has grown out of lectures to students at the University of
Michigan and embodies my effort to express to them the nature and
meaning of art. In writing it, I have sought to maintain scientific
accuracy, yet at the same time to preserve freedom of style and
something of the inspiration of the subject. While intended primarily
for students, the book will appeal generally, I hope, to people who are
interested in the intelligent appreciation of art.
My obligations are extensive,--most directly to those whom I have
cited in foot-notes to the text, but also to others whose influence is too
indirect or pervasive to make citation profitable, or too obvious to make
it necessary. For the broader philosophy of art, my debt is heaviest, I
believe, to the artists and philosophers during the period from Herder to
Hegel, who gave to the study its greatest development, and, among
contemporaries, to Croce and Lipps. In addition, I have drawn freely
upon the more special investigations of recent times, but with the
caution desirable in view of the very tentative character of some of the
results. To Mrs. Robert M. Wenley I wish to express my thanks for her
very careful and helpful reading of the page proof.
The appended bibliography is, of course, not intended to be in any
sense adequate, but is offered merely as a guide to further reading; a
complete bibliography would itself demand almost a volume.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
. Introduction: Purpose and Method
CHAPTER II
. The Definition of Art
CHAPTER III
. The Intrinsic Value of Art
CHAPTER IV
. The Analysis of the Aesthetic Experience: The Elements of the
Experience

CHAPTER V
. The Analysis of the Aesthetic Experience: The Structure of the
Experience

CHAPTER VI
. The Problem of Evil in Aesthetics, and Its Solution through the Tragic,
Pathetic, and Comic

CHAPTER VII
. The Standard of Taste
CHAPTER VIII
. The Aesthetics of Music
CHAPTER IX
. The Aesthetics of Poetry
CHAPTER X
. Prose Literature
CHAPTER XI
. The Dominion of Art over Nature: Painting
CHAPTER XII
. The Dominion of Art over Nature: Sculpture
CHAPTER XIII
. Beauty in the Industrial Arts: Architecture
CHAPTER XIV
. The Function of Art: Art and Morality
CHAPTER XV

. The Function of Art: Art and Religion
BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE PRINCIPLES OF AESTHETICS

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION: PURPOSE AND METHOD
Although some feeling for beauty is perhaps universal among men, the
same cannot be said of the understanding of beauty. The average man,
who may exercise considerable taste in personal adornment, in the
decoration of the home, or in the choice of poetry and painting, is at a
loss when called upon to tell what art is or to explain why he calls one
thing "beautiful" and another "ugly." Even the artist and the
connoisseur, skilled to produce or accurate in judgment, are often
wanting in clear and consistent ideas about their own works or
appreciations. Here, as elsewhere, we meet the contrast between feeling
and doing, on the one hand, and knowing, on the other. Just as practical
men are frequently unable to describe or justify their most successful
methods or undertakings, just as many people who astonish us with
their fineness and freedom in the art of living are strangely wanting in
clear thoughts about themselves and