Publisher's Synopsis
The Somewhat antiquated shibboleth of "Art for Art's Sake" has not been chosen by Mr. Van Dyke for the title of his book on the technical beauties of painting because he fully believes in it. "Art for Art's Sake " means art for the sake of handling, color, form and texture, and Mr. Van Dyke simply maintains that these technical elements of art are worthy of serious attention, and the pleasure that they give of being ranked with the pleasures of the intellect. He is at some pains in an introductory chapter to show that ideas of this sort are as truly ideas as those that can be better expressed in words; and he ridicules the assertion of a recent writer in The Atlantic, that "an artist has no business to think at all." It is likely, though, that the Atlantic writer meant no more than that an artist has no need to think in words. Every touch that he gives his picture resumes and expresses a train of thought as truly as a sentence spoken or written. Having asserted the artist's independence of literary subjects, without denying the superiority of what he calls "sublime art," Mr. Van Dyke goes on to discuss color, tone, aerial perspective, drawing, composition, handling and values. These matters are necessarily difficult when the person addressed belongs to the general public; but our confused terminology makes it well-nigh impossible that the critic should be understood if he does not take care to explain in what precise sense he uses certain words and phrases. Thus, as Mr. Van Dyke points out, the word "tone," as applied to painting, has three distinct sets of meanings in England, France and America, while in each country writers and artists may be found who prefer the usage which is common in one of the others. The word "value," which we have adopted from the French veleur, is another stumbling-block for readers; for neither English nor American writers give it its full original signification, and probably no two of them quite agree in the use that they make of it. Even Mr. Van Dyke, it seems to us, does not give it a sufficiently wide application. His chapter on the subject should be read in connection with his chapter on "Tone, Light and Shade" and with what he has to say on aerial perspective, and it should be borne in mind that, in modern practice, values, the relations of dark and light of colors, stand for all. More than that, they also stand for all ordinary changes of hue in objects of the same color, for reasons which it would take too much space to explain here.... --The Critic, Vol. 22
