Public-domain ebook
by Clara Erskine Clement Waters
Language: en1,764 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: Art·Architecture·Art
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #24726.
Clara Erskine Clement Waters’s A History of Art for Beginners and Students is a survey of visual culture that begins with an extensive catalogue of images, ranging from Egyptian wall‑paintings and Assyrian tiles to Renaissance masterpieces such as Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and Michelangelo’s Statue of Moses. The opening pages list each illustration with its source, then launch into a first chapter on ancient painting, where Waters contrasts the “useful” mechanical arts with the “fine” arts and argues that pictures serve both educational and imaginative purposes. She treats Egyptian art as a documentary record, describing its conventions, colour codes, and production process, while repeatedly reminding the reader that even crude images can teach us about a vanished civilization.
The work is written in a didactic, nineteenth‑century voice, marked by long, sentence‑like explanations and a moral tone that emphasizes the civilising power of beauty. Its style is straightforward rather than poetic, making it accessible to students and amateur enthusiasts who appreciate a systematic overview of art history. Readers who enjoy detailed descriptions, plentiful illustrations, and a gentle, scholarly guide to the evolution of painting, sculpture, and architecture will find this book a helpful companion.
PAGE Harp-player (from an Egyptian painting), 3 King Ramesses II. and his Sons Storming a Fortress (from Abousimbel), 5 Fragment of an Assyrian Tile-painting, 10 Sacrifice of Iphigenia (from a Pompeian wall-painting), 16 Etruscan Wall-painting, 22 Human Sacrifice Offered by Achilles to the Shade of Patroklos (from an Etruscan wall-painting), 24 The Aldobrandini Marriage (from a wall-painting in the Vatican), 26 Landscape Illustration to the Odyssey (from a wall-painting discovered on the Esquiline at Rome), 28 The Flight of Æneas (from a wall-painting), 30 Demeter Enthroned (from a Pompeian wall-painting), 31 Pompeian Wall-painting, 32 Nest of Cupids (from a Pompeian wall-painting), 33 Doves Seated on a Bowl (from a mosaic picture in the Capitol, Rome), 35 Niobe (from a picture on a slab of granite at Pompeii), 37 The Dodwell Vase, 38 Scene in the Lower World (from a vase of the style …
Keep reading free · start reading with no account
New illustrated classics
Once or twice a month: the latest books to get full character casts, scene art, and free comic editions. No account needed.
