The Arts

Chapters

• 1 Prologue: the nature of art
• 2 The Art of Prehistoric Man
• 3 The Art of Egypt
• 4 Babylon and Chaldea and the Land of the Mysterious Sumerians
• 5 Heinrich Schliemann: Serendipity
• 6 The Art of the Greeks
• 7 The Age of Pericles
• 8 Pots and Pans and Earrings and Spoons: Hellas
• 9 The Etruscans and the Romans
• 10 The Jews
• 11 Early Christian Art
• 12 The Copts
• 13 The Art of the Byzantines
• 14 Russia: art up a blind alley
• 15 Islam: the art of a desert people
• 16 Medieval Persia: the great melting pot of all the arts
• 17 The Romanesque Period: art among the ruins
• 18 The Provence
• 19 Gothic: a beautiful fairy story in an ugly world
• 20 The End of the Gothic Period
• 21 The Spirit of the Renaissance
• 22 Florence
• 23 Il Beato Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole: the St. Francis with a brush
• 24 Niccolo Machiavelli: and the new patrons of art
• 25 Florence Comes Into its Own as the World's Greatest Arts Center
• 26 The Putti: the cheerful little Bambini which the Florentine sculptors brought back to life
• 27 The Invention of Oil Painting
• 28 The Italian Picture Factory Gets Underway
• 29 America: the Old World discovers the new one
• 30 New Ears Begin to Listen Where New Eyes Have Already Been Taught to See
• 31 The New Prosperity Reaches the Heart of Europe
• 32 A Mighty Fortress is Our God: Protestantism and the arts
• 33 Baroque
• 34 The Dutch School of Painting: a strange epidemic of pictorial exuberance affects and entire nation
• 35 The Grand Siecle
• 36 Monsieur de Moliere Dies and is Buried in Sacred Ground
• 37 The Actor Makes His Reappearance
• 38 The Opera: the court of Versailles is treated to a few novelties of a musical nature
• 39 Cremona: a slight detour to visit the home of the fiddle-making dynasties of Lombardy
• 40 A New and Fashionable Form of Entertainment: Monteverdi and Lulli and the beginning of the French opera at the court of Louis XIV
• 41 Rococo
• 42 Some More Rococo: the 18th century in the rest of Europe
• 43 India, China, and Japan: Europe discovers it can learn a great deal from these very unexpected quarters
• 44 Goya: the last of the great universal painters
• 45 The Picture-book gives way to the music book
• 46 Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven: the General Staff leads its army of humble music-teachers to a brilliant victory
• 47 Pompeii, Winckelmann, and Lessing: a little Roman city, recently arisen from its ashes, and two learned Germans combine to give new impetus to the so-called "classical movement."
• 48 Revolution and Empire: the triumph of the classical style concludes with an attempt to turn the artist into a political propagandist
• 49 Chaos: 1815-1937: Art and life part company
• 50 The Romantic Period: the great escape into the realm of the ruined castle and the broken hearted poet in the checkered pantaloons
• 51 Revolt in the Studio: the realists refuse to find further safety in escape and start a counter-attack of their own
• 52 Asylum: the museum makes its appearance as a most welcome home for the aged but is in no way fit to act as a place of refuge for the living
• 53 The Music of the Nineteenth Century
• 54 Das Lied: for which you can substitute the word "song" but it won't be quite the same
• 55 Paganini and Liszt
• 56 Berlioz: the beginning of our modern "popular" music
• 57 Daguerrre: the painter encounters a formidable rival in Monsieur Daguerre's "heliographic pictures"
• 58 Johann Strauss: and how dance and music came once more to be composed for the purpose of making people dance
• 59 Chopin: the originator of the modern nationalistic "blues"
• 60 Richard Wagner: the father of the Germany of Adolf Hitler
• 61 Johannes Brahms: the amiable philosopher who thought in terms of music
• 62 Claude Debussy: the impressionistic style moves from the painter's studio into the study of the composer
• 63 A Final Word: a word of farewell and good cheer