THE application of the historic method to the study of the Fine Arts, be-
gun with imperfect means by Winckelmann one hundred and twenty years
ago, has been productive of the best results in our own days. It has intro-
duced order into a subject previously confused, disclosing the natural prog-
ress of the arts, and the relations of the arts of the different races by whom
they have been successively practised. It has also had the more important
result of securing to the fine arts their due place in the history of mankind
as the chief record of various stages of civilization, and as the most trust-
worthy expression of the faith, the sentiments, and the emotions of past
ages, and often even of their institutions and modes of life. The recogni-
tion of the significance of the fine arts in these respects is, indeed, as yet
but partial, and the historical study of art does not hold the place in the
scheme of liberal education which it is certain before long to attain. One
reason of this fact lies in the circumstance that few of the general historical
treatises on the fine arts that have been produced during the last fifty years
have been works of sufficient learning or judgment to give them authority
as satisfactory sources of instruction. Errors of statement and vague spec-
ulations have abounded in them. The subject, moreover, has been con-
fused, especially in Germany, by the intrusion of metaphysics into its do-
main, in the guise of a professed but spurious science of æsthetics.

Under these conditions, a history of the fine arts that should state cor-
rectly what is known concerning their works, and should treat their various
manifestations with intelligence and in just proportion, would be of great
value to the student. Such, within its limits as a manual and for the pe-
riod which it covers, is Dr. Reber History of Ancient Art. So far as I am
aware, there is no compend of information on the subject in any language so
trustworthy and so judicious as this. It serves equally well as an introduc-
tion to the study and as a treatise to which the advanced student may refer

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