As each of the fine arts has its own history which moves along divergent
or parallel lines in different countries and periods, and as each
development or check is bound up with the history of the country or
period and bears its impress, the interpretation of one is assisted and
enriched by the other, and both are linked together to illuminate the
truth. It is only necessary to consider the position of Christian art in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the changes wrought by the
Renaissance, to estimate the value of some knowledge of it in giving to
children a right understanding of those times and of what they have left
to the world. Again, the inferences to be drawn from the varied
developments of Gothic architecture in France, Spain, and England are
roads indicated to what is possible to explore in later studies, both in
history and in art. And so the schools of painting studied in their
history make ready the way for closer study in after years. Pugin's
"Book of Contrasts" is an illustration full of suggestive power as to
the service which may be rendered in teaching by comparing the art of
one century with that of another, as expressive of the spirit of each
period, and a means of reading below the surface.
Without Pugin's bitterness the same method of contrast has been used
most effectively to put before children by means of lantern slides and
lectures the manner in which art renders truth according to the various
ideals and convictions of the artists.
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