The Arts of the Beautiful

Charles Scribner's Sons. First Edition. Hardcover. NEAR FINE/Good. First Edition, First Printing with Scribner's publication code 'A-3.65'. Translation of the 1963 Vrin edition in French. 189pp. 12mo, orange cloth, black stamped spine lettering. Possible remainder stamp to tail edge, otherwise entirely clean and sharp; DJ spine sunned and tips wornshort tear to front head, front flap clipped but price of '$4.50' intact. From the DJ flap: 'With his usual lucidity and with frequent play of his unusually fine sense of humor, Professor Gilson here addresses himself to the idea that 'art is the making of beauty for beauty's own sake.' It is wrong, the author maintains, to interpret a work of art as if it were an act of expression or of communication. Esthetics, not art, is speaking when art is said to be knowledge, or is confused with nature, or is expected to promote moral perfection; philosophy is speaking when the artist's own talent, genius or ideals are said to be present in a relevant way. The author brilliantly assesses critical theories founded upon intui-tion, expression and symbol, and explains why he rejects them. His precise point is that, since their end is the making of beauty, the fine arts (that is, the arts of the beautiful) all and always appeal to knowl-edge, not for their own sake but for the sake of beauty.' A classic vision of 'Art for Art's Sake' by the dean of 20th Century Catholic Philosophy, recently put back into print by the Dalkey Archive. [McGrath 80].