History of Art - Ancient Art #268023

For a comparison of the older and the newer views of art history, the reader can scarcely be referred to anything clearer than M. Faure's own discussion in the preface to the new edition of this work (page xxxv). His brief reference there to the synoptic tables at the back of each volume may be supplemented by the assurances received from various close students of the special schools and epochs, who agree in vouching for the thoroughness with which this most objective com pilation of names and dates has been made. A refer ence chart is thus constantly before the reader, serving him as a road map does a traveler. The text of most art histories does little more than amplify such tables. The characteristic which distinguishes Elie Faure's History of Art is that it shows the mass of facts func tionally — as the living brain and heart of mankind.