Page:Criticism and Beauty.djvu/32

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CRITICISM AND BEAUTY

schools of mediaeval architecture were collectively condemned by their successors. The barbaric extravagance of Gothic design was a commonplace of criticism until the Gothic revival which formed part of the romantic movement.

Music, however, is the art which perhaps most clearly shows how futile is the search for agreement among men of 'trained sensibility'. It is indeed an art which, I may parenthetically observe, has many peculiar merits as a subject of aesthetic study. It makes no assertions; so its claims on our admiration can have nothing to do with 'the True'. It serves no purpose; so it raises no question as to the relation between 'the beautiful' and 'the useful'. It copies nothing; so the aesthetic worth of imitation and the proper relation of Art to Nature are problems which it never even suggests. From the endless controversies about Realism, Idealism, and Impressionism, with which the criticism of other arts have been encumbered, musical criticism is thus happily free: while the immense changes which have revolutionized both the artistic methods and the material resources of the musician—changes without a parallel either in literature, in painting, in sculpture, or even in architecture—have hindered the growth of an orthodox tradition. Music thus occupies in some respects a place apart: but its theoretic