The architecture of humanism; a study in the history of taste

252

THE ARCHITECTURE

OF HUMANISM

in effect, the

treatise

of Aristotle

remains, of all

efforts

inaestheticcriticism, themost

penetrating

in

itsinsight, the

mostwiseinitsmethodofapproach.

At once concrete and philosophical, it

does

not

confusethehistoryofartwith itsessence, butsees

these in

theirduerelation

;

and, fromthisstudyof

the drama, written in the fourth century B.C., the

critic,evenof architecture,

mightstillderiveaperti-

nent guidance forhisthought. Butthe

treatise of

Aristotle

is isolated, and

it

is fragmentary: andit

suffersinevitablyfromtheprimitivecharacterof

its

psychology. And at no time since the Greek did

these favourableconditions

recur; art

and

thought

pursued their separate paths, the former becoming

less delicatelyself-sensitive, the latter less impar-

tially curious, and both,gradually, as the closely-

knitlifeoftheancientstategaveplacetothelooser

webof the modern,strayed,more and more,into a

mutuallyexclusiveisolation.

Thus,between artandman's

thoughtaboutit,a

gulf widened,which neitherrequired,norwas able,

tobebridged.

II

Itisonlyinourown time

thatthe need topene-

tratethis

problemhasarisen

;

andwiththeneedthe

means.

Art, as we have said, by

its own activity

can

create its canons and

traditions. If, by the