  "A book of absorbing interest. No one who reads it will, I am sure, find the brief and somewhat comprehensive title either arrogant or misleading. It contains some of the profoundest, truest and most courageous considerations stated with connected and well-supported conviction. The book is not only racy and readable, but—rarest of all things on this subject—it is comprehensible. The value of the book as an illuminant to thought on painting is henceforth impossible to ignore."—Mr. Walter Sickert in the New Age. "Certainly one of the most brilliant, provocating, suggestive things that have ever been written on the subject. What a breath of fresh air this iconoclast brings in with him, what masses of mouldy snobbism he sweeps into the dust-heap, how salutary even for the idols themselves is such a thorough turning out! It will be seen that this is a book that all who care for art must read; the surprising good fortune that has befallen them is that it is so eminently readable."—Mr. Roger Fry in the Nation. "By reason of its originality of thought and virility of expression Mr. Clive Bell's "Art" is entitled to rank as a remarkable contribution to the literature of art. The contemporary movement has found no abler defender and exponent."—Glasgow Herald. "Lovers of art owe Mr. Clive Bell thanks for the most stimulating, not to say the most provoking, book on art that has recently appeared."—AthenÆum. "Mr. Bell says many wise and witty things. Few people will agree with them all, many will get angry with the remorselessness of his logic, but nobody can read the book through carefully without clearing up their own minds on the subject and incidentally acquiring a sounder understanding of what art is and means."—Sunday Times. "He utters paradoxes as if they were the tritest things in the world; all epigram and impudence he trails his coat assiduously, and, while his brilliance is vastly entertaining, his method of bouncing us into liking what he likes, and hating what he hates, is likely to infuriate quite as many readers as it takes by storm."—Manchester Guardian. "The rather sterile literature of art criticism has been seriously enriched by a brilliant if wilful manifesto. The refreshing absence of obscurity common to art criticism will be particularly welcome. For genuine students the book possesses significant form, and will be indispensable."—Westminster Gazette. "This is the best and most entertaining book about art that we have ever read."—Standard. "This book is of first-rate importance. But nobody need be frightened of it on that account. Unlike most important works on the theory of art, it is thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end. Its main thesis is a generalization which, if true, is applicable to all schools and all epochs. The book is stimulating and suggestive."—Cambridge Review. "Mr. Bell's book has been generally recognized as the most interesting and stimulating appreciation that has yet appeared in this country of the movement which we call post-impressionism. The book is, however, much wider in its scope. A book upon Æsthetics at once serious (on the whole), sane, and extremely entertaining."—Welsh Outlook. PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND WINDUS: LONDON |
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