THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HISTORY OF ART 



BY JOHN C. VAN DYKE 



[John C. Van Dyke, Professor of the History of Art, Rutgers College, since 1890. 

 b. April 21 , 1856, New Brunswick, New Jersey. L.H.D. Rutgers, 1889. Privately 

 educated, studied at Columbia and Rutgers Colleges; student of art in Euro- 

 pean galleries and art centres. Member of New York Bar, 1877; Librarian of 

 Sage College, since 1878. Lecturer in University courses of lectures at Columbia, 

 Harvard, Princeton, and other colleges throughout the United States. Author 

 of Serious Art in America; Principles of Art; How to Judge a Picture; History 

 of Painting; Old Dutch and Flemish Masters; Modern French Masters; Italian 

 Painting; Old English Masters; The Meaning of Pictures; The Desert; Nature, for 

 its Own Sake; The Opal Sea; and many articles for papers and magazines. Editor 

 of Art Review; The Studio.] 



GENTLEMEN, I have been asked by the officers of this Congress 

 1o speak to you to-day on the "Development of the History of Art" 

 not of art itself, nor of its history, but of the men who write 

 the history and of the methods which they use in its construction. 

 In other words, I am to speak of the science of the history of art. 

 There has been strict injunction laid upon me that I talk not more 

 than forty-five minutes, so you will pardon me if I plunge into the 

 subject without preface or apology. 



Some months ago, in conversation with one of our most distin- 

 guished critics, I chanced to remark that the art-books of to-day were 

 so much better than those of twenty years ago. "Yes," he answered, 

 " the books are better than the art." By which caustic extravagance 

 he probably meant that the art was not so very bad nor the writing 

 so very good, but merely that both had improved. Certainly there 

 has been a great advance since the days when our fathers wrote 

 expansive essays upon sculpture and painting, guessing at both their 

 facts and their feelings, with a charming commingling of frankness 

 and ignorance. The standard has been raised. Something more is 

 now required of the writer than a miscellaneous "taste for art." He 

 must have knowledge gained at first hand, knowledge not only of 

 the work of art whereof he writes, but knowledge of materials, 

 methods, mediums, schools, guilds, peoples, languages, countries, 

 climates, skies all things that may even remotely relate to the 

 production of the artist or his art. II* 1 must have discernment, judg- 

 ment, and above all sympathy, or that intuitive feeling which enables 

 him to grasp the spirit and quality of a work without perhaps know- 

 ing just why or how. And finally he must have the ability to tell 

 what he knows in a readable manner in a language that may be 

 understood by the common people. 



Happily much of this equipment is now our possession. The writers 



