Excerpt from The Art of Florence an Interpretation<br><br>Our field thus defined, it remains for us to conceive clearly what we propose to do in it. The interpretation of art must be carefully distinguished from the interpretation or explana tion of painting, sculpture, and so forth, the special forms of' art. The latter would imply much discussion of processes, mediums, materials, and so forth. To some extent these inquiries are inevitable, for it not infrequently happens that the materials or the processes employed in art have much to do with the choice of themes and the manner of their treat ment. This is conspicuously true of the mosaics, where the building of pictures with little cubes of marble or other material Was so unlike painting, making some things so much easier and other things so much harder, that the ideals of art inevitably underwent serious modification in consequence. We Shall not understand the mosaics or get into sympathy with them, unless we see that their disparagement of per sonality and intellectual suggestion and their emphasis upon splendor and interpretive decoration was largely due to the materials of which they were made and the process which the artist was compelled to employ. It is folly to attempt to make a picture with mosaic or a statue with paint. When we see art developing preferences in subject and manner on account of the materials or the processes in use, we can understand that development only by taking account of these processes and materials. So much we shall try to do, and only so much, and this too in an utterly untechnical manner. Into the maze of studio jargon and studio procedure we shall not try to penetrate. Not only is this a process of enormous difficulty for the layman, itkis distinctly prejudicial to his enjoyment of art. The studio bears the same relation to art that the kitchen does to the banquet. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, not in the cooking. It is not through the kitchen that the guests are taken to the feast.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.