The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beautiful, by Vernon Lee

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Title: The Beautiful
An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics

Author: Vernon Lee

Release Date: October 17, 2008 [EBook #26942]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTIFUL ***

Produced by Ruth Hart

[Note: for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents to
the beginning of the text and slightly modified it to conform with the
online format. I have also made two spelling corrections:
"chippendale" to "Chippendale" and "closely interpendent" to
"closely interdependent."]

THE BEAUTIFUL

AN INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGICAL AESTHETICS

BY

VERNON LEE

Author of
"Beauty and Ugliness"
"Laurus Nobilis"
etc.

Cambridge:
at the University Press
New York:
G.P. Putnam's Sons
1913

[Illustration: title page]

_With the exception of the coat of arms
at the foot, the design on the title page is a
reproduction of one used by the earliest known
Cambridge printer, John Siberch,_ 1521

CONTENTS

Preface and Apology v
I. The Adjective "Beautiful" 1
II. Contemplative Satisfaction 8
III. Aspects versus Things 14
IV. Sensations 22
V. Perception of Relations 29
VI. Elements of Shape 35
VII. Facility and Difficulty of Grasping 48
VIII. Subject and Object, or, Nominative and Accusative 55
IX. Empathy (Einfuehlung) 61
X. The Movement of Lines 70
XI. The Character of Shapes 78
XII. From the Shape to the Thing 84
XIII. From the Thing to the Shape 90
XIV. The Aims of Art 98
XV. Attention to Shapes 106
XVI. Information about Things 111
XVII. Co-operation of Things and Shapes 117
XVIII. Aes