When beauty and grace are combined with utility and strength, architecture becomes a fine art.

Opus is a title given to each separate production of a composer. They are numbered in succession.

"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast," not "beast"-is the true quotation from Congreve.

Centuries before our Longfellow, Chaucer had written: "the lyfe so short, the crafte so long to lerne."

It was Raphael who did most "to define the true limits and the true capabilities of purely decorative art."

The patron saint of "artists and smiths" is St. Eloi (588-659), master of the mint in the reign of Clotaire II.

The finest specimens of Peruvian masonry extant are to be found in the ruins of Cuzco, an old capital of the state.

The place where the chorus stood in the Greek theatre has given us a word that now refers to the musicians-orchestra.

The nimbus or halo painted around the heads of holy personages, is claimed to have been derived from later Greek art.

Renaissance is the name specifically given to the revival of the classic style of art in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

As a portrait painter Van Dyck is second only to Titian. His "Children of Charles I," in the Dresden gallery, is well known.

The general term " gem sculpture" refers to designs worked upon precious stones, as cameos, or cut into the surface as intaglios.

Michelangelo was a giant in sculpture, painting and architecture. All his work is marked by "a mysterious and awful grandeur.

Egypt reached the zenith of her political greatness and her architecture its highest development between 1600 B.C. and 1300 B. C.

Greek paintings were executed in distemper with glue, milk, or white of eggs, and on wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment and canvas.

For richness of coloring, beauty of form, the portrayal of the sensuous and the painting of the human face, few have surpassed Titian.

Flamboyant was a style of Gothic architecture (1500-1600) in which the tracery of windows, panels, etc., had a wave or flame-like form.

The "Statuesque" school of French artists was that founded by David (1748-1825), who was himself called the Painter of the Revolution.

The cathedral of St. Mark's at Venice, with its many rich mosaics, is considered by some one of the most remarkable buildings in the world.

The Laocoon, a masterpiece of the Rhodian school [323-146 B.C.], "is said to express physical pain and passion better than other existing groups."

The Temple of Karnac, an imposing ruin, is a striking example of the grandeur, the grace and the magnitude of many of the Egyptian temples.

Corot, Millet and Bougereau are among the best of the modern French school, which to-day is enjoying a position it never before attained.

The grand decorations of the Sistine Chapel ceiling were the work of five years, and form a characteristic masterpiece of Michel Angelo.

In the twenty-first verse of the fourth chapter of Genesis we read that Jubal was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.'

The clavichord is an obsolete musical instrument of the same type as the harpsichord and spinet. A claviharp is a harp struck with keys like a piano.

There are five orders of architecture: the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite, of which the Tuscan and Composite are Roman and the other three Greek.

Though in its earliest days Christianity in its asceticism was hostile to art, still we find many of the highest forms of medieval art and architecture in the Church.

The finest ancient marble was that from Paros, called Parian; the next best were from Mount Pentelicus and Hymettus, near Athens. The finest modern marble is from Carrara.

Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Chopin, Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn, who are still without peers in the music of Germany, all lived and died within a century.

The oldest existing statue is one of wood, admirably modeled, colored, and with eyes of crystal. It is of a man named Ra-em-ke, an Egyptian, and dating from about B. c. 4000.

The early representations of Christ in painting were purposely devoid of all attraction; in the eighth century Adrian I. decreed that Christ should be represented as beautiful as possible.

The mosaics in the Church of St. Mark, in Venice, are the finest in the world. They cover 40,000 square feet of the upper walls, ceilings, and cupolas, and are all laid on a gold ground.

In these great works of the Italian painters it must be borne in mind that the masters furnished the cartoons, while the details were painted by pupils, many of whom in turn became masters.

Rembrandt van Ryn raised the Dutch school to its highest development in realistic art. Perfect command of light and shade, picturesque effect and truth to nature marks all the work of Rembrandt.

"The Girl I Left Behind Me" has been played and sung in England since 1760. Its original name was Brighton Camp." It is an Irish air, but who composed either the words or the music is now unknown.

The Caryatides were figures of Greek women used in architecture to support entablatures. They were first used by Praxiteles to perpetuate the disgrace of Carya, who sided with the Persians in the battle of Thermopylæ.

The opposite art term to relief is intaglio, and means the representation of a subject by hollowing it out in a gem or other substance, so that an impression taken from the engraving presents the appearance of a bas-relief.

The candelabrum is properly a candlestick, but is regularly used also for a lamp-stand. Often from three to ten feet high, it may be of great variety of form and may be made of marble, bronze, and the precious metals. The bronze candelabra of the Renaissance are also notable art objects.

Byzantine architecture was the style which was developed by the Byzantine artists from Christian symbolism. Its main features were the circle, dome, and round arch, and its chief symbols, the lily, cross, vesica and nimbus.

In the Vatican at Rome there is a marble statue with natural eyelashes, the only one with this peculiarity in the world. It represents Ariadne sleeping on the Island of Naxos at the moment when she was deserted by Theseus.

The camera obscura (lit. "a dark chamber"), early described by Giambattista della Porta in his "Magia Naturalis," received a new interest in the hands of Daguerre, when it became the principal instrument used in photography.

The concertina is a musical instrument invented in 1829 by Wheatstone, the electrician, the sounds of which are produced by free vibrating reeds of metal, as in the accordion. The scale of the concertina is very complete and extensive.

In St. John's College, Oxford, is preserved a portrait of Charles I, in which the engraver's lines, as they seem to be, are really microscopic writing, the face alone containing all the book of Psalms, with the creeds and several forms of prayers.

Though Hogarth, the father of the English school of painting, was successful as a portrait painter, it was those famous series of satires on the follies of people in general and of Londoners in particular that placed him among the "immortals."

The Greeks employed music, no doubt simple in form, in their dramas. The chorus sang, or rather "intoned poetry," between scenes, and was a very important adjunct of the play, as it was often the only means of showing the action of the plot.

Alto, in music, is properly the same as counter tenor, the male voice of the highest pitch (now principally falsetto), and not the lowest female voice, which is properly contralto, though in printed music the second part in a quartet is always entitled alto.

People love pictures. That is apparent to every thoughtful man who visits an art gallery. It may be true that comparatively few understand all that the artists have said, but it is equally true that, in general, the people derive delight from the works of art.

Dillettante in its original sense is synonymous with an amateur, or lover of the fine arts. It is often used as a term of reproach, to signify an amateur whose taste lies in the direction of what is trivial and vulgar, or of a critic or connoisseur whose knowledge is mere affectation and pretence.

The Cyclopean walls was a name given to masonry built of large irregular stones, closely fitting, but unhewn and uncemented. They were attributed to Strabo's Cyclopes, who were probably mythical, and many of them still exist in Greece (as at Mycena and Tiryus), Italy and elsewhere.

Artists say that the next great school will appear in America and rule the artistic world with a more imperial power than the French school exercises today. When one reflects that the art of a nation is but the expression of the inner feeling of its people he is constrained to accept the prophecy as true.

Madonna, an Italian word meaning "My Lady," is used as the generic title for works of art, generally paintings, representing the Virgin, or the Virgin with the Infant Christ. Legend credits St. Luke with having painted the first Madonna, a portrait put on the canvas from life, and with having carved the image of the Virgin in the Santa Casa at Loreto.

Serenade (Ital. serenata) was originally music performed in a calm night; hence an entertainment of music given by a lover to his mistress under her window-especially in Spain and Italy. A piece of music characterized by the soft repose which is supposed to be in harmony with the stillness of night is sometimes called a serenade, more usually a nocturne.

Tableaux vivants, or living pictures, are representations of works of painting and sculpture, or of scenes from history or fiction, by living persons. They are said to have been invented by Madame de Genlis, when she had charge of the education of the children of the Duke of Orleans. They were long common in theatres, as they are now in private circles.

In the fine arts a cartoon is a design on strong paper of the full size of a work to be afterwards executed in fresco, oil color, or tapestry; and prepared in order that the artist may adjust the drawing and composition of his subject where alterations can be readily effected. The design when completed is transferred, by tracing or pouncing, to the surface finally to be worked on.

We apply the term Moorish, or Moresque, to the special form of Saracenic architecture developed by the Moors in Spain. Its characteristics were the horseshoe arch, the slender column, minarets, mosques, lattice-work, and gorgeous coloring The principle examples are the mosque of Cordova (eighth century), and the palace of the Alhambra at Granada (fourteenth century).

Castanets is the name of a musical instrument of percussion in the form of two hollow shells of ivory or hard wood, which are bound together by a band fastened on the thumb, and struck by the fingers to produce a trilling sound in keeping with the rhythm of the music. The castanets were introduced into Spain by the Moors, and are much used as an accompaniment to dances and guitars.

The term bird's-eye view is applied generally to modes of perspective in which the eye is supposed to look down upon the objects from a considerable height. In sketching or drawing a locality for military or economical purposes, this kind of perspective is always used. The great difficulty is to represent at the same time the relative heights of mountains and steepness of acclivities. But the more usual kind of bird's-eye view differs from the common perspective picture only in the greater height of the horizontal line.

Soprano (Ital.) is the highest species of voice. Its average range extends from C below the treble stave to A above it; but the greatest variety in compass and quality is found. The highest compass on record is that of Agujari, which on the testimony of Mozart reached to C in altissimo (three octaves). Music for this voice is now written with the G or treble clef; but in German full scores the old soprano clef, C on the first line, is still used. The mezzo-soprano has a somewhat lower range, usually from A beneath the treble stave to F on the fifth line.

Foreshortening is a term in painting or drawing, applied to signify that a figure, or a portion of a figure, which is intended to be viewed by the spectator directly or nearly in front, is so represented as to convey the notion of its being projected forward; and, though by mere comparative measurement occupying a much smaller space on the surface, yet to give the same idea of length or size as if it had been projected laterally.

Genre-painting is a term in art which originally indicated simply any class or kind of painting, and was always accompanied by a distinctive adjective or epithet, as genre historique, "historical painting," or genre du paysage, "landscape painting." The term genre is now limited to scenes from familiar or rustic life and to all figure pictures which from the homeliness of their subjects do not attain to the dignity of historical

art.

Improvisatori is an Italian term, designating poets who without previous preparation compose on a given theme, and who sometimes sing and accompany their voice with a musical instrument. The talent of improvisation is found in races in which the imagination is more than usually alert, as among the ancient Greeks, the Arabs, and in many tribes of negroes. In modern Europe it has been almost entirely confined to Italy.

Great schools can spring only from a profound popular delight in expressions of beauty and truth. Art is not primarily didactic-not essentially religious or theoretical-but, rather, ethical, and delight is a moral quality. Thus the measure of a nation's advancement in regard to its ethical conceptions is an accurate measure of its love of art and of its capability to achieve great things in color, in marble and in architecture.

Perhaps it is too much to ask that the people read all that artists write. Granted that they do not, there still remains the fact that their hearts delight in expressions of truth, which their minds as yet do not grasp. And from such popular delight in things of intrinsic nobility came that sincerity which made it possible for Ghiberti, the Florentine, to fashion "The Gates of Paradise." And from the spirit of the people the great American school of art is to spring.

The term pre-Raphaelite has been applied to a body of artists, poets, and literary men who combined together (1850) to advocate, by precept and example, a return to nature in art. Their subsequent success and influence was largely owing to the support they received from the pen of John Ruskin. The name was adopted because they looked upon Raphael as "the first traitor to religious art," since he idealized his creations past recognition, and was the founder of what they deemed the "illusory" style.

The word caricature is used to express either a pictorial or a descriptive representation, in which, while a general likeness is retained, peculiarities are exaggerated so as to make the person or thing ridicuious. Although sometimes applied to literary descriptions, the word caricature, when used alone, is generally understood to relate to design. Caricature being a natural expression of natural feelings, must be as old as man himself, and possibly the eccentric markings found on rocks and in caves are not entirely due to bad drawing, but were intended in certain cases to ridicule the artist's enemies. Examples of caricature have been found in the art of the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans.