This book aims to provide readers with a solid foundation for understanding art through historical experience of art criticism. The whole book consists of 14 chapters, including the artistic criticism of ancient Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages (especially of Italy), the Renaissance in Italy and the Baroque period (dominated by Italy and France). It also tracks back to the origin of neo-classicism and romanticism art criticism, investigating how German idealism tried to create a comprehensive new classicism form by combining neo-classicism and romanticism art criticism. It introduces details of how the philologists, archaeologists, and connoisseurs in Germany and Italy influenced art criticism in the 19th century and early 20th century, as well as the outstanding criticism of modern painting, emerged in France in the middle of the 19th century. It discusses how several German critics in the second half of the 19th century tried to provide themselves with a criterion in addition to idealism or positivist aesthetics, so as to create a theory of pure visibility. Then, it introduces the origin of modern art and its subsequent influence. The reference and indexes are attached to the end of the book.
