Author: HANDS, Joseph.
Title: Beauty, and the Laws Governing its Development; with suggestions on education, relative to the attainment of beauty.
Description: London, E.W. Allen [1882?] with overlaid ticket of the Chicago National Institute of Science. Slender octavo, publisher's decorated red cloth blocked in black and gilt; 88pp. A couple of minor flaws to the cloth, rather good. ¶ Only edition and elusive; just like describing Hands' writings in a simple and clear way. Hands was a London physician cum homeopath, apparently still respectable - viz his membership of the Royal College of Surgeons presuming his claim is true - and wrote works best, or most easily, described as thoroughly Victorian lunatic fringe: on will-ability and mind-energy, on the laws of matter and motion, and here, on aesthetics. Hands begins with seven aphorisms, one of which was Hogarth's, all sensible enough; the last is quite noble. But from there he leaps from the ideal human form (5'10" tall for man; 5'6'' for woman) to electro-polar action to colour to the lapse of time like an ibex in the high alps and following him leaves us breathless and bewildered.
Keywords: art aesthetics beauty education science philosophy psychology medicine c19th England reform progress
Title: Beauty, and the Laws Governing its Development; with suggestions on education, relative to the attainment of beauty.
Description: London, E.W. Allen [1882?] with overlaid ticket of the Chicago National Institute of Science. Slender octavo, publisher's decorated red cloth blocked in black and gilt; 88pp. A couple of minor flaws to the cloth, rather good. ¶ Only edition and elusive; just like describing Hands' writings in a simple and clear way. Hands was a London physician cum homeopath, apparently still respectable - viz his membership of the Royal College of Surgeons presuming his claim is true - and wrote works best, or most easily, described as thoroughly Victorian lunatic fringe: on will-ability and mind-energy, on the laws of matter and motion, and here, on aesthetics. Hands begins with seven aphorisms, one of which was Hogarth's, all sensible enough; the last is quite noble. But from there he leaps from the ideal human form (5'10" tall for man; 5'6'' for woman) to electro-polar action to colour to the lapse of time like an ibex in the high alps and following him leaves us breathless and bewildered.
Keywords: art aesthetics beauty education science philosophy psychology medicine c19th England reform progress
Price: AUD 300.00 = appr. US$ 207.56 Seller: Richard Neylon, Bookseller
- Book number: 10679
- Book number: 10679