A curated selection of Huxley’s essays on various forms of art, including literature, painting, architecture, and music. The collection highlights Huxley’s deep engagement with artistic expression and his critical perspective on the cultural and aesthetic trends of his time.

Contents

Preface by Aldous Huxley

Introduction by Morris Philipson

I: AESTHETICS

On Tradition and Individual Style

Art and Religion

Art and Religion: The View from India

Faith, Taste, and History

Sincerity in Art

On the Experience of Nature and Literary Expression

Tragedy and the Whole Truth

To the Puritan All Things Are Impure

Art and the Obvious

“And Wanton Optics Roll the Melting Eye”

On Handicraft

On Art, Sanity, and Mysticism

Adonis and the Alphabet

II: CRITICISM

Chaucer

Ben Johnson

Crébillon the Younger

Swift

Baudelaire

The Best Picture

Breughel

Variations on Goya

Variations on El Greco

Variations on “The Prisons”

Doodles in a Dictionary

On the Absence of Painters in the Tropics

Indian Water Colors

Rimini and Alberti

Sir Christopher Wren

The Taj Mahal

A Note on Architecture in India

Gesualdo: Variations on a Musical Theme

Music in India and Japan

Music at Night

The Rest Is Silence

Harper & Brothers (USA)