ABSTRACT
An important predecessor of the modern theorists of art science is H. Taine, whose aesthetic is a philosophy, not of beauty, but of the fine arts. He was also a founder of the empirical, historical, and comparative method proper to the natural sciences, as opposed to the deductive method of the nineteenth-century metaphysicians. According to E. Grosse the real aim of the science of art, 'die Kunstwissenschaft', is a complete and comprehensive knowledge of the nature of art itself, of the multiple causes of art, and of its various effects. The primary purpose of the science of art, as in all true science, is the understanding, not the application, of general laws, and in this case of the particular laws which control the life and development of the arts. E. Utitz and M. Dessoir are the most important contemporary protagonists of the general science of art in the sphere of philosophy.
