II. THE MIDDLE AGES
The Middle Ages inherited the ancient idea of art
and made use of it
theoretically and practically. Art
was considered as a habitus of the practical reason.
Thomas Aquinas defined art as an
“ordering of reason”
and Duns Scotus as
“the right idea of what is to be
produced” (ars est recta ratio factibilium, Col. I, n. 19),
or as “the ability to produce based on real
principles”
(ars est habitus cum vera
ratione factivus; Opus
Oxoniense, I, d. 38, n. 5). Medieval
art was indeed
governed by fixed canons and by rules of the guilds.
Hugh of Saint Victor said: “Art can be said to be a
knowledge which consists in rules and regulations”
(
ars
dici potest scientia, quae praeceptis
regulisque consistit;
Didascalicon, II). This medieval idea
of art embraced
handicrafts and sciences as well as fine arts.
Liberal arts were now considered as the arts par
excellence,
the arts proper; “art” without an
adjective meant:
liberal art. The seven liberal arts were logic,
rhetoric,
grammar, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music
(including acoustics); they were—according to our
understanding—sciences, not arts.
However, the Middle Ages were interested in non-
liberal arts as well; they did not depreciate them any
longer by
calling them “vulgar” but called them “me-
chanical arts.” Since the
twelfth century Scholastics
had tried to classify these arts and made a
point of
distinguishing seven of them, in symmetry with the
seven
traditional liberal arts, as did Radulphus Ardens
in his
“Speculum Universale” (see Grabmann). So also
did
Hugh of Saint Victor, who divided the mechanical
arts into lanificium (supplying men with wearing ap-
parel), armatura
(supplying men with shelter and tools),
agricultura, venatio (both supplying food),
navigatio,
medicina, theatrica. This was
the major contribution
of the Middle Ages to the classification of the
arts. Two
of those seven arts were similar to modern
“fine” arts,
namely armatura,
which embraced architecture, and
theatrica or the art of entertainment (a peculiar medi-
eval concept).
Music was considered a liberal art, being based on
mathematics. Poetry was a
kind of philosophy or
prophecy, or prayer or confession, and by no
means
an art. Painting and sculpture were never listed as arts,
either
liberal or mechanical. Still they certainly were
arts, after all, as
abilities based on rules; why then were
they never mentioned? It was
because they could have
been classified only as mechanical arts,
appreciated
only when useful; the utility of painting and sculpture
seemed insignificant. This shows the great change
which has taken place
since; these arts which we con-
sider as arts
in the strict sense, the scholastics did not
think worthy of being
mentioned at all.
