For most of the last century, art history has followed a positivist approach, emphasizing form and style, fact and history as the means of studying works of art.  By contrast the philosophical pursuit of truth, once central to the fine arts and humanities has largely been abandoned.  For the Love of Beauty offers a searching and ambitious critique of modern aesthetic practice that aims to restore the pursuit of the knowledge of reality—Being—to its rightful place.  Dr. Pontynen begins by addressing the question of why the pursuit of truth is no longer acceptable in academic circles even though it has been intrinsic to the purpose of art most times and in most cultures.  Lacking the pursuit of truth, the humanities necessarily lack intellectual and cultural grounding and purpose.  Fields of study such as philosophy, music, art, and history are therefore trivialized and brutalized.  His focus on the study of the visual arts details the how the denial of purpose and quality in modernist and postmodernist aesthetics has denied art any possibility of transcending entertainment, therapy, or propaganda. In place of the established narratives, he offers a counter-narrative based on a cross-culture pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful.  He shows how the history of art parallels the intellectual history of Western culture and how the history of art parallels both aesthetics and ethics.  This is a must read for readers of all levels of knowledge who are interested in furthering the depths of their understanding of art and non-revisionist art history.