No people known to us, however hard their lives may be, spend all their
time, all their energies in the acquisition of food and shelter, nor
do those who live under more favorable conditions and who are free
to devote to other pursuits the time not needed for securing their
sustenance occupy themselves with purely industrial work or idle away
the days in indolence. Even the poorest tribes have produced work that
gives to them esthetic pleasure, and those whom a bountiful nature or a
greater wealth of inventions has granted freedom from care, devote much
of their energy to the creation of works of beauty.
In one way or another esthetic pleasure is felt by all members of
mankind. No matter how diverse the ideals of beauty may be, the general
character of the enjoyment of beauty is of the same order everywhere;
the crude song of the Siberians, the dance of the African Negroes,
the pantomime of the Californian Indians, the stone work of the New
Zealanders, the carvings of the Melanesians, the sculpture of the
Alaskans appeal to them in a manner not different from that felt by us
when we hear a song, when we see an artistic dance, or when we admire
ornamental work, painting or sculpture. The very existence of song,
dance, painting and sculpture among all the tribes known to us is proof
of the craving to produce things that are felt as satisfying through
their form, and of the capability of man to enjoy them.
All human activities may assume forms that give them esthetic values.
The mere cry, or the word does not necessarily possess the elements
of beauty. If it does so it is merely a matter of accident. Violent,
unrestrained movements induced by excitement; the exertions of the
chase and the movements required by daily occupations are partly
reflexes of passion, partly practically determined. They have no
immediate esthetic appeal. The same is true of all products of
industrial activity. The daubing of paint, the whittling of wood or
bone, the flaking of stone do not necessarily lead to results that
compel our admiration on account of their beauty.
Nevertheless, all of them may assume esthetic values. Rhythmical
movements of the body or of objects, forms that appeal to the eye,
sequences of tones and forms of speech which please the ear, produce
artistic effects. Muscular, visual and auditory sensations are the
materials that give us esthetic pleasure and that are used in art.
We may also speak of impressions that appeal to the senses of smell,
taste and touch. A composition of scents, a gastronomical repast may be
called works of art provided they excite pleasurable sensations.
What then gives to the sensation an esthetic value? When the technical
treatment has attained a certain standard of excellence, when the
control of the processes involved is such that certain typical forms
are produced, we call the process an art, and however simple the forms
may be, they may be judged from the point of view of formal perfection;
industrial pursuits such as cutting, carving, moulding, weaving; as
well as singing, dancing and cooking are capable of attaining technical
excellence and fixed forms. The judgment of perfection of technical
form is essentially an esthetic judgment. It is hardly possible to
state objectively just where the line between artistic and pre-artistic
forms should be drawn, because we cannot determine just where the
esthetic attitude sets in. It seems certain, however, that wherever a
definite type of movement, a definite sequence of tones or a fixed form
has developed it must become a standard by which its perfection, that
is, its beauty, is measured.
Such types exist among mankind the world over, and we must assume that
if an unstandardized form should prove to possess an esthetic appeal
for a community it would readily be adopted. Fixity of form seems to be
most intimately connected with our ideas of beauty.
Since a perfect standard of form can be attained only in a highly
developed and perfectly controlled technique there must be an intimate
relation between technique and a feeling for beauty.
It might be said that achievement is irrelevant as long as the ideal
of beauty for which the would-be artist strives is in existence,
although on account of imperfect technique he may be unable to attain
it. Alois Riegl expresses this idea by saying that the will to produce
an esthetic result is the essence of artistic work. The truth of this
assertion may be admitted and undoubtedly many individuals strive for
expression of an esthetic impulse without being able to realize it.
What they are striving for presupposes the existence of an ideal form
which the unskilled muscles are unable to express adequately. The
intuitive feeling for form must be present. So far as our knowledge of
the works of art of primitive people extends the feeling for form is
inextricably bound up with technical experience. Nature does not seem
to present formal ideals,—that is fixed types that are imitated,—except
when a natural object is used in daily life; when it is handled,
perhaps modified, by technical processes. It would seem that only in
this way form impresses itself upon the human mind. The very fact
that the manufactures of man in each and every part of the world have
pronounced style proves that a feeling for form develops with technical
activities. There is nothing to show that the mere contemplation of
nature or of natural objects develops a sense of fixed form. Neither
have we any proof that a definite stylistic form develops as a product
purely of the power of the imagination of the workman, unguided by his
technical experience which brings the form into his consciousness. It
is conceivable that elementary esthetic forms like symmetry and rhythm,
are not entirely dependent upon technical activities; but these are
common to all art styles; they are not specifically characteristic
of any particular region. Without stability of form of objects,
manufactured or in common use, there is no style; and stability of
form depends upon the development of a high technique, or in a few
cases on the constant use of the same kind of natural products. When
stable forms have been attained, imaginative development of form in an
imperfect technique may set in and in this case the will to produce an
esthetic result may outrun the ability of the would-be artist. The same
consideration holds good in regard to the esthetic value of muscular
movements used in song and dance.
The manufactures of man the world over prove that the ideal forms are
based essentially on standards developed by expert technicians. They
may also be imaginative developments of older standardized forms.
Without a formal basis the will to create something that appeals to the
sense of beauty can hardly exist.
* * * * *
Many works of art affect us in another way. The emotions may be
stimulated not by the form alone, but also by close associations that
exist between the form and ideas held by the people. In other words,
when the forms convey a meaning, because they recall past experiences
or because they act as symbols, a new element is added to the
enjoyment. The form and its meaning combine to elevate the mind above
the indifferent emotional state of every day life. Beautiful sculpture
or painting, a musical composition, dramatic art, a pantomime, may so
affect us. This is no less true of primitive art than of our own.
Sometimes esthetic pleasure is released by natural forms. The song of a
bird may be beautiful; we may experience pleasure in viewing the form
of a landscape or in viewing the movements of an animal; we may enjoy
a natural taste or smell, or a pleasant feeling; grandeur of nature
may give us an emotional thrill and the actions of animals may have a
dramatic effect; all of these have esthetic values but they are not
art. On the other hand, a melody, a carving, a painting, a dance, a
pantomime are esthetic productions, because they have been created by
our own activities.
Form, and creation by our own activities are essential features of
art. The pleasure or elevation of the mind must be brought about by a
particular form of sense impression, but this sense impression must
be made by some kind of human activity or by some product of human
activity.
It is essential to bear in mind the twofold source of artistic effect,
the one based on form alone, the other on ideas associated with form.
Otherwise the theory of art will be one-sided. Since the art of man,
the world over, among primitive tribes as well as among civilized
nations, contains both elements, the purely formal and the significant,
it is not admissible to base all discussions of the manifestations of
the art impulse upon the assumption that the expression of emotional
states by significant forms must be the beginning of art, or that, like
language, art is a form of expression. In modern times this opinion is
based in part on the often observed fact that in primitive art even
simple geometrical forms may possess a meaning that adds to their
emotional value, and that dance, music and poetry almost always have
definite meaning. However, significance of artistic form is neither
universal nor can it be shown that it is necessarily older than the
form.
I do not intend to enter into a discussion of the philosophical
theories of esthetics, but will confine myself to a few remarks on
the views of a number of recent authors who have treated art on the
basis of ethnological material, and only in so far as the question is
concerned whether primitive art is expressive of definite ideas.
Our views agree fundamentally with those of Fechner[5] who recognizes
the “direct” appeal of the work of art on the one side and the
associated elements that give a specific tone to the esthetic effects
on the other.
[5] G. T. Fechner, Vorschule der Aesthetik.
Wundt[6] restricts the discussion of art to those forms in which the
artistic work expresses some thought or emotion. He says, “For the
psychological study art stands in a position intermediate between
language and myth.... Thus the creative artistic work appears to us as
a peculiar development of the expressive movements of the body. Gesture
and language pass in a fleeting moment. In art they are sometimes
given a higher significance; sometimes the fleeting movement is given
a permanent form.... All these relations are manifested principally
in the relatively early, although not in the very earliest stages of
artistic work in which the momentary needs of expression of thought
dominate art as well as language.”
[6] Wilhelm Wundt, Völkerpsychologie, Vol. 3, Die Kunst; third edition,
Leipzig, 1919, p. 5.
Max Verworn[7] says: “Art is the faculty to express conscious processes
by means created by the artist himself in such a manner that they may
be perceived by our sense organs. In this general sense language,
song, music and dance are art, just as well as painting, sculpture and
ornamentation. The graphic and plastic arts in the narrow sense of the
term result from the ability of making conscious processes visible in
permanent materials.”
[7] Die Anfänge der Kunst, Jena, 1920, p. 8. “Kunst im allgemeinsten
Sinne ist, wie das Wort schon sagt, ein ‘Können’.”
Richard Thurnwald[8] accepts the view-point of Wundt when he says,
“Art, however inadequate its means may be, is a means of expression
that belongs to mankind. The means employed are distinct from those
used in gesture, language and writing. Even when the artist is intent
only upon the repetition of what he has in mind he does so with
at least the subconscious purpose of communicating his ideas, of
influencing others.”
[8] Richard Thurnwald, Handbuch der vergleichenden Psychologie,
herausgegeben von Gustav Kafka, Vol. I, p. 211.
The same onesidedness may be recognized in Yrjö Hirn’s[9] opinion, who
says: “In order to understand the art impulse as a tendency to esthetic
production we must bring it into connection with some function from the
nature of which the specifically artistic qualities may be derived.
Such a function is to be found, we believe, in the activities of
emotional expression.”
[9] Yrjö Hirn, The Origins of Art, London, 1900, p. 29.
It will be seen that all these authors confine their definition of art
to those forms which are expressions of emotional states or of ideas,
while they do not include in art the pleasure conveyed by purely formal
elements that are not primarily expressive.
Ernst Grosse[10] expresses similar views in somewhat different form.
He stresses the practical purpose of artistic forms which appears to
him as primary. However, he assumes that these forms, while devoted
first of all to practical purposes, are intended at the same time to
serve an esthetic need that is felt by the people. Thus, he says,
that primitive ornament is by origin and by its fundamental nature
not intended as decorative but as a practically significant mark or
symbol, that is to say as expressive. If I understand him correctly
this practical significance implies some kind of meaning inherent in
the form.
[10] Ernst Grosse, Die Anfänge der Kunst, 1894, p. 292.
Emil Stephan[11] concludes from his detailed discussion of Melanesian
art that technical motives offer no sufficient explanation for the
origin of artistic forms (pp. 52 et seq.). He considers all ornament
as representative and sees the origin of art in that unconscious
mental process by which the form appears as distinct from the content
of the visual impression, and in the desire to give permanence to the
form (p. 51). For this reason he considers the artistic forms also
as equivalents of the way in which the form appears to the primitive
artist.
[11] Emil Stephan, Südseekunst, Berlin, 1907.
Alfred C. Haddon[12] and W. H. Holmes[13] seek the origin of all
decorative art in realism. They discuss the transfer of technical forms
to ornament but they see in these also results of the endeavor to
reproduce realistic form, namely; technical details. Henry Balfour[14]
agrees, on the whole, with this position but he stresses also the
development of decorative motives from the actual use of technical
processes.
[12] Alfred C. Haddon, Evolution in Art, London 1895.
[13] W. H. Holmes, Origin and Development of Form in Ceramic Art,
Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology, Vol. 4, 1886, pp. 443 et seq.
[14] Henry Balfour, The Evolution of Decorative Art, London 1893.
Gottfried Semper[15] emphasizes the importance of the form as
determined by the manner of use. He also stresses the influence of
designs developed in weaving and of their transfer upon other forms of
technique, particularly upon architectural forms.
[15] Gottfried Semper, Der Stil in den Technischen und Tektonischen
Künsten, 1860.
Alois Riegl[16] is also inclined to stress the representative character
of the most ancient art forms, basing his argument essentially upon
the realistic paleolithic carvings and paintings. He sees the most
important step forward in the attempt to show the animals in outline,
on a two-dimensional surface which necessitates the substitution of
an ideal line for the three-dimensional form that is given to us by
every day experience. He assumes that geometric ornament developed from
the treatment of the line, obtained by the process just mentioned,
according to formal principles.
[16] Alois Riegl, Stilfragen, 2nd edition, Berlin, 1923, pp. 2 et seq.
Setting aside the assumed sequence of these two aspects, his view-point
is distinguished from that of the authors referred to before, by the
recognition of the principle of form as against that of content.
The principle of form is still more energetically defended by van
Scheltema, who tries to prove definite developmental processes through
which the formal treatment of North European art has passed, first in
the Neolithic period, then in the bronze age and finally in the iron
age.[17]
[17] F. Adama van Scheltema, Die altnordische Kunst, Berlin, 1923.
For a comprehensive review of works on primitive art up to 1914, see
Martin Heydrich, Afrikanische Ornamentik, Internationales Archiv
für Ethnographie, Supplement to Volume XXII, Leyden, 1914; also the
bibliography in Eckert von Sydow, Die Kunst der Naturvölker und der
Vorzeit, Berlin, 1923; and Herbert Kühn, Die Kunst der Primitiven,
München, 1923. An excellent review of the subject has been given by
Elizabeth Wilson, Das Ornament (Dissertation, University of Leipzig).
Alfred Vierkandt[18] also emphasizes the fundamental importance of the
formal element in the esthetic effect of all manifestations of art.
[18] Prinzipienfragen der ethnologischen Kunstforschung, Zeitschrift
für Aesthetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, Vol. XIX, Berlin, 1925,
pp. 338 et seq. See also Jahrbuch für historische Volkskunde, Vol. II;
Vom Wesen der Volkskunst, Berlin, 1926; Rafael Karsten, Civilization of
South American Indians, New York, 1926.