is, I think, the celebrated engraving of a mammoth on a portion of a
mammoth's tusk. I call it an engraving because the figure is marked out
with incised lines such as the engraver makes with his tool, and it is
perfect enough to print from. If it were inked and properly manipulated
it would leave an impression--an artist's proof the most curious and
extraordinary in the world, for the block was cut with flint instruments
by the Cave-men an incredible number of years ago, perhaps before England
was separated from the Continent by the sea, while the two were still
connected, and it was dry land where now the _Calais-Douvres_ steams so
steadily over the waves. But it would be an artist's proof with the
lights and shades reversed, the lines that sketch the form of the mammoth
would be white and the body dark, yet for all that lifelike, since the
undulating indentations that represent the woolly hide of the immense
creature would relieve the ground. This picture of a prehistoric animal,
drawn by a prehistoric artist, shows that Art arose from the chase.
Traced to the den of primeval man, who had no Academy to instruct him, no
Ruskin to guide, and no gallery to exhibit in, it appears that Art sprang
from nature, and not from science. His life was occupied with the hunt,
and he represented that which filled his thoughts. Those who understand
wild sports will not for a moment doubt that the mammoth was taken in
pits or otherwise destroyed despite its huge strength; no matter if it
had been twice as large, the cunning of man would have been equal to the
difficulty. The mind is the arrow that slays the monster. The greater the
danger the greater the interest, and consequently the more the
imagination would dwell upon the circumstances of the chase. Afterwards
resting in the cave round about the fire and thinking of the mighty work
of sport which had been accomplished, the finger of the savage would
involuntarily describe the outline of the creature so laboriously
captured. His finger might describe it upon the scattered ashes whitening
the ground beside him. Or it might describe the outline simply in the
air. Speech in its inception was as much expressed by the finger as the
tongue; perhaps the fingers talked before the mouth, and in a sense
writing preceded language. Uttering the unpolished sound which in their
primitive society indicated the mammoth, the savage drew rapidly a figure
with his finger, and his companions read his meaning written in the air.
To this day it is common for the Italian peasantry to talk with their
fingers; a few syllables suffice, illustrated and emphasised by those
dexterous hands. A more subtle meaning is thus conveyed than could be put
in words. Some of the most ancient languages seem bald and incomplete,
too rigid; they need intonation, as it were, to express passion or
changes of emotion, and when written the letters are too far apart to
indicate what is meant. Not too far apart upon the page, but far apart in
their sense, which has to be supplied as you supply the vowels. In actual
use such languages must have required much gesture and finger-sketching
in the air. The letters of the Egyptians largely consist of animals and
birds, which represent both sounds and ideas. Dreaming over the embers of
his fire, the Cave-man saw pass before his mental vision all the
circumstances of the chase, ending with the crash when the mammoth
crushed into the pit, at which he would start and partially awake.
Intentness of mind upon a pursuit causes an equivalent intentness of
dream, and thus wild races believe their dreams to be real and
substantial things, and not mere shadows of the night. To those who do
not read or write much, even in our days, dreams are much more real than
to those who are continuously exercising the imagination. If you use your
imagination all day you will not fear it at night. Since I have been
occupied with literature my dreams have lost all vividness and are less
real than the shadows of trees, they do not deceive me even in my sleep.
At every hour of the day I am accustomed to call up figures at will
before my eyes, which stand out well defined and coloured to the very hue
of their faces. If I see these or have disturbed visions during the night
they do not affect me in the least. The less literary a people the more
they believe in dreams; the disappearance of superstition is not due to
the cultivation of reason or the spread of knowledge, but purely to the
mechanical effect of reading, which so perpetually puts figures and
aerial shapes before the mental gaze that in time those that occur
naturally are thought no more of than those conjured into existence by a
book. It is in far-away country places, where people read very little,
that they see phantoms and consult the oracles of fate. Their dreams are
real.
The mammoth came through his cave before the embers of his fire--the
sleeping savage could touch it with his flint-headed spear--there was the
crash as it fell into the prepared pit; he awakes, the dying embers cast
shadows on the walls, and in these he traces the shape of the vast
creature hastening away. The passing spirit has puffed the charred brands
into a second's flame, and thus shadowed itself in the hollow of the
cavern.
Deeper than the excitement of the chase lies that inner consciousness
which dwells upon and questions itself--the soul of the Cave-man pondered
upon itself; the question came to him, as he crouched in the
semi-darkness, over the fire which he had stirred, 'Will my form and
aerial shadow live on after my death like that which passed but now?
Shall I, too, be a living dream?' The reply was, 'Yes, I shall continue
to be; I shall start forth from my burial-mound upon the chase in the
shadow-land just as now I start forth from my cave. I shall entrap the
giant woolly elephant--I shall rejoice at his capture; we shall triumph
yet again and again. Let then my spear and knife be buried with me, but
chip them first--kill them--that I may use their spirit likenesses in the
dream-chase.'
With a keen-edged splinter of flint in the daylight he incised the
outlines of the mammoth upon a smooth portion of its tusk--its image was
associated with his thoughts of a future life, and thus Art in its
earliest inception represented the highest aspirations of man.
But could the ignorant savage of that long-lost day have been capable of
such work? The lowest race of savages in Southern Africa--the Bushmen--go
about with festoons of entrails wound around their loins. After a
successful hunt--with the pit or poisoned arrows--they remove the
entrails of the slain animal and wear them like coronals for present
ornament and future regalement. These creatures are nevertheless artists.
On the walls of caves they have painted the antelope and the lion in
bright colours; they have not only caught the shape and hue of the
animals about them, but their action and movement. The figures are in
motion, skilfully drawn and full of spirit.
If any one asks, is the application of Art to the chase really so old, so
very very old, as this? I refer them to the stars. How long ago is it
since the constellations received their names? At what date were they
first arranged in groups? Upon the most ancient monuments and in the most
ancient writings they have the same forms assigned to them as at this
day, and that too in countries remote from each other. The signs of the
Zodiac are almost as old as the stars themselves; that is, as old as the
time when the stars were first beheld of human eyes. Amongst them there
is the Archer--Sagittarius--the chase in the shape of man; greatest and
grandest of all the constellations is Orion, the mighty hunter, the giant
who slew the wild beasts by strength. There is no assemblage of stars so
brilliant as those which compose the outline of Orion; the Hunter takes
the first place in the heavens. Art exists in the imagination--imagination
drew lines from star to star, and repeated its life on earth in the sky.
So it is true that the first picture--whether drawn by the imagination
alone in the constellations, on the walls of the cave with ochre and
similar materials, or engraved with keen splinters of flint on the
mammoth's tusk--the first picture was of the chase. Animals are earliest,
the human form next, flowers and designs and stories in drawings next,
and landscape last of all. Landscape is peculiarly the art of the
moderns--it is the art of _our_ civilisation; no other civilisation seems
to have cared for it. Towers and castles are indeed seen on the
bas-reliefs of Assyria, and waving lines indicate rivers, but these are
merely subsidiary, and to give place and locality to the victories the
king is achieving. The battle is the interest, the landscape merely the
stage. Till the latter days of European life the artist took no notice of
landscape.
The painting of hills and rocks and rivers, woods and fields, is of
recent date, and even in these scenes the artist finds it necessary to
place some animals or birds. Even now he cannot ignore the strong love of
human beings for these creatures; if they are omitted the picture loses
its interest to the majority of eyes. Every one knows how wonderfully
popular the works of Landseer have been, and he was an animal painter,
and his subjects chiefly suggested by sport. The same spirit that
inspired the Cave-dweller to engrave the mammoth on the slab of ivory
still lives in the hearts of men.
There is a beautiful etching of "The Poacher" (to which I shall have to
recur); he is in the wood, and his dog is watching his upraised finger.
From that finger the dog learns everything. He knows by its motion when
to start, which way to go, what to do, whether to be quick or slow, to
return or to remain away. He understands his master quite as well as if
they conversed in human speech. He enters into the spirit of the
enterprise. 'If you want your business done, go; if not, send' is true
only of men. The poacher wants his business done, and he sends his
agent--his dog--certain that it will be done for him better than he could
do it himself. The dog is conscientious, he will omit nothing, he will
act as if his master's eye was on him the whole time. Now this attitude
of the dog's mind is so exquisitely rendered in the picture that he seems
verily to speak with intelligence. I love that dog though he does but
exist in ink; he is the true image of a real dog, and his mind shines
through his body. This effect upon me as the spectator is produced by a
clever arrangement of lines upon the plate from which the etching was
printed, thin lines cut into the copper with curious sharp tools, behind
a screen of tissue-paper to shield the eyes from the light, done in the
calm of the studio, thoughtfully, with artistic skill. Given the original
genius to conceive such a dog, the knowledge how to express the ideas,
and the tools to work with, and we see how it became possible to execute
the etching. But suppose the artist supplied with a piece of smooth ivory
for his plate, and a sharp penknife for his etching needle, and set
behind a boulder to watch the mammoth and sketch it by incision on the
ivory, and there would be produced very much the same kind of picture as
the Cave-man made. It could not have the delicate shading, the fine edge,
the completion and finish of the dog; it could not visibly think as that
dog thinks. It would consist of a few quick strong dashes, conveying the
weight and force and image of the elephant in as few strokes as possible.
It would be a charcoal sketch; broad and powerful lines that do not
themselves delineate, but compel your imagination to do the picture in
your mind, so that you see a great deal more than is drawn. So that the
Cave-man was really a great artist--his intense interest in the chase
supplied the lack of academics and scientific knowledge and galleries to
copy from. This primeval picture thus tells you that the highly educated
artist of the present day, removed from his accessories, away from his
liquid colours, easels, canvas, prepared paper, and so frith, can only do
what the Cave-man did. But still further, he can only do that if he
possesses great natural genius--only a man who could draw the poacher's
dog could do it. Those who depend altogether on the prepared paper and
liquid colours, patent easel and sketching stool, could simply do
nothing.
It is nearly certain that if the primeval man sketched the mammoth he
likewise carved his spear-shaft, the haft of his knife, the handle of his
'celt,' that chisel-like weapon whose shape so closely resembles the
front teeth. The 'celt' is a front tooth in flint or bronze, enlarged and
fitted to a handle for chipping, splitting, and general work. In museums
celts are sometimes fitted to a handle to show how they were used, but
the modern adapter has always overlooked the carving. Wild races whose
time is spent in sport or war--very nearly synonymous terms--always carve
or ornament their weapons, their canoes, the lintels of their doors, the
posts of their huts. There is in this the most singular difference from
the ways of landscape civilisation. Things that we use are seldom
ornamented--our tables, our chairs, our houses, our carriages, our
everything is as plain as plain can be. Or if ornamented, it is
ornamented in a manner that seems to bear no kind of relation to the
article or its uses, and to rouse no sympathies whatever. For instance,
our plates--some have the willow pattern, some designs of blackberry
bushes, and I really cannot see what possible connection the bushes or
the Chinese summerhouses have with the roast beef of old England or the
_cotellette_ of France. The last relic of Art carving is visible round
about a bread platter, here and there wreaths of wheatears; very suitable
these to a platter bearing bread formed of corn. Alas! I touched one of
these platters one day to feel the grain of the wood, and it was cold
earthenware--cold, ungenial, repellent crockery, a mockery, sham! Now the
original wooden platter was, I think, true Art, and the crockery copy is
not Art. The primeval savage, without doubt, laboriously cut out a
design, or at least gave some curve and shape to the handle of his celt
or the shaft of his spear, and the savages at this clay as laboriously
carve their canoes. The English sportsman, however, does not cut, or
carve, or in any way shape his gun-stock to his imagination. The stock is
as smooth and as plain as polished wood can be. There is a sort of
speckling on the barrels, and there is a conventional design on the
lock-plate; conventional, indeed, in the most _blase_ sense of the
word--quite _blase_ and worn out, this scratch of intertwisted lines, not
so much as a pheasant even engraved on the lock-plate; it is a mere
killing machine, this gun, and there is no Art, thought or love of nature
about it. Sometimes the hammers are filed, little notches crossing,
and there imagination stops. The workman can get no farther than his
file will go, and you know how that acts to and fro in a straight groove.
A pheasant or hare at full speed, a few trees--firs as most
characteristic--could be put on the plate, and something else on the
trigger guard; firs are easily drawn, and make most appearance for a few
touches; pheasants roost in them. Even a coat of arms, if it were the
genuine coat-of-arms of the owner's family, would look well. Men have
their book-plates and stamp their library volumes, why not a gun design?
As many sportsmen scarcely see their guns for three-fourths of the year,
it is possible to understand that the gun becomes a killing machine
merely to them, to be snatched up and thrown aside the instant its office
is over. But the gamekeeper carries his gun the year through, and sits in
the room with it when indoors, still he never even so much as scratches
an outline of his favourite dog on it. In these landscape days we put our
pictures on the walls only, and no imagination into the things we handle
and use. A good deal of etching might be done on a gun, most of it being
metal, while more metal could be easily inlaid for the purpose. Etching,
I suppose, is the right word; at all events, designs, records of actual
sporting feats, or outlines of favourite sporting places--nooks in the
woods, falls of the stream, deep combes of the hills--could be cut in
with aquafortis. So many draw or paint nowadays, and in this manner they
could make some use of their skill, drawing perhaps for those who only
understand the use of cartridge-paper when it has gunpowder inside it.
Sportsmen see the very best of scenery, and come across old hollow trunks
and curious trees, effects, and 'bits' of every kind, from a twisted
hawthorn to an antlered stag; if they could get an artistic friend to see
these, there would be some good gun-etchings done.
BIRDS' NESTS
'Perfectly lovely!' 'Such pretty colours!' 'So neat; isn't it wonderful
how the little things do it with their beaks?' 'The colours are so
arranged as to conceal it; the instinct is marvellous;' and so on. These
comments were passed on a picture of a bird's nest--rather a favourite
subject with amateur painters. The nest was represented among grass, and
was tilted aside so as to exhibit the eggs, which would have rolled out
had they been real. It was composed of bright-green moss with flowers
intertwined, and tall bluebells, rising out of the grass, overhung it.
Nothing could be more poetical. In reality, the flowers--if ever actually
used by a bird--would have faded in a day, and the moss would never have
had so brilliant and metallic a tint. The painter had selected the
loveliest colours of the mead and gathered them into a bouquet, with the
nest in the centre. This is not exactly like nature: a robin's nest for
instance, the other day was discovered in an old shoe, discarded by a
tramp and thrown over the wall into the shrubbery. Nests are not always
made where flowers grow thickest, and birds have the oddest way of
placing them--a way which quite defeats rational search. After looking
into every nook, and places where if built a nest would be hidden from
passers-by, suddenly it is found right in front of you and open to view.
You have attributed so much cunning to the bird that you have deceived
yourself. In fact, it sometimes happens that the biggest fool is the best
bird's-nester, and luck in eggs falls to those who have no theory. But
December throws doubt even on the fool's capacity, for as the leaves fall
there appear nests by the dozen in places never suspected, and close to
people's faces. For one that has been taken ten have escaped.
The defect of nest-building lies in the absence of protection for the
young birds. When they grow large and feel strong they bubble, as it
were, over the edge of the cup-shaped nest. Their wings, though not yet
full-grown, save them from injury in descent by spreading out like a
parachute, but are powerless to assist them after reaching the ground. In
the grass they are the prey of rooks, crows, magpies, jackdaws, snakes,
rats, and cats. They have no means of escape whatever: they cannot fly
nor run--the tall grass stops running--and are frequently killed for
amusement by their enemies, who do not care to eat them. Numbers die from
exposure in the wet grass, or during rain, for they are not able to fly
up and perch on a branch. The nest requires a structure round it like a
cage, so that the fledglings might be prevented from leaving it till
better able to save themselves. Those who go to South Kensington to look
at the bird's-nest collection there should think of this if they hear any
one discoursing on infallible instinct on the one hand, or evolution on
the other. These two theories, the infallible instinct and that of
evolution, practically represent the great opposing lines of thought--the
traditional and the scientific. An examination of birds' nests, if
conducted free of prejudice, will convince any independent person neither
that the one nor the other explains these common hedge difficulties.
Infallible instinct has not supplied protection for the young birds, nor
has the experience of hundreds of years of nest-building taught the
chaffinch or the missel-thrush to give its offspring a fair start in the
famous 'struggle for existence.' Boys who want linnets or goldfinches
watch till the young are almost ready to bubble over, and then place them
in a cage where the old birds come and feed them. There is, then, no
reason why the nest itself should not be designed for the safety of the
fledgling as well as of the egg. Birds that nest in holes are frequently
very prolific, notably the starling, which rears its brood by thousands
in the hollow trees of forests. Though not altogether, in part their vast
numbers appear due to the fact that their fledglings escape decimation.
Country boys set some value on the eggs of the nettle-creeper or
whitethroat because the nest is difficult to find, and the eggs curiously
marked. They want the eggs as soon as laid, when they blow well; and it
is just at this stage that the nest is most difficult to discover, as the
bird gives little evidence of its presence. The nest is placed among the
thick grasses and plants that grow at the verge or down the sides of dry
ditches, and is frequently overshadowed by nettles. But there does not
appear to be any conscious effort at concealment. The bird spends the day
searching for food in such places--hence its name nettle-creeper--creeping
along the hedges, under brambles and thorns, and builds its nest in the
locality to which it is accustomed. It may appear to be cunning to a
superficial human observer, but it is certain that the bird does not
think itself cunning. Men who live by fishing build their houses near the
sea; those who cultivate wheat, in open plains; artisans, by factories.
The whitethroat frequents the hedge and ditch, and there weaves its
slender nest. So much has been attributed to birds of which they are
really quite unconscious. It has even been put forward that the colours
of their eggs are intended to deceive; and those of the dotterel, laid on
the open beach, are often mentioned as an instance. The resemblance of
the dotterel's egg to a pebble is no greater than the resemblance between
many eggs laid in nests and pebbles. If the whitethroat eggs were taken
from the nest and placed among particoloured pebbles such as are common
on some shores, it would need care to distinguish them. If the dotterel's
eggs were put down among grass, or even among the clods of ploughed land,
they would be equally difficult to find. You might as well suppose that
the whitethroat is aware that nettles will sting the human hand
approaching its nest as that eggs are especially adjusted in colour to
deceive human eyes. As for deceiving the eyes of those birds that are
fond of eating eggs, the thing is impossible; the size of the egg is
alone sufficient: how conceal an object of that size from an eye that can
distinguish insects? The egg takes its chance, coloured or not. Sportsmen
would be very glad if pheasants would kindly learn by experience, and lay
eggs of a hue invisible to the poaching rook or crow. Nor is this nest,
that seems so slender and so delicately made, really so slender to the
bird itself. To a man or woman, so many times larger than the nest, its
construction appears intricate. Suppose a lady stands five feet four
inches high, and the nest placed in her hand measures two inches across:
the difference is immense. The bird who built it is smaller than the
nest. The thing is reversed, and it does not look tiny to the bird. The
horsehair or fibre, which to us is an inch or two long, to the bird is a
bamboo or cane three or four feet in length. No one would consider it
difficult to weave cane or willow wands as tall as himself. The girls at
Luton perform much more difficult feats in weaving straw-plait for
bonnets than any bird accomplishes. A rook's nest looked at in the same
way is about as large to the bird as a small breakfast-parlour, and is
composed of poles. To understand birds you must try and see things as
they see them, not as you see them. They are quite oblivious of your
sentiments or ideas, and their actions have no relation to yours. A whole
system of sentiment and conduct has been invented for birds and animals
based entirely upon the singular method of attributing to them plans
which might occur to a human being. The long-tailed tit often builds its
nest in the midst of blackthorn thickets (which afford it the lichen it
uses), or in deep hawthorn bushes. A man comes along, sees the nest, and
after considerable exertion--having to thrust himself into the hedge--and
after some pain, being pricked by the thorns, succeeds, with bleeding
hands, in obtaining possession of it. 'Ah,' he moralises, 'what wonderful
instinct on the part of this little creature to surround itself with a
zareba like the troops after Osman Digma! Just look at my hands.' Proof
positive to him; but not to any one who considers that through the
winter, up till nesting-time, these little creatures have been creeping
about such thorns and thickets, and that they had no expectation whatever
of a hand being thrust into the bushes. The spot which is so difficult of
access to a man is to them easy of entrance. They look at the matter from
the very opposite point of view. The more thoroughly the artificial
system of natural history ethics is dismissed from the mind the more
interesting wild creatures will be found, because while it is adhered to
a veil is held before the eyes, and nothing useful can ever be
discovered. Put it aside, and there is always something new and as
interesting as a fresh nest to a boy.
NATURE IN THE LOUVRE.
Turning to the left on entering the Louvre, I found myself at once among
the sculpture, which is on the ground-floor. Except that the Venus of
Milo was in the collection, I had no knowledge of what I was about to
see, but stepped into an unknown world of statuary. Somewhat
indifferently I glanced up and then down, and instantly my coolness was
succeeded by delight, for there, in the centre of the gallery, was a
statue in the sense in which I understand the word--the beautiful made
tangible in human form. I said at once, 'That is _my_ statue. There lies
all Paris for me; I shall find nothing further.' I was then at least
thirty yards distant, with the view partly broken, but it was impossible
to doubt or question lines such as those. On a gradual approach the limbs
become more defined, and the torso grows, and becomes more and more
human--this is one of the remarkable circumstances connected with the
statue. There is life in the wide hips, chest, and shoulders; so
marvellous is the illusion that not only the parts that remain appear
animated, but the imagination restores the missing and mutilated pieces,
and the statue seems entire. I did not see that the hand was missing and
the arms gone; the idea of form suggested by the existing portions was
carried on over these, and filled the vacant places.