ETHNOLOGY IN ITS BEARING ON ART.
Man is placed on this globe as a radius,--a detached radius. The
axis of his body is part of the diameter of the earth, and divides
him into symmetrical halves. A line, that passes at an equal
distance through the double organs, also divides the single ones
into two equally-arranged portions. We possess two eyes, to receive
the impression of light; two ears, to be touched simultaneously by
the waves of sound; two tubes are opened, to receive the refined,
imponderable bodies producing odour; the lips are grouped round a
marked central line to the chin. We have two shoulders, two arms,
two hands, two legs, two feet; both hands have the same number of
fingers, and both feet the same number of toes. On the other hand, the
parts, taken by themselves, break through all the laws of symmetrical
uniformity. The arms are longer than the trunk; the legs are longer
than the arms; hands end in unequally-subdivided fingers; feet in
similarly-treated toes. But notwithstanding this want of symmetry there
is perfect harmony in the relations of the parts to the whole, so that
man may be said to be the very master-piece of creation. In considering
the controlling linear elements, in the three grand groups into which
humanity may be best divided for a comprehensive study of art, we find
that the very fundamental facial lines differ.
I.
We have first the Negro, the fossil, the _black_, or antediluvian man.
The eyes, nostrils, and lips are drawn downwards in melancholy lines.
He is cross-toothed (_prognathous_), triangular-headed, has flat feet,
long heels, an imperfect pelvis, but a very powerful digestive organ,
and a correspondingly enormous mouth.
[Illustration]
The Oceanic Negro is the best example of this group. He is slow of
temperament, unskilled, his mechanical ingenuity being that of a child;
he never goes beyond geometrical ornamentation; builds tumuli or
triangular wigwams; lives on what he finds by chance, and, at the best,
hunts or fishes. His reasoning faculty is very limited, his imagination
slow, but his perceptive faculties (the senses) are highly developed.
He is altogether incapable of rising from a fact to a principle. He
cannot create beauty, for he is indifferent to any ideal conception.
He possesses only from 75-83½ cubic inches of brain, his facial angle
being about 85½ degrees. This lowest group of mankind branches off into
different types. The general features of the group have neither changed
nor improved. The Negro is still the woolly-headed, animal-faced being,
represented on the tombs of the Pharaohs, because his bodily structure,
his facial lines have not altered during thousands of years. In
studying the artistic products, the customs and manners of this group,
we can picture to ourselves the state in which Asiatics and Europeans
must have lived during the oldest stone period. The Negroes use the
same kind of flint instruments, manufacture the same crude kind of
pottery, adorn their clubs, paddles, and the cross-beams of their huts
with the same rope and serpent-like entangled windings and twistings,
that are found in various parts of the globe of pre-historic times. The
ruling lines of the face and head of the Negro are reflected in his
triangular or mound-like architectural constructions.
II.
[Illustration]
Next we have the Turanian (from _tura_, ‘swiftness of a horse’),
the Mongol, the square or short-headed (_brachikephalous_), the
traditionary, the _yellow_ man. His face is flat, his nose deeply
sunken between his prominent cheeks; his reasoning faculty is
developed only to a certain degree. He has small, oblique eyes, the
lines being turned upwards, expressing cunning and jocularity. His
mouth is less powerful than that of the negro. He has broad shoulders,
an expansive chest, thin and small bow legs, as if formed to use those
of horses instead of his own; he is an excellent rider, but a slow
though steady walker. He looks on nature with a nomadic shepherd’s eye,
and not with that of a settled artist. He excels in technical ability,
has great powers of imitation, can produce geometrical ornamentation
of the most complicated and ingenious character, and a realistic
imitation of flowers, butterflies, and birds, but has no sense for
perspective and no talent for shading. He is incapable of drawing the
human form. Sculpture of a higher kind is unknown to him, though he can
execute perfectly marvellous carvings, which, though quaint in design
and composition, are wanting in proportion and expression. Faithful
to his nomadic traditions, and the lines of his head and face, his
architectural constructions take an according form. Like his facial
lines, the roofs of his houses are twisted upwards.
The amount of brain in the Turanian averages 83½ cubic inches, and his
facial angle is 87½ degrees.
III.
[Illustration]
Finally we have the Aryan, the long or oval-headed man
(_dolichokephalous_), the historical, the _white_ man, the crowning
product of the cosmical forces of nature. His facial lines are composed
of the two conflicting elements, the horizontal and the vertical line,
and are framed in by an oval. His amount of brain is on an average 92
cubic inches, and his facial angle 90 degrees. His development is not
limited. This group of mankind, though divided into many different
types (races or nations), which have arisen from an intermixture with
the other two groups, or through the influences of climate, food, and
the aspect of nature, stands at the highest point of civilisation. As
the lines of his face are admirably counterbalanced, and his body is a
master-piece of regularity and proportion, he has tried to establish
a perfect balance between the conflicting forces in his moral and
intellectual nature. To him exclusively we owe art in its highest
sense. Once he stood on the same level with the primitive black savage,
then he advanced to the ingenuity of the yellow man, and left both
far behind him in his gradual but always progressive development. He
surpasses the other two groups of humanity, not only in technical
skill, but especially in inventive and reasoning power, critical
discernment, and purity of artistic taste. The white man alone, has
produced idealised master-pieces in sculpture and painting.
The white man in his architecture uses either the horizontal or the
vertical line, or both; he takes the triangular building of the negro
and places it on the square tent of the yellow man, making his house
as perfect as possible; he goes further, and, in accordance with
his powerfully-arched brow, over-arches not only rivers and chasms,
but builds his magnificent cupolas and pointed arches, the acme of
architectural forms.
Ethnology then serves us as a foundation for the study of art in its
different phases.
Conforming to the general tendency of modern science, we have tried to
express the cause of the artistic development of the three groups of
humanity by figures; we have measured the seat and instrument of our
intellectual faculty, and have thus tried to leave the sphere of mere
conjecture, or unfounded opinion, in order to place the phenomena of
art-history on a firm basis. Though art, undoubtedly, belongs ‘to the
magic circle of the imagination, and the inner powers of the mind,’
those powers are dependent on our very bodily construction, the amount
of brain and the facial angle. We do not deal in mere hypothesis, but
submit to our readers a complete theory borne out by facts.
In considering the frontispiece of our manual, representing the ‘TREE
OF ART,’ we can visibly trace the slow and gradual development of the
white man. The negro fixes our attention only as savage; the yellow
man has a line of his own, and has remained stationary in his artistic
development; the white man has passed through the savage stages, and
by his own exertions, undergoing various phases of rise and decline
(the real signs of historical vitality), has steadily progressed till
he began to attempt, and to succeed in bringing about, ‘a harmonious
connection between the representation of nature and the expression of
awakened emotion, and a mysterious analogy between the emotions of his
mind and the phenomena perceived by his senses.’
As all phenomena must take place in _space_ and _time_ (the two
fundamental forms of all existence), the products of art must also have
been executed under these two conditions, and can therefore be treated
_historically_.
Space is the expansion and extension of the forces of nature into the
infinite. Time is the limitation of this activity. Without space no
object could arrive at completion. Without time the subject would be
eternal. These are the two counteracting elements. The one, space,
is positive--the other, time, negative. Time is either relative or
absolute. If relative, it can be measured by an ascertained succession
of events. If absolute, it becomes measurable by years. In both we
can trace a gradual and successive development of artistic forms.
In general, time relative, with its succession of products, is more
reliable than time labelled with voluntary and more than doubtful
dates. For instance, we cannot measure the periods of the formation
of the earth’s crust by years, and still we are perfectly convinced
that the _tertiary_ formation could not have taken place before the
_primary_; thus we are justified in assuming that the iron period must
have succeeded the stone or bronze period; bronze instruments never
being found with iron handles, whilst iron blades have ornamented
wooden or bronze handles. Man naturally scarcely ever uses the worse
material for a practical purpose when he has once found a better one;
but he will use the softer material as a means of ornamentation.
That we have plenty of ‘survivals’ in art, as well as in nature,
does not in any way militate against the strict logic of facts. The
lowest forms of animals have mostly survived (like the lowest forms
of ornamentation), yet no one can doubt or deny the gradual and
systematic development of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. If we find
no fragments of pottery in Australia, New Zealand, or the Polynesian
islands, we cannot assume that a grand and powerful civilisation has
perished there, leaving no traces behind. In finding different kinds of
pottery, gradually improving even in the quality of the material--the
clay being first unwashed, then mixed with grains of quartz and
felspar, next carefully washed, then sun-baked, then fire-baked;
first hand and then wheel turned, and at last glazed, unornamented
or ornamented--we cannot assume that the order was inverted, and
that man first ornamented glazed pottery, which he turned out on the
wheel, and then went back to unwashed clay and hand-made pottery. The
‘degeneration theory’ has exploded as entirely as the geocentric and
anthropocentric theories have vanished. We know that man, like flowers,
trees, rocks and animals, is the product of the combined forces of
nature and the influences of climate and food, and that his religious,
social, and political conditions are closely reflected in his art. As
little as our globe is the centre of the universe, or man the centre of
creation, so little did art or science spring at once perfectly armed,
provided with spear and shield, from Jupiter’s head like blue-eyed
Athene. In a certain sense art and science are both of divine origin,
but only so far as the originating and creative power is concerned,
which, once set in motion, had to grow and to develop according to
definite and immutable laws. To trace this development step by step in
general outlines, from time relative to the mythical and traditional
periods, and thence to the age of history, is the aim of our manual. In
generalising thus, and separating the special from the universal, we
are enabled to embrace at once with greater clearness a wider range of
knowledge, and to give to the treatment of art-history a more elevated
and useful character. By a suppression of details, the great periods
and features of a common development are rendered more intelligible,
and our reasoning faculty is enabled to grasp that which might
otherwise escape our limited powers of comprehension.