PRE-HISTORIC AND SAVAGE ART.
Art, like nature, is its own interpreter. A well-finished pattern has
not preceded a more simple one; circular ornamentations are of a later
date than ornamentations with straight lines. The cave-habitation
must have been in use before the construction of independent temples.
Art must have had a beginning like language; for it is a language--a
language in forms, speaking to our eyes. If what the Arabs say is true,
that the best description is that in which the ear is transformed into
an eye, the best picture will be one that transforms our eyes into
ears. Art speaks through light, as language through sounds. We have
tried to discover by means of philology--which in modern times has
become a science--a more or less close relationship between idioms and
idioms; in the same way we try to trace some general primitive types
from which we may deduce the innumerable works of art.
In times long by-gone we find traces of man’s inventive and decorative
force. The products of that force even in pre-historic ages widely
differ in their degrees of workmanship. There are more or less finished
hatchets, chisels, knives, arrow-heads, paal-stabs, celts and armlets.
The ornamentation, from mere varying straight lines, goes over into
spiral forms of different direction and combination. We have therefore
no difficulty in classifying the products of pre-historic art in the
following way:--
_a._ The Palæolithic, or old stone age.
_b._ The Neolithic, or new stone age.
_c._ The Bronze age, and
_d._ The Iron age.
The first two subdivisions belong to savage life, the third to the
mythical or traditionary, and the fourth to the historical periods.
During the old stone age we have scarcely any traces of ornamentation;
during the new stone age we find some attempts at geometrical lines,
and some sketches of animals on ivory blades; during the bronze age we
have winding and twisting patterns of excellent geometrical design;
and, finally, during the iron age, animals and even human forms are
used as means of ornamentation.
During the pre-historic period of man’s artistic development we find a
peculiar similarity between his dwellings and his tombs. The mountain
cavern, and the hut constructed of beams and boughs, covered with
skins, were undoubtedly men’s first stately palaces. The very oldest
traditions bear out this statement. The earliest inhabitants of
Greece dwelt in mountain caverns. The people of Siberia, anterior to
the Samoyedes, lived, according to Erman, in subterranean caves. The
Kyklops of Homer are but nomads, residing in mountain caverns. Of the
Hittites, a tribe in Canaan in the times of Abraham, it is recorded
that they buried their dead in caves. But it is an incontestable fact
that the burial-places resembled the dwellings of the pre-historic
man. Crypts, catacombs, and rock-hewn temples may be set down as
having originated from man’s first mountain home. The tombs of the
Tartars in Kasan resemble their houses on a small scale. A Circassian
tomb resembles a Circassian cottage. The tombs of the Karaite Jews in
the valley of Jehoshaphat, are like their houses. Laplanders live in
caves. The aborigines of Germany and France, the contemporaries of the
mammoth, rhinoceros, auerochs and elk, dwelt in caves, as their bones
are found mingled with those of these now extinct animals, together
with various implements, such as adzes, flint arrows, stone knives, and
even, as in the cave at Perigord on the borders of the Dordogne, works
of art of great artistic power. Jordanes, in his ‘De Rebus Geticis,’
mentions people in Sweden (Scania) living like wild animals in caves,
cut out in the rocks. But the nomad savage could find such dwellings
only where there were mountains. If he wandered out of such a district
into the plains, and wanted to shelter himself from the inclemency of
the weather, he had to collect blocks of stone, and to form with them
artificial caves. In this manner cromlechs, Dös, Dyss or dolmens, and
gallery chambers arose, in which the long, narrow gallery corresponds
to the confined entrance of the mountain-cave, and the chamber to the
cavern.
By degrees man began to construct detached houses for himself, and
at last temples for his god or gods. No traces of temples are found
in pre-historic times, except in the Western hemisphere. The Stiens
of Cambodia, in the central parts of Cochin-China, have no temples.
From the southern promontory of Africa to far beyond the banks of the
Zambesi no temples are found. The pastoral and agricultural people
of Madagascar have no temples, though they have huts and houses,
ornamented pottery, and are to a certain degree acquainted with
textile art. Before man constructs a temple he constructs a house,
to protect himself, his herds, and family from wild animals, but
above all from his still more dreaded fellow-creature, in whom he
sees a dangerous rival. This propensity serves to explain the origin
of lake-dwellings--the most ancient proofs of man’s constructing
capacity, and of his talent to unite for a certain purpose, and to
enclose a given space. Herodotus already tells us of a settlement on
Lake Prasias, the modern Tachyno (in Rumelia, European Turkey), where
men lived on platforms, supported by tall piles. Abulfeda, the Syrian
geographer (b. 1273; d. 1313), speaks of Christian fishermen living in
wooden huts, built on piles in one of the Apamean lakes on the Orontes
(in Asia). The Papuans of New Guinea still live in such pile-dwellings,
the floors of which are supported by rudely-carved human figures, an
attempt at telamons. These are ‘survivals,’ but the lake-dwellings in
Italy and Switzerland belong to pre-historic times. In tracing their
different modes of construction, we find three periods of a progressive
architectural development recorded.
We have pile-dwellings of the most primitive construction. Rough piles
were used, pointed with the aid of fire or with stone hatchets, later
with bronze, and finally with iron tools. They were placed either close
together or in pairs, or wide apart--generally in regular order. The
heads of the piles were brought to a level above the water to receive
the beams of the platform, which were fastened down with wooden pins.
Later, as an improvement, mortices were cut in the tops of the vertical
piles to receive the cross-beams.
Other constructions, especially those near Nidau (niedere Au, lower
meadow), are built on a foundation artificially strengthened with
stones, which is, undoubtedly, an improvement on the former method.
Experience taught the pre-historic architects that the piles were
not quite safe, and ought to have some support against the turbulent
risings of the lake. This produced the still more improved fascine
constructions, which certainly gave still greater strength to the
dwelling. The platform did not rest on mere piles but on artificial
foundations, built up from the bottom with horizontal layers of sticks
or small branches of trees, the vertical piles serving as connecting
links to the whole construction.
Cranoges, or wooden islands, are chiefly found in Ireland and Scotland.
They differ from the fascine constructions in that they frequently were
built on natural islands, or on shallows approaching to this character.
The huts built upon these pile-constructions were rectangular; some may
have been round, like the huts of savages, in imitation of mole-hills,
the prototypes of the numerous mounds strewn all over the globe. The
huts contained an artificial hearth, made of three or four slabs of
stone.
That the inhabitants of the lake-dwellings were acquainted with
textile art, is proved by the discovery of an innumerable quantity of
clay-weights for weaving purposes, and by pieces of burnt woven flax.
The crude pottery, tools and wooden pegs, fibres twisted into ropes,
remains of different cereals, fruits, and domestic animals found in
these settlements, clearly prove that a certain kind of family life
must have existed. At all events, the inhabitants must have reached a
higher degree of civilisation than some of the South-Sea Islanders of
our century, who, on receiving some iron nails, planted them, in the
expectation of reaping a rich crop of this valuable vegetable.
We see that in pre-historic times art was already practised, not only
for a merely utilitarian but also for an ornamental and artistic
purpose.
This may be said, in a much higher sense, of the pre-historic
art-remains in the Western hemisphere. Art had there a threefold
development, corresponding to the three groups of humanity. We find the
mounds of the Negro; the pottery of the yellow man, with its quaint
ornamentation; and the remarkable temples, fortresses, viaducts, and
aqueducts of the Aryan group. We possess in our museums abundant
specimens of the works of these three groups, as also of their singular
hieroglyphic writings, resembling the first attempts of the Chinese
and Egyptians to represent ideas in forms. Imagination with savages
supplies the form; the mere outlines therefore suffice. The horse drawn
in this way (_a_) is a real horse; (_b_) this forms a real goose; (_c_)
this is the sun; and (_d_) this a real man. It is a kind of pictorial
writing or ideography, to be seen for miles and miles hewn in rocks at
Massaya, and practised by humanity at large, as by our own children, in
the first stage of awakening consciousness.
[Illustration]
We find not only ethnological, but also philological and artistic
traces of the fact, that at an unknown pre-historic period, the Western
hemisphere must have been in close connection with the Eastern. The
name of the supreme Divinity, Dyaus, Θεός {Theos}, Deus, is in the far
West _Teotl_.
Art in the _North_ of the Western hemisphere is primitive, kyklopean
walls and sepulchral mounds being the principal remains.
In the _Centre_ of the Continent, art bears all the traces of a
gradually-developed progress. It almost reached the forms of Egypt,
but stopped half way. By some means Atalanta was separated from the
East, and the pyramids, temples and palaces of central America remained
in the same relation to the pyramids, temples and palaces of Egypt as
the _tapir_ to the elephant; the _alligator_ to the crocodile; and the
_llama_ to the camel.
The West possessed a knowledge of astronomy analogous to that of the
Chinese, and their mode of ornamentation in excellent stucco reached
a high degree of technical and even pictorial skill. They went so far
as to represent scenes of an historical character with some degree
of dramatic power; as the stucco of the rock-hewn temple of Mitla in
Mexico proves. Their ornamentation is irregular and confused, like
their wild vegetation, in which creepers predominate.
Some figures are striking in their resemblance to Egyptian forms.
A sculptured divinity of granite, 3½ feet high, found near a
finely-built pyramid not far from Guatusco or Huatusco, is excellently
worked and finished in a simple style. Still more curious is a small
statue executed in lava, with a head-dress resembling those of Isis,
the Sphinx, the capitals of the temple of Denderah, or at a later
period those of Antinous. Even the position of the feet reminds us of
the sphinx, and proves the absence of a knowledge of proportion.
In South America, in the regions of Lake Titicaca in Peru, lying at an
elevation of 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, i.e. about four
times as high as Snowdon, we have proofs of a very high civilisation.
Artificially-constructed causeways lead over the surrounding marshes to
the sacred town of Cuzco, the capital and central spot of the empire
of the fabulous yet real Incas. Of those times we have a garden of the
Incas, in the warmest and most sheltered part of the island, ‘with its
baths, and its fountains still flowing with silvery sheen and murmur.’
Not far from Titicaca is the island of Coati, sacred to the moon.
Here stood the famous palace of the Virgins of the Sun (reminding us
of the Vestals instituted by one of the Roman rulers), flanked by two
shrines dedicated to the sun and moon. These are the best-preserved
specimens of American pre-historic architecture. Round Lake Umayo, on a
peninsula, we find a remarkable group of ancient square burial towers,
known as the Chulpas of Silustani.
Cuzco was the Rome of the south of the Western hemisphere. The town was
traversed by four high-roads in the direction of the four points of the
compass. It was divided into an upper (_Hanau_) and a lower (_Hurin_)
town. Grouped around the central square in the form of an oval were
twelve subdivisions (_Carrios_). Here stood the great palace, one mile
in length and a quarter of a mile broad; the _Yachahuasi_ (_Huasi_,
houses) dedicated to the instruction of the youth; the _Galpones_,
edifices in which festivals were held; the convent of the Virgins of
the Sun, the _Corichanca_ or Palace of Gold, and the temple dedicated
to the sun, surrounded by chapels dedicated to the moon, the stars,
and to thunder and lightning. Here also stood the eighth wonder of the
world--the great fortress _Sacsahuaman_; the entrances with slanting
jambs, and a large plinth, constructed like inverted stairs, sometimes
in stone, sometimes in excellent stucco, either with or without
ornament. The three lines of massive walls round the town, forming
the defence, were constructed ‘en tenaille,’ the entering angles all
being ninety degrees; the very best European fortifications, planned
by Vauban or Moltke, could not surpass the terrace-like arrangement
of these three lines of defence. The polygonal blocks, of which the
walls are constructed, are of blue limestone, from eight to ten feet
in length, half as much in width and depth, and weigh from fifteen
to twenty tons each. The first wall has an average height of about
twenty-five feet, the second eighteen feet, and the third fourteen
feet. Total elevation of walls, fifty-seven feet.
However cursorily we have touched upon art as it developed in the
Western hemisphere, the reader must be impressed by two facts. (1) That
there are analogies between East and West which are too striking to be
attributed to mere chance; and (2) that those who built the edifices
of Uxmal, Palenque, Copan, Chichen, Itza, and Cuzco must have been far
beyond a mere nomadic state. They had palaces, temples, and therefore
a kind of social organisation and religion. Their religion must have
been of a low and cruel character, judging from the representations
of their divinities, and from their using detached limbs of the human
body as arabesques; though we can trace in their calendar, as in their
conceptions of the personified powers of nature, Eastern influences,
connecting the pre-historic West with the historic East. Whilst the
Eastern world used incense at its religious ceremonies, the West used
tobacco smoke. In both hemispheres some mysterious power was attributed
to animals. The helmets of all nations took their origin in this common
belief. Eagles, vultures, wolves, tigers, lions, dragons and serpents
are used to adorn the fighter or to charm his weapons. The custom of
wearing masks and helmets or head-dresses of some terrifying form,
exaggerating the size of the head, is of purely barbarous origin. In
the remains of ancient Mexico, Peru, and the South Sea Islands we
find a variety of carved masks; some resembling human faces, adorned
with false hair, beards and eyebrows; others representing the heads
of birds. They are generally painted, often ornamented with pieces of
foliaceous mica to make them glitter, or with turquoises and other
precious stones.
That the pre-historic man, whether of the East or the farthest West,
had some sort of civilisation may be best studied in his keramic
products. Earthenware vessels, pots, jugs, vases, urns, and amphoræ are
as interesting to the art-historian as fossil plants and animals to the
paleontologist, or the different strata of the earth’s crust to the
geologist.
Pottery is one of the most reliable historical documents for fixing the
degree of civilisation of a nation. Fossil pottery very much resembles
antediluvian animals--it is without shape and form. Shells, leaves
and fruits suggested it. By degrees gourds and eggs gave man better
patterns. At a certain period it must have been the fashion in Egypt,
Etruria, Greece, China, Mexico and Peru to use animal and human forms
for vases, bottles, jugs and goblets, whilst horns, skulls and boots
are found amongst Teutons and some savage tribes. The Teutons hoped to
drink sweet honey out of the skulls of their slain enemies in Walhalla.
We cannot wonder that so amiable a creed should have engendered quaint
drinking vessels. We see in our own times plates and dishes adorned
with frogs and lizards, which indisputably prove that there are
pre-historic ‘survivals.’ From Kyprus we have, in the Imperial Cabinet
of Antiquities at Vienna, an urn with a human face, which is very
much like those found in Mexico, of which the South Kensington Museum
and the Christy collection of the British Museum possess excellent
specimens.
The wild and fantastic mode of ornamentation in the Western hemisphere,
in pre-historic times, is entirely due to the aspect of nature. Man
seems to have received patterns from India, Egypt and Greece, and
worked them out by reflecting the impressions of an exuberant nature.
Flowers, feathers, pearls, trinkets, hieroglyphs, animals, human
bodies--all are mingled together in endless confusion. Here and there a
symmetrical echo of times long by-gone can be traced. Though, however,
the Western artists of pre-historic times sometimes attained symmetry,
they continually sin against eurythmy. Of proportion and action they
have no conception. They have a style, but a style of their own, devoid
of all those requisites which elevate a product to artistic beauty.