THE ORIGIN OF ART.

Otago Witness, Issue 2104, 21 June 1894, Page 42

THE ORIGIN OF ART.

We are accustomed to say that Egypt is the cradle of the arts, yet archaeologists have demonstrated that the earliest works of art are of epochs far anterior to the ancient Egyptian civilisations. According to these authors these works were contemporaneous with the presence, of the reindeer in the south of France, and of a time when the mammoth had not yet disappeared, and when man, ignorant of the metals, made all his instruments of stone, wood, and bone. In reality the first works of art, particularly the first efforts at drawing, date from prehistoric times. In France they are found io caverns by the side of the fossil remains* of animals now extinct, like the. mammoth, or which have abandoned those regions, like the reindeer, in the shape of drawings engraved with flint points as decorations of articles of raindeer horn, Buch as dagger handles and clubs. Drawings have also besn observed on tablets of stone, horn, or ivory derived from mammoth teeth. The figure of the mammoth attracts our notice at once. A drawing found in the cavern of "La Magdelaine," in the Dordogne, engraved ou a tablet of mammoth bone, is marked by the strikingly clumsy attitude of the unwieldy body or the animal, by its long hair, the form of its lofty skull with concave front, and its enormous recurved tusks. All these features, characteristic of this extinct type of pachyderm, have been|reproduced by the designer with a really artistic accuracy. The mammoth was already rare in Europe when this primitive artist lived ; and that perhaps is the reason why only two among the numerous drawings found in the caverns of France are of that animal. The second of these drawings, which was found in " La Loze r e," is a mammoth's head soulptured on a club.

The figures of the chamois, the bear, and the ox occur more frequently ; but those of the reindeer are most numerous. Some are engraved on plates of bone, others as ornaments of various articles. Sometimes groups of animals are represented ; or, on the other hand, only parts of them are given, and we see simply the head, or the head and bust. The large majority of these drawings are no better executed than those which school children make on walls. The figures of the reindeer, however, are superior, by the remarkable care with which tha characteristic lines of the animals are traced, and also, in rare specimens, by the addition of shadows. The drawings of the chamois, the bear, and the ox are likewise often strikingly exact and of real value. Besides these drawiug* of mammals, Beveral representations of fishes, exact but very uniform, have been found in caverns in France. As a whole, as Broca remarks, all these relics of primitive art demonstrate that the men of this prehistoric period oaref ally observed the forms and attitudes of animals, and were capable of representing them exactly and elegantly, attesting a real artistic sense. No such skill has been observed with reference to the representation of the human figure ; and designs in which it appears are extremely rare. Another not less characteristic point is the complete absence of drawings of plants. No representation of a tree, or bust), or even of a flower is found, unless we regard as of that character the three little rosettes engraved on a handle of reindeer horn, which some authors think is the figure of a composite flower. Such . undoubted exclusiveness on the part of the inhabitants of the caves was evidently not accidental, for chance explains nothiDg ; and we cannot admit, with Carl Vogt, that primitive drawing originated in a general tendency of man to the imitation of living Nature. We think the object of these artistic productions was of a quite different character, and that they were originally designed, not for ornament or for pure and simple imitation of Nature, but to secure an instrument for use in the struggle with Nature. • In his struggle with surrounding Nature — a straggle of which it is almost impossible for us to conceive an exaco idea — the first need of primitive man was to possess some means of giving him confidence of victory. In going to the hunt he took with him, as the North American Indian d^es, and as do uudor another form some of the gamblers in our most civiliasd circle?, the feti-h that was to assure his success — that is, the image of the animal ho wanted to kill. In engraving on the handle of his dagger the likeness of a reindeer or other animal, he was not thinking of decorating the weapon, but only of briuging Fome magic power to bear upon his prey ; and it was precisely fakh in that mysterious force, by giving him boldness, energy, and security of movement, that wonld procure him success. Confidence acts thus in everything. Like the modern savage, the man of the caves believed that, the greater the resemblance between the animal and its likenese, the greater was the chance of acting on the animal. Hence the care taken in the pictured reproduction of animals particularly sought for, and against which his struggle was the most earnest ; herjee those perfect drawings of the reindeer, that magnificent game of our ancestors. — M. Lazak Popoff, in the Raview Scientific.