[] What is Art? Aylmer Maude Translation.
The Creation of Adam, by Michelangelo
(Vatican)
(See [page 260])
[NOTE 4. PAGE 8]
The evolutionary principle has been applied to art by Herbert Spencer and J. A. Symonds, but not in the sense in which it is used in connection with the development of living organisms. Spencer traces a progression from the simple to the complex in the application of the arts, but not in the arts themselves[a]; and Symonds endeavours to prove that each separate marked period of art shows a progression which is common to all; that is, from immature variations to a high type, then downwards through a lower form represented by romanticism or elegance, to realism, and from this to hybrid forms.[] Spencer's argument is suggestive, but his conclusions have been mostly upset by archaeological discoveries made since his great book was published. The illustrations given by Symonds are highly illuminating, but they are very far from postulating a general law of evolution operating in the production of art.
[a] First Principles.
[] Essay on Evolutionary Principles.