The Play of Man

by Karl Groos

Under this heading are grouped external representations of two or three dimensions, thus including drawing as well as the moulding commonly understood as plastic. Here it is more difficult to distinguish between play and art than in dramatic imitation, since, while the child nursing her doll, or putting his tin soldiers through a drill, thinks not at all of spectators, and how they will be affected; even an infant artist is always eager to show what he can do. It can, however, be generally prevised that pictorial imitation is a play only when pure joy in the act of production fills the soul of the copyist.

I begin with imitative drawing, which seems to be widely practised, not only by children but by primitive people as well, and will therefore claim most of our attention. Its origin is not clearly determined, though von den Steinen’s observations make out the case pretty clearly for their connection with language of gesture. “The simplest drawings,” he says, “are those connected with gesture. When a savage repeats the cry of an animal in one of his spirited dramatic tales and wishes to make the effect more forcible, he also imitates the creature’s bearing, gait, and movements, and pictures special peculiarities, such as long ears, trunk, horns, etc., in the air with his hand. Such actions for the eye form a parallel to the voice imitation for the ear, but when they still do not suffice, drawings are made on the sand. In the absence of word equivalents for communicating with them I myself have often taken refuge in such sand writing.”[583] He goes on to say that he thinks, although his observation has been confined to Indian tribes, the further development of drawing followed for the purposes of communication after the idea of making pictures was once grasped; and that finally they were made without such practical aim, efforts were made to improve the technique, and all sorts of natural objects were represented in interesting and novel aspects.[584]

I know of nothing that should hinder us from accepting this luminous explanation and applying it to the origin of all drawing but for one point, which does offer some difficulty. That a primitive hunter should imitate animal bearing, gait, and movement is easily accounted for by the instinct for dramatic imitation, but it takes us no nearer to our goal; and, moreover, how does it happen that he adds the outline of ears, trunk, or horns in the air to complete the picture? On this point the whole question depends. Would this mode of suggesting contour ever occur to a man who had never seen drawing? Does not the former presuppose the latter, instead of accounting for it? I do not presume to judge of the force of this objection, but feel that we can not afford to ignore it. If it is a just one, von den Steinen’s explanation of course falls to the ground, and there is apparently nothing left but to refer the whole subject to playful experimentation. In this case we would best proceed from the sand drawing, since it is probable that the child or adult playfully marking on the sand accidentally produces some semblance to a natural object and adopts it as his own. Thus the child observed by Miss Shinn accidentally produced (110th week) a triangle in the midst of aimless scribbling, and repeated it afterward with conscious intent.[585] While absolute certainty is unattainable in such instances, it would still be valuable to make observations on a child who had never seen a pencil used for drawing or writing. Should such a one go on from scribbling to drawing, our play idea would receive valuable confirmation.

Another question is how far drawing, however acquired, may be regarded as a play. The finished production of the artist’s pencil is not always so, by any means, for in modern times his art requires all a man’s energies, and becomes his life calling and his means of support. Productions of dilettantes belong more to our sphere. But how is it with primitive folk? Here, too, the play idea is often excluded, for the reason that their drawings serve religious purposes, or are used as picture writing; yet, according to the views of recent ethnologists, it would be misleading to refer such drawing exclusively to these ends. “We are convinced,” says Grosse, “that in the drawings of savage people, with comparatively few exceptions, neither a religious nor any other serious purpose is involved. We are perfectly right in trusting the numerous witnesses who assure us that such drawings are made simply for the pleasure of making them.”[586] This establishes the pre-eminently playful character of primitive drawing and sculpture, and the efforts of children are still more obviously so. Imitative and imaginative play here join hands, the former making the point of departure while the expanding and illuminating power of the latter is needed to complete the satisfaction in the finished product.

As I am unfortunately unable to go into details,[587] I close the subject with some general remarks on the character of such drawing. For the child and for the savage the chief object of representation is one of the most difficult of all, namely, living animals. Miss Shinn’s niece, who began with mathematical figures, is an exception accounted for by the fact that she was intentionally directed toward abstract form. Even the geometrical patterns in primitive ornamentation may often be traced to the imitation of animals, and a distinction between the work of these people and that of children lies in the fact that they prefer such figures while children incline to the human figure, which is rarely represented by savages. The explanation of this is that for the hunter the animals which he pursues form the chief objects of his imagination, as any sportsman among ourselves who begins to draw will illustrate. A third view is presented when we ask what is the psychological antecedent of imitation. In civilized art it is as a rule conscious perception of the actual object, as genuine artists rarely paint from memory. But it is quite otherwise with children; they object to drawing from Nature, as H. T. Lukens points out.[588] They prefer to make the absent present by their art, and their passion for drawing is considerably dampened by the practice in observation which school discipline requires. The child’s model is commonly a mental image, a fact which explains many of his particularities. The savage, too, from what we know of his art, seems to produce it not directly from the object, but from his impression of it, and thus it happens that he represents effects of things which are not visible to the beholder now, though they may have been elements of the scene which he recollects, and explains, too, in part his almost incredible errors in proportion and in the relative position of things, such as placing the mustache of a European above the eyes, or even on top of the head.[589] This suggests the distinction which Grosse makes between childish and primitive art. He thinks it strange that the two are even considered to be on a par, since children seldom show a trace of the hunter’s close observation. The art of savages is, as a rule, naturalistic, that of children symbolic; the only actual resemblance being the lack of perspective in both. This view certainly contains an important germ of truth, but the statement is extreme. It is true that many drawings of primitive man display a remarkable truth to Nature, impossible to a child, and, as Grosse rightly says, resulting from trained powers of observation joined to the dexterity acquired in the manipulation of weapons and tools. But this wider knowledge and greater skill seem to me to be the sole grounds of difference, and the sharp distinction of naturalistic and symbolic unwarranted. Of course, drawing is in itself to a great degree symbolic, but the symbolism displayed by children, surprising as it often is, does not betoken any special preference for symbolism, but often results partly from incapacity and partly from the exigencies of the subject being represented. When full representation is unattainable they are satisfied to make their meaning intelligible, and savages, too, often resort to similar expedients. Grosse himself gives us some Australian drawings on wood where the human face is represented without a mouth, just as often happens in childish efforts. In these figures the fingers are symbolized by mere lines. In his valuable chapter on drawing among the Bakaïri, von den Steinen points out still closer analogy with children’s work. He says, for example, that, as a rule, only three fingers and toes are indicated, to serve as a suggestion for the rest. It seems to me that it is then rather a question of more or less than any real difference.

Our next topic is the question of beauty, and here, too, the child and the savage are close parallels. Both have a certain interest in the introduction of colour which appeals to them, both object to carrying out the full type, both probably draw from memory, and both lack almost totally the appreciation of beautiful form. The savage, indeed, does introduce the simpler elements of beautiful form in his ornamentation, but in his representations of human and animal figures there is little effort to preserve such outlines. This bears out our former conclusion that savages have little appreciation for physical beauty as such, and with children it is much the same. Some children, it is true, make a general distinction between people who are beautiful and those who are ugly, but in drawing not only the ability but often the intention as well is wanting, to produce beautiful faces. When they do attempt something definite in the way of expression it is much more likely to be caricature of homeliness than beauty. It is known also that this tendency is especially displayed in periods of highly developed art, and more particularly by the Germans.

A final observation refers to children alone. I have already noted that imitative play, in which the player appears in dramatic relation to the puppet, while common enough with children, is not found in adult art unless at the most a partial analogy is traceable in some religious connections; these same principles apply to drawing. The child plays with the figures he has drawn as with dolls, and gives us a most attractive picture of his capacity for illusion. Marie G——, when four and a half years old, wanted to draw a holy family. First came a kneeling figure, whose position was most precarious—his knees would not bend properly, and for reverently folded hands there was a confusion of crossing lines. The little artist cried with annoyance: “The naughty child doesn’t want to kneel. Joseph will be angry with him because he won’t kneel down and say his prayers; he is stamping and scolding.—You naughty child, won’t you kneel down now and pray?” In the meantime she made Joseph (asking if he wore trousers), with his foot raised to stamp on the ground, and then came the kneeling figure—a good child now, at last. A little of this capacity for illusion is sometimes found among full-grown artists, and especially among the naïve religious painters who are conscious of the divine indwelling as they make their representations of religious subjects.

The consideration of plastic imitative play in its narrower sense will occupy us but a short time. Von den Steinen’s explanation of drawing, given above, will hardly apply here. The probable starting point for such figures was the accidental resemblance of some outline to weapons, implements, or ornaments. The child’s ready capacity for illusion which is as likely to call a circular outline an umbrella as a human head is not wanting in adults as well, and especially so among primitive people. When he makes a dagger handle out of a reindeer horn, or a necklace of various small objects, or adorns a clay vessel with impressions, and enjoys doing these things, his hands thus rendered skilful need but little help to make other images. Another possible origin is in experimentation with plastic material, such as clay or wax, which would naturally lead to moulding.

The first hypothesis is well illustrated by von den Steinen’s description of the chain figures of the Bakaïri. He says, “As the rhyme often suggests the thought, so an outline already familiar may suggest a motive”; the meagre suggestions which satisfy savages in such cases “is evident in most of the figures which adorn their necklaces, strung between seeds, shells, and nuts. It matters not what is the material—a bit of the spiral of a rose-coloured snail shell with an irregular outline does duty as a crab; from the shell of the Caramujo branco (Orthalicus melanostornus) they cut birds and fishes;... bits of green and black mottled stone are fishes when flat and birds when rounded, and sometimes Nature is assisted in carrying out these resemblances. Fruit, too, was used which bore an accidental resemblance to some sort of bird.”[590]

But Brazilian plastic art includes the other type as well; they mould figures in wax and in the edible clay which furnished their forefathers with food. As a man held a lump of clay in his hand the impulse may have been aroused by some accidental resemblance, and thus give rise in a purely playful manner to the custom which von den Steinen has called “only a skilful method of storing the material.... Black wax was most beautifully moulded by the Mehinakú into excellent animal forms and suspended around the neck or laid away in a basket until wanted.”[591] That this was a playful habit is proved by the maize figures of the same tribe. These were usually bird forms almost as large as turkeys, and hung from the roof on long ropes, “A strange spectacle to the traveller who thinks at once of idols or fetiches, but these fine birds are in reality nothing but well-filled ears of corn in the natural husks.”[592] We can not here go into the higher forms of primitive sculpture, but it may be mentioned in passing that even such aboriginal tribes as the Indians of central Brazil often make use of their plastic skill for symbolic decoration. Thus the Mehinakú adorn the upper end of their wooden spades with the carved head of a mud wasp, because they too dig in the ground and throw up the dirt as the Indian does with his tool.[593]