We must not overlook the fact, however, that defeats are often represented in unmasked form for the purpose of stirring up a revengeful spirit. But this apparent exception only proves the rule. By appealing to the wounded dignity of the people, poems and dramas of this kind serve the cravings of collective pride as effectively—although, no doubt, indirectly—as manifestations of the opposite order. An increased attention to the past, with a corresponding richness of traditional art, can also generally be found in nations where revenge is considered as a sacred duty bequeathed to descendants by their ancestors.
When historic art is regarded as a means of handing down to posterity a knowledge of the present, a connection with the same group of emotions is easily discoverable. The great works of commemoration are all monuments of boasting. By the grandiloquent hieroglyphs on palaces and pyramids and by the extolling hymns that he orders to be sung in his praise, the exultant hero endeavours to win from future admirers a meed of praise which shall quench his unsatisfied thirst for glorification. Even in this case, therefore, history, in its psychological sense—that is, the concentration of attention upon times other than the present—has been born of pride.
By relying on this emotionalistic interpretation we can explain the otherwise extraordinary development of commemorative art amongst tribes on relatively low stages of intellectual development. The same explanation also accounts for the artistic value of the primitive records. The intensely emotional element of exultation, pride, and boasting that pervades so many of the commemorative poems and dramas makes this kind of history an art in the proper sense of the word.
It is needless to point out expressly that literary and formative arts may be used for conveying thought-contents which cannot, properly speaking, be called historical. We have restricted our attention to the unmistakably commemorative forms, because in these alone can the purpose of information be isolated with any degree of certainty. By tracing the gradual development of narrative art from those simplest manifestations in which the work is immediately connected with the real occurrence that called it into existence, up to the more complex forms of transmitted art, in which distant events are represented, we have endeavoured to keep our argument within the limits of positive research. This safe ground we should be compelled to abandon if we were to engage in the otherwise so fascinating task of unearthing historical elements in mythological tradition.
It seems impossible, moreover, to treat of such art-forms as the nature-myths, the tales, and the animal stories without bringing in those factors which should especially be kept outside the present research—the art-impulse, the play-impulse, or the delight in pure invention for invention’s sake; whereas we are justified in treating even the highest purely commemorative art as the development of an activity which was connected with the utilitarian end of information.
It must not be overlooked, however, that primitive art offers some important and purely didactic manifestations which have no historical purpose. Thus, among savages and barbarians, dramatic performances, poetic recitals, and pictorial representations often serve as means of expounding religious or philosophical doctrines. We need only refer to the most striking instances, such as the Australian miracle-plays, in which the old men enact before the boys a representation of death and resurrection.[257] Although less elaborate in dramatic detail and stage-management, the fragmentary dramas in which the Indian shaman novitiates are supposed to be killed and recalled to life present to us a scarcely less interesting result of the same great thought.[258] There are indeed, especially in this later example, good reasons for assuming that the simulated death and resurrection are supposed to effect, in a magical way, some kind of spiritual regeneration in the novitiates on whose behalf the drama is performed. But while admitting this, we may nevertheless take it for granted that an endeavour to elucidate the doctrines of the shaman priesthood may be combined with the magical rite in question. And similarly, with regard to analogous ceremonies in other tribes, we feel justified in assuming the presence of a didactic purpose. The more the doctrinal system becomes fixed and elaborated, the greater need will there ensue of affording these doctrines a clear expression in the objective forms of art.
What has been said about religious and philosophical subjects in dramatical art refers equally to poems and paintings. We have therefore to regard the requirements of religious instruction as a factor which has favoured the development of art in all its departments. But we have no means of ascertaining at what precise stage in the evolution this factor, as distinct from other motives, began to exercise its influence. The settlement of this special point, however, is not indispensable to a general comprehension of the principles of art-history.
It is more important, from our point of view, to determine the influence which the purely intellectual motive of conveying with the greatest possible clearness a thought-content, be it historical, religious, or philosophical, has exercised on the artistic representations of life and nature. Although of itself essentially non-æsthetic, this purpose has nevertheless called into existence some most important æsthetic qualities. Especially in narrative painting we may often observe how the virtues of exactness, explicitness, and comprehensibility give a character of beauty to representations which may have originated in a purely practical intention. As has been clearly pointed out by Mr. Walter Crane, the Egyptian hieroglyphs have reached their “wonderful pitch of abstract yet exact characterisation” precisely because they had the character and the purpose of a “decorative record.” The same necessity, viz. that “every object had to be clearly defined so as to be recognised at once and easily deciphered,”[259] is undoubtedly to a great degree responsible for the element of beauty which is to be found in the pictography of North American Indians. Practical utility has in this way subserved the development of an attention to the picturesque side of things. But one has only to look at the more symbolical systems of ideographic writing, such as the Assyrian, the Mexican, and the Chinese, in order to understand that the intellectual requirement by itself never would have created an artistic representation of nature.[260]
This distinction is especially indispensable for a right conception of the intellectual elements in poetry. It is undeniable that some of the most important qualities in literature were developed during the time when it was used chiefly as a means for conveying information. The practical considerations therein have undoubtedly influenced the form of the oral narrative. It is evident, for example, that the metrical and rhythmical recital must have proved the more serviceable whenever a thought-content was to be preserved for futurity. But this fact gives no authorisation to those curious theories according to which poetry was invented and developed, thanks to its merits as a mnemonic device. It is, as was long since remarked by Brown,[261] difficult to understand how rhythm, numbers, and verse could have been devised as assistance for the memory, supposing nothing of that kind to have been existing before. And even if we admit that they could have been invented by accident, it is plain, when we fix our mind on the essential qualities of poetry, that the use of rhythm and metre to aid memory could only have supplied a mechanical condition to facilitate the development of poetic art.