PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 697* 



PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



XL PAINTER. 

 By HEEBERT SPENCER. 



PICTORIAL representation in its rudest forms not only pre- 

 cedes civilization but may be traced back to prehistoric man. 

 The delineations of animals by incised lines on bones, discovered 

 in the Dordogne and elsewhere, prove this. And certain wall- 

 paintings found in caves variously distributed, show, in extant 

 savage races or ancestors of them, some ability to represent things 

 by lines and colors. 



But if we pass over these stray facts, which lie out of relation 

 to the development of pictorial art during civilization, and if we 

 start with those beginnings of pictorial art which the uncivilized 

 transmitted to the early civilized, we see that sculpture and paint- 

 ing were coeval. For, excluding as not pictorial that painting of 

 the body by which savages try to make themselves feared or ad- 

 mired, we find painting first employed in completing the image of 

 the dead man to be placed on his grave a painting of the carved 

 image such as served to make it a rude simulacrum. This was 

 the first step in the evolution of painted figures of apotheosized 

 chiefs and kings painted statues of heroes and gods. 



We shall the better appreciate this truth on remembering that 

 the complete differentiation of sculpture from painting which now 

 exists did not exist among early peoples. In ancient times all 

 statues were colored : the aim being to produce something as like 

 as possible to the being commemorated. 



The already named images of dead New Zealand chiefs tattooed 

 in imitation of their originals, illustrate primitive attempts to 

 finish the representations of departed persons by surface-markings 

 and colors ; and the idols preserved in our museums not painted 

 only but with imitation eyes and teeth inserted make clear this 

 original union of the two arts. 



Of evidence that the priests painted as well as carved these 

 effigies, little is furnished by travelers. Bourke writes of the 

 Apaches : " All charms, idols, talismans, medicine hats, and other 

 eacred regalia should be made, or at least blessed, by the medi- 

 cine-men." But while the agency of the primitive priest in idol- 

 painting must remain but partially proved, we get clear proof of 

 priestly agency in the production of other colored representa- 

 tions of religious kinds. Describing certain pictographs in sand, 

 Mr. Gushing says : 



"When, during my first sojourn with the Zuni, I found this art pi'actice 

 in vogue among the tribal priest-magicians and membei's of cult societies, I 



TOL. XLVIII. 49* 



