THE FESTAL DEVELOPMENT OF ART. 743 



this is true to a surprising extent of later art also. Among primi- 

 tive peoples, with very little leisure and with almost no wealth, 

 art can develop, beyond the mere decoration of the person and the 

 ornamentation of personal weapons, only in a social and festal 

 way. But, as leisure and wealth increase, art rises to bolder 

 heights, especially if the faculty for art production be native 

 among the people. 



We have seen that even the domestic animals, like cats and 

 dogs, " dramatize " in their play. So do children in their sports. 

 The mimetic dance carries this on another step, involving the rep- 

 resentation of characters, absent or superhuman, and the repro- 

 duction of ideal scenes. As intelligence and skill increase, this 

 becomes more and more removed from the simple beginnings. 

 The Attic ceremonials in their origin were merely crude efforts 

 at dramatization, but with advancing culture the spectacles be- 

 came more elaborate. There is an interval between the dance of 

 the Brazilian Indians around their earthen pot of smoking kawi 

 liquor and the Attic festival of Bacchus, performed in a great 

 marble theatre, or temple of Bacchus, with a sculptured statue of 

 the god in the center, the full chorus chanting to the accompani- 

 ment of many instruments, the walls of the temple adorned with 

 heroic-size paintings of the exploits of the divinity ; but it is only 

 the interval between the first and the middle chapter of the same 

 history. If, in a great modern city like Paris, we were to select 

 the places where all the fine arts are most fully represented at 

 once, we should not choose the palaces and the museums — for 

 here the arts of movement are not represented — but the great 

 churches and play-houses, especially Notre-Dame and the Grand 

 Opera House. In Notre-Dame we should find music, poetry, 

 architecture, sculpture, and painting, all combined. Only danc- 

 ing is eliminated as an outgrown element of ceremonial. In the 

 Grand Opera House we should find all the arts, and the one 

 omitted at Notre-Dame would be most conspicuous there. The 

 festal dramas of early times have been specialized, the religious 

 ceremonial being separated from the secular, which finds its mod- 

 ern equivalent in the opera, where all the arts remain united. It 

 is not meant that the best art in Paris is to be found at the opera 

 house, but it is the kind which at the present time best represents 

 the art appreciation of that city. Its attractions are offered every 

 night, those of the salon once a year. 



However paradoxical it may seem at first, reflection confirms 

 the statement that the drama is the synthesis of all the fine arts, 

 and the festival the common air from which all have drawn their 

 first breath of life. If we start with the opera, for example, as a 

 present fact, and inquire when and how it combined in itself the 

 separate arts which it certainly unites, we shall find no point 



