32 BALCH-ART AND ETHNOLOGY. [April 23, 



The art of at least half the races of the world has thus found its 

 way into ethnological museums. There it is not yet culled out as 

 ' art, but the specimens are looked on rather as belonging to the class 

 which can be most briefly called implements. This is not to be won- 

 dered at. Ethnologists, as a rule, have not had any special art train- 

 ing. Among artists it is a pretty thoroughly understood thing — and 

 this can be stated only as a dictum and not discussed in this paper — 

 that only a trained artist can criticize art seriously ; in fact, the 

 present most prevalent opinions about art are largely the consensus 

 of opinion of the many artist art critics of modern times. Whilst 

 possibly unconscious of this fact, ethnologists are. usually aware of 

 their inability to discuss the esthetic qualities of art specimens, and 

 hence, while they frequently study the decorative art of savages, its 

 patterns and its origins they are apt to leave the esthetic qualities 

 of art alone. 



Whilst scientists, therefore, generally do not give much thought 

 to the esthetic points of the art specimens in ethnological museums, 

 on the other hand, artists and art critics so far have paid no atten- 

 tion to such arts as African or Australian art. In the overwhelming 

 majority of cases, they are doubtless unaware of the existence of 

 such arts, and if they did know of them they would in many cases 

 despise them, because these arts do not have the qualities of Greek 

 art or Japanese art or French art. Art critics also usually know 

 nothing of ethnology, and certainly care less. It takes a good deal 

 of time and thought and study to learn something of ethnology^ and 

 any scientist knows that only a specialist can really give an opinion 

 about it. The result of these somewhat complex conditions is that 

 both ethnologists and art critics have neglected the esthetic arts of 

 perhaps half the races of the world. 



It seems as if it should be recognized that the present state of 

 things leaves a gap in knowledge. It is time that this gap should 

 be filled in and that the art of the entire world should be worked 

 out as a whole into its proper divisions and its relations. Prac- 

 tically this will amount to forming a new branch of science, a science 

 which might well be termed comparative art, and it seems just as 

 necessary that there should be a science of comparative art as a 

 science of comparative philology or a science of comparative anat- 



