376 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



classificatiou. It may be more correct than auy otlier, but that has to 

 do with archiieology rather tlian with art, and so its consideration need 

 not be here continued. Nor is it intended, in presenting specimens of 

 art, to attempt any chronologic order of their ai)pearance, nor to seiDa- 

 rate them into schools or classes. This may be done in the future, but 

 the science of Prehistoric Anthropology is not sufficiently advanced to 

 enable it to be done now with assurance of success. The prime fact 

 with which we have to deal is that these specimens were made by man 

 at a period of high antiquity, and that they show an unwonted ability 

 in primitive art. We have here art for art's sake. Artists and art 

 critics may theorize as to its origin, but here we have the hard fact. 



Fig. 20. 



FLINT GRAVERS. 



LaMadelaine (Dordogne), France. 



Lartet and Christy. ?3 natural size. 



The most wonderful exhibition of art in this epoch was in the repre- 

 sentation of animal life. Sometimes the animals are at rest, but many 

 times they are in action. Hunting scenes are depicted in which the 

 hunter, a man, is shown in pursuit of his game and in active conflict 

 with it. In one a man is throwing a spear; in another the serpent bites 

 his heel; deer are shown in action; the reindeer with his nose high in 

 the air and horns thrown on his back; a reindeer browsing and repre- 

 senting a veritable landscape with perspective drawing. The engrav- 

 ing and sculpture rei)resent the mammoth, the reindeer, horse, bison, 

 musk ox, birds, tish, serpent, and others. Some of these are arctic 

 animals now found only in cold countries, others are extinct. A mam- 

 moth was engraved on a plaque of ivory (part of his own tusk), a 



