The Evolution of Art. 305 



ments of manhood in association. We have high authority 

 for asserting that " the appreciation of art and the art im- 

 pulse are inherent in the nature of man, and are not the 

 products of civilization." If, as Taine observes, " a work 

 of art is determined by a condition of things combining all 

 surrounding social and intellectual influences," then the 

 quality of the artist himself should be largely affected by 

 these changing conditions. 



Perhaps some light may come to us in following this 

 theme by considering a little more carefully the sources of 

 art. 



"We have already found that the arsenal of the artist is 

 furnished by Nature. She is the tutelary saint entitled to 

 his grateful worship. But the inspiration that informs the 

 pencil or the chisel of the artist, whence comes it ? Why 

 does Correggio outshine Guido, or each of these another ? So 

 long as artists have painted, sung, or builded, Nature has 

 lain before them in the same transcendent beauty. The 

 limpid moonlit stream which the poet and the artist of every 

 age have striven to re-create was running clear and shining 

 in the ages long before the Sphinx, and tells its enchanting 

 story anew to every succeeding generation. Whatever new 

 standards in other things have been erected, the copy-book 

 of Nature remains substantially the same. Is it not then 

 safe to conclude that there is something beside the imitator 

 and the imitated which largely modifies the resulting work 

 of art ? 



Mr. Taine says : " If we pass in review the principal 

 epochs of the history of art, we find the arts appearing and 

 disappearing with certain accompanying social and intel- 

 lectual conditions." It must be clear that while men were 

 in the savage or even pastoral stage of living, no want of 

 art was felt. It was only when a fixity' of abode had been 

 determined upon that any of the fine arts began to develop. 

 The demand for shelter was the first necessity, out of which 

 came in time Westminster Abbey. Two upright posts, per- 

 haps the stumps of trees, supporting as a rude lintel a log 

 thrown across, was the first step taken toward the Coliseum 

 of Rome, covering its eighty thousand people. 



Given, then, the artist born, his ear attuned to Nature, his 

 imagination kindling at her suggestive mysteries, his heart 

 throbbing responsively to all the sweet influences of her 

 great magazine of forces, still the product of his art is to 

 be largely modified and its ultimate evolution to be pre- 



