The Evolution of Art. 309 



arts arts which long after survived the devastation of Eome 

 herself by the barbarous Northmen. 



Engulfed in the general ruin of the middle ages, it came 

 to new glory in the latter centuries, always and everywhere 

 determining the real status of art. 



Of locality as an environment, it may be further observed 

 that it has largely modified art by prescribing its objects and 

 limiting its possibilities. The northern half of Germany 

 being devoid of stone, all its buildings of magnitude are 

 composed of brick, which constitutes a limit of material. 

 Obviously in warm countries the less substantial structures 

 of wood would meet all immediate necessities, while in tem- 

 perate zones, like our own, the fullest scope for material of 

 all kinds would be furnished. 



A fourth element of art environment has been mentioned 

 as the prevailing judgment of the time. This must be seen 

 at once to be largely determined by the auxiliary conditions 

 of science, the minor arts, and especially the arts preserva- 

 tive and distributive of art productions. Poetry found an 

 expansive outlet in the art of printing ; architecture, paint- 

 ing, and sculpture in the various inventions by which the 

 stability of nations has been increased or the products of 

 art distributed. Science, " upon which," says Spencer, " the 

 highest art of every kind is based, and without which there 

 can be neither perfect production nor full appreciation," has 

 brought, by its development of the skillful arts, the produc- 

 tions of the great artists to the knowledge and apprehension 

 of all classes. 



The subsidiary arts of engraving and photography, espe- 

 cially the perfective arts of chromo-lithographv and the 

 artotype process, have literally carried to the firesides of the 

 poor the costly exclusiveness of the Vatican, and there lie on 

 the tables of more than half of the skilled mechanics of the 

 world to-day more really beautiful art representations than 

 were in the castles of the English barons of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury. 



While, then, we may deplore the dearth of highly creative 

 artistic genius, we must acknowledge the increasing evolu- 

 tion toward a more perfect apprehension of true art ideals of 

 the prevailing judgment of the time. The great foundation 

 stones of all true art simplicity, truth, expression long 

 buried by the debris of decaying taste and a corrupt stand- 

 ard of excellence, are finding once more an appreciative 

 recognition. Even the necessities of commerce itself have 



