346 TJie Evolution of Sculpture. 



creation in the strictest sense. The product of art is always 

 a mirror held up, not to nature (for that is already a mirror, 

 the mirror of God), but to the soul of man, so that it may 

 behold and know itself become self-conscious. 



I wish to insist particularly upon this point, because it is 

 fundamental in any conception of art, and must be clearly 

 grasped before the phrase " evolution of art " can have any 

 intelligible meaning. Art is an expression of man's inner 

 nature imprinted upon matter, so as to appeal to his senses, 

 which deal only with matter, and through which he obtains 

 experience. "Whatever fails to do this is not art. Whatever 

 is a mere copy of outward nature, such as the sun can im- 

 print upon a photographic plate, and whatever shows only the 

 action of physical forces, whether in nature or in man, has 

 no claim to be called art. All this is simply nature, and 

 art, as Goethe says, is called art just because it is not nature. 

 The more fully, deeply, accurately a human product bodies 

 forth man's inner nature, his freedom, his love, his wisdom, 

 the more truly is it a work of art ; and no amount of tech- 

 nical skill in the way of imitation can vindicate for art a 

 work in which these attributes find no expression. For this 

 reason the rude reliefs which we find upon the clay tablets 

 of Babylon and Nineveh are far more truly works of art than 

 many of the works of sculpture and painting which adorn 

 our museums, and excite our admiration by their technical 

 skill, but are void of content. Skill is not art, but only art's 

 handmaid. The workman who has only skill, but nothing 

 worthy to express thereby, is no more an artist than a fine 

 penman is a good correspondent or journalist. 



The human soul realizes itself in matter in various ways 

 and by various means, and this realization has in each case 

 an evolution and a history, which begin at the point where 

 a process previously used to satisfy a physical need is em- 

 ployed to express a spiritual act. The transition is by no 

 means an abrupt one, and there are many primitive objects 

 of human shaping of which it would be hard to say whether 

 they belong to the region of art or not. Of this nature are 

 the rude faces and figures upon funeral urns. Is the pur- 

 pose of these to alleviate physical suffering or grief, or is it 

 to express a spiritual hope ? Who can tell ? May it not be 

 partly both ? Is not the hope originally born of the grief ? 

 Is this not the very function of grief, to mother hope ? Of 

 the same doubtful nature is much of the architecture and 

 pottery of all ages. It is difficult to say when a building or 



