380 The Evolution of Painting. 



DR. LEWIS G. JANES : 



If my friend Dr. Dickerman were present, I imagine that he might 

 have a word of criticism upon the remarks of the lecturer concerning 

 the illustrations of the painter's art which we find upon the monu- 

 ments and tombs of ancient Egypt. Though conventional, the Egyp- 

 tian painter or sculptor aimed at the production of true portrait-like- 

 nesses, and succeeded so well that the portraits of the great kings are 

 always recognizable. It is evident, however, that the art of painting 

 was much more immature in its development in Egypt and Greece than 

 was the art of sculpture. It will be remembered that Prof. Davidson 

 suggested a philosophical reason for this fact in the subordination 

 of the love or emotional element to the more intellectual or mathe- 

 matical conception of the beautiful. The love or emotional element, 

 which gives warmth and color to art, found freer scope after the 

 advent of Christianity, which has consequently stimulated the higher 

 evolution of the art of painting. Referring to symbolism in art, the 

 speaker said he had often thought that the architect who superin- 

 tended the decoration of the church in which these meetings are held 

 must have smiled quietly when he introduced so profusely the trefoil, 

 the triple scroll, the three-branched gas-fixtures, and other symbols of 

 the trinitarian idea. These, however, were the conventional forms of 

 church decoration, they were intrinsically appropriate and beautiful, 

 and those of us who are Unitarians, if we are also evolutionists, need 

 not object to this architectural recognition of the relation which we 

 hold to the older faith. 



MR. LAWRENCE E. STERNER: 



I regret that the lecture has been so exclusively historical in its 

 character that the lecturer has not shown us more clearly the intel- 

 lectual side of the growth of this art, its relation to the states of 

 culture and civilization in different periods. I should like to have 

 seen the artist traced, as a growing man, from the time of the cave- 

 men to him who is the product of the highest civilization of the 

 present day. 



MR. RUNDELL, in closing, said that the limitation of time had com- 

 pelled him to treat only a single phase of the subject. In all its 

 branches it had been treated in a thousand volumes, and could not be 

 rounded into one short lecture. This would explain the deficiencies 

 noted. 



