BOAS— PRIMITIVE ART 



nail of her thumb, the basket-maker who in playing with her technique 

 develops the art of twilling, or the woodworker who varies the form 

 of the surfaces over which he works with his adz, are led at once, 

 by this very play with the technique, to the creation of decorative 

 designs. 



In all these matters we do not presuppose any impulse that has 

 for its primary object the creation of esthetic forms: the esthetic 

 forms appear rather as secondary products of virtuosity. Neither do 

 we need to presuppose in this line of activities any desire to represent 

 forms, and to convey ideas by means of decorative forms. 



It is obvious, however, that these technical activities do not 

 exhaust the range of forms that are found as products of the artistic 

 skill of primitive man. We find everywhere attempts to convey defi- 

 nite meanings by means of graphic outlines or sculptural forms. These 

 may be simply what has been called Augenblickskunst by Wilhelm 

 Wundt; that is, forms which are intended only for the use of the 

 moment, and that are designed to represent to the mind of the maker 

 or to that of others certain impressions received from the experience 

 of the moment. In these productions the artistic element is practi- 

 cally absent, because the outlines are always crude, and there is no 

 technical skill exhibited in their execution. 



It is characteristic of the development of representative art, how- 

 ever, that the technical skill which is acquired in the development of 

 technical art is applied also to the execution of representative forms; 

 and it is in this case that we actually find the beginnings of repre- 

 sentative art. 



It is not my purpose to discuss in the following lines the intimate 

 relations between decorative art and representative art that do de- 

 velop in many cases, and that are found with particular strength in 

 primitive life. This subject has been discussed fully and extensively 

 in many publications, among which must be mentioned the excellent 

 contributions by Prof. William H. Holmes, published in the Annual 

 Reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology. It may be sufficient 

 to point out that, according to our present point of view, it seems 

 futile to discuss the question whether representative decorative art 

 is older than geometrical decorative art, but that it rather appears 

 that we are dealing here with two different sources of artistic activity, 

 which tend to merge into the development of graphic and plastic arts. 

 We may recognize both a tendency to geometrical conventionalization 

 of representative design whenever it is used for decorative purposes, 

 and we may also recognize the tendency to read meaning into geomet- 

 rical decorative design when it is given representative value. 



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