I.TFE-rOEM IN AKT. 



PART 11. 



The Study of Vakiants. 



Section I. General Remarhs. Mr. Tylor in his work on Primitive Culture has 

 treated of the several articles composing the armamentarium of early man as species . 

 Thus the hatchet is a species, so are bows, arrows, etc. We have taken a hint from 

 this and believe it to be instructive to call the forms of life of the art-record " species." 

 The range within which they are encountered may be termed the limits of distribu- 

 tion, and the forms in this way included, as the faunae or florae respectively. The 

 Asio-European lion, for example, has a distribution from Chaldea to Western Europe. 

 Its varieties have established themselves along the route of man's migration and are 

 seen to vary in style from the Chaldean to that of the modern stone-cutter. It is 

 convenient to push the comparison between an archaeological and a zoological pro- 

 cess yet farther and name the ways by which a given species- may be represented 

 as variants of that species, adopting a term already employed by Bunsen in his re- 

 searches among the Egyptian ideographs, and by Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg 

 among the Aztec. 



This history of an art-species is in some cases almost as definite as that of the people 

 of whose remains it constitutes a part. It is evident, therefore, that the study of variants 

 should go hand in hand with chronology. With it, we can trace with ease their muta- 

 tions and prove the order of their succession ; without it — the premises falsely as- 

 sumed — imagination may select the forms and specious reasoning determine their 

 positions. 



But are we on that account to restrict our studies to cultured races ? l^o, if we can 

 find standards of comparison among the forms themselves ; and as the zoologist seeks 

 for standards by which to classify living objects, so the student of art, we hope to 

 show, can secure in the art remains of a given people certain tyi^es of construction. 

 These may be in harmony with chronology ; and if so, their value is doubtless in- 

 creased. But even without this aid we believe they can be ma'de interesting. In 

 proportion as the material for the elimination of such types is more or less complete, 

 so will the types themselves be more or less accurate, a conclusion again in exact 

 harmony with the results of the naturalists' method. In a word we propose to study 

 the animal form in art as tiiough it were a natural form, employing chronology, when 

 we can, as an accessory of acknowledged value. 



In studying variants we propose the use of the following terms : 

 The priuiilive designs fouud in i)ainting, etc., we iQvm. primaJs. 



a. p. S. — VOL. XV. OLT. 



