Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/531

 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OK ART. 517 It would, to take an example, be absurd to contend that the singing of Taillefer lost in aesthetic value by contri- buting to the victory of Hastings. And howrvn- strictly we may insist upon the requirement that every genuine work of art should have been created purely for its own sake, we cannot possibly conceal the fact that some of the world's thirst erotic lyrics were originally composed, not in aesthetic t'ri rilom, which is independent of all by-purposes, but with xpress end of gaining the ear and the favour of a beloved woman. The influence which such foreign, non-sesthetic motives have exercised on art will also become more and more apparent with increased knowledge of the conditions of aesthetic production. The further the psychological bio- grapher pushes his indiscreet researches into the private life of individual artists, the more often will he find that some form of interest personal, political, ethical, religious enters into the so-called disinterested aesthetic activity. Such in- stances must induce undogmatic authors to relax to some extent the strict application of the artistic criterion. And even those philosophers, who in spite of the historical evidence insist upon applying it, will be compelled to admit having taken for works of genuine art productions which, from their point of view, have no claim to the title. The danger of such mistakes is all the greater when one has to deal with the lower stages of artistic development. In point of fact recent ethnological researches have con- clusively proved that it is not only difficult, but quite impos- sible, to apply the aesthetic criterion of independence to the productions of savage and barbarous tribes. It is true that the large department of primitive art has not as yet in its entirety been made the subject of systematic study. But in compensation the results which have been arrived at with regard to decoration, its most typical form, are so much the in. i re striking. In almost every case where the ornaments of a tribe have been closely examined, it has appeared that what to us seems a mere embellishment, is for the natives in question full of serious, extra-aesthetic significance. Carvings on weapons and implements, tattooings, woven and plaited patterns, all of which the uncritical observer is apt to take for purely artistic compositions, are now explained as religious symbols, owners' marks or ideograms. There is still room for discussion as to whether in certain individual interpreta- tions the tendency to look for concealed meanings has not IT. 'ii carried too far. But there can be no doubt that the general principles which to many students seemed so fan- ta^tic when first formulated by Stolpe, Read, Ehrenreich and