CHAPTER III.

PRE-HISTORIC AND SAVAGE ART.

Art, like nature, is its own interpreter. A well-finished pattern has not preceded a more simple one; circular ornamentations are of a later date than ornamentations with straight lines. The cave-habitation must have been in use before the construction of independent temples. Art must have had a beginning like language; for it is a language--a language in forms, speaking to our eyes. If what the Arabs say is true, that the best description is that in which the ear is transformed into an eye, the best picture will be one that transforms our eyes into ears. Art speaks through light, as language through sounds. We have tried to discover by means of philology--which in modern times has become a science--a more or less close relationship between idioms and idioms; in the same way we try to trace some general primitive types from which we may deduce the innumerable works of art.

In times long by-gone we find traces of man’s inventive and decorative force. The products of that force even in pre-historic ages widely differ in their degrees of workmanship. There are more or less finished hatchets, chisels, knives, arrow-heads, paal-stabs, celts and armlets. The ornamentation, from mere varying straight lines, goes over into spiral forms of different direction and combination. We have therefore no difficulty in classifying the products of pre-historic art in the following way:--

_a._ The Palæolithic, or old stone age. _b._ The Neolithic, or new stone age. _c._ The Bronze age, and _d._ The Iron age.

The first two subdivisions belong to savage life, the third to the mythical or traditionary, and the fourth to the historical periods.

During the old stone age we have scarcely any traces of ornamentation; during the new stone age we find some attempts at geometrical lines, and some sketches of animals on ivory blades; during the bronze age we have winding and twisting patterns of excellent geometrical design; and, finally, during the iron age, animals and even human forms are used as means of ornamentation.

During the pre-historic period of man’s artistic development we find a peculiar similarity between his dwellings and his tombs. The mountain cavern, and the hut constructed of beams and boughs, covered with skins, were undoubtedly men’s first stately palaces. The very oldest traditions bear out this statement. The earliest inhabitants of Greece dwelt in mountain caverns. The people of Siberia, anterior to the Samoyedes, lived, according to Erman, in subterranean caves. The Kyklops of Homer are but nomads, residing in mountain caverns. Of the Hittites, a tribe in Canaan in the times of Abraham, it is recorded that they buried their dead in caves. But it is an incontestable fact that the burial-places resembled the dwellings of the pre-historic man. Crypts, catacombs, and rock-hewn temples may be set down as having originated from man’s first mountain home. The tombs of the Tartars in Kasan resemble their houses on a small scale. A Circassian tomb resembles a Circassian cottage. The tombs of the Karaite Jews in the valley of Jehoshaphat, are like their houses. Laplanders live in caves. The aborigines of Germany and France, the contemporaries of the mammoth, rhinoceros, auerochs and elk, dwelt in caves, as their bones are found mingled with those of these now extinct animals, together with various implements, such as adzes, flint arrows, stone knives, and even, as in the cave at Perigord on the borders of the Dordogne, works of art of great artistic power. Jordanes, in his ‘De Rebus Geticis,’ mentions people in Sweden (Scania) living like wild animals in caves, cut out in the rocks. But the nomad savage could find such dwellings only where there were mountains. If he wandered out of such a district into the plains, and wanted to shelter himself from the inclemency of the weather, he had to collect blocks of stone, and to form with them artificial caves. In this manner cromlechs, Dös, Dyss or dolmens, and gallery chambers arose, in which the long, narrow gallery corresponds to the confined entrance of the mountain-cave, and the chamber to the cavern.

By degrees man began to construct detached houses for himself, and at last temples for his god or gods. No traces of temples are found in pre-historic times, except in the Western hemisphere. The Stiens of Cambodia, in the central parts of Cochin-China, have no temples. From the southern promontory of Africa to far beyond the banks of the Zambesi no temples are found. The pastoral and agricultural people of Madagascar have no temples, though they have huts and houses, ornamented pottery, and are to a certain degree acquainted with textile art. Before man constructs a temple he constructs a house, to protect himself, his herds, and family from wild animals, but above all from his still more dreaded fellow-creature, in whom he sees a dangerous rival. This propensity serves to explain the origin of lake-dwellings--the most ancient proofs of man’s constructing capacity, and of his talent to unite for a certain purpose, and to enclose a given space. Herodotus already tells us of a settlement on Lake Prasias, the modern Tachyno (in Rumelia, European Turkey), where men lived on platforms, supported by tall piles. Abulfeda, the Syrian geographer (b. 1273; d. 1313), speaks of Christian fishermen living in wooden huts, built on piles in one of the Apamean lakes on the Orontes (in Asia). The Papuans of New Guinea still live in such pile-dwellings, the floors of which are supported by rudely-carved human figures, an attempt at telamons. These are ‘survivals,’ but the lake-dwellings in Italy and Switzerland belong to pre-historic times. In tracing their different modes of construction, we find three periods of a progressive architectural development recorded.

We have pile-dwellings of the most primitive construction. Rough piles were used, pointed with the aid of fire or with stone hatchets, later with bronze, and finally with iron tools. They were placed either close together or in pairs, or wide apart--generally in regular order. The heads of the piles were brought to a level above the water to receive the beams of the platform, which were fastened down with wooden pins. Later, as an improvement, mortices were cut in the tops of the vertical piles to receive the cross-beams.

Other constructions, especially those near Nidau (niedere Au, lower meadow), are built on a foundation artificially strengthened with stones, which is, undoubtedly, an improvement on the former method.

Experience taught the pre-historic architects that the piles were not quite safe, and ought to have some support against the turbulent risings of the lake. This produced the still more improved fascine constructions, which certainly gave still greater strength to the dwelling. The platform did not rest on mere piles but on artificial foundations, built up from the bottom with horizontal layers of sticks or small branches of trees, the vertical piles serving as connecting links to the whole construction.

Cranoges, or wooden islands, are chiefly found in Ireland and Scotland. They differ from the fascine constructions in that they frequently were built on natural islands, or on shallows approaching to this character. The huts built upon these pile-constructions were rectangular; some may have been round, like the huts of savages, in imitation of mole-hills, the prototypes of the numerous mounds strewn all over the globe. The huts contained an artificial hearth, made of three or four slabs of stone.

That the inhabitants of the lake-dwellings were acquainted with textile art, is proved by the discovery of an innumerable quantity of clay-weights for weaving purposes, and by pieces of burnt woven flax. The crude pottery, tools and wooden pegs, fibres twisted into ropes, remains of different cereals, fruits, and domestic animals found in these settlements, clearly prove that a certain kind of family life must have existed. At all events, the inhabitants must have reached a higher degree of civilisation than some of the South-Sea Islanders of our century, who, on receiving some iron nails, planted them, in the expectation of reaping a rich crop of this valuable vegetable.

We see that in pre-historic times art was already practised, not only for a merely utilitarian but also for an ornamental and artistic purpose.

This may be said, in a much higher sense, of the pre-historic art-remains in the Western hemisphere. Art had there a threefold development, corresponding to the three groups of humanity. We find the mounds of the Negro; the pottery of the yellow man, with its quaint ornamentation; and the remarkable temples, fortresses, viaducts, and aqueducts of the Aryan group. We possess in our museums abundant specimens of the works of these three groups, as also of their singular hieroglyphic writings, resembling the first attempts of the Chinese and Egyptians to represent ideas in forms. Imagination with savages supplies the form; the mere outlines therefore suffice. The horse drawn in this way (_a_) is a real horse; (_b_) this forms a real goose; (_c_) this is the sun; and (_d_) this a real man. It is a kind of pictorial writing or ideography, to be seen for miles and miles hewn in rocks at Massaya, and practised by humanity at large, as by our own children, in the first stage of awakening consciousness.

We find not only ethnological, but also philological and artistic traces of the fact, that at an unknown pre-historic period, the Western hemisphere must have been in close connection with the Eastern. The name of the supreme Divinity, Dyaus, Θεός {Theos}, Deus, is in the far West _Teotl_.

Art in the _North_ of the Western hemisphere is primitive, kyklopean walls and sepulchral mounds being the principal remains.

In the _Centre_ of the Continent, art bears all the traces of a gradually-developed progress. It almost reached the forms of Egypt, but stopped half way. By some means Atalanta was separated from the East, and the pyramids, temples and palaces of central America remained in the same relation to the pyramids, temples and palaces of Egypt as the _tapir_ to the elephant; the _alligator_ to the crocodile; and the _llama_ to the camel.

The West possessed a knowledge of astronomy analogous to that of the Chinese, and their mode of ornamentation in excellent stucco reached a high degree of technical and even pictorial skill. They went so far as to represent scenes of an historical character with some degree of dramatic power; as the stucco of the rock-hewn temple of Mitla in Mexico proves. Their ornamentation is irregular and confused, like their wild vegetation, in which creepers predominate.

Some figures are striking in their resemblance to Egyptian forms.

A sculptured divinity of granite, 3½ feet high, found near a finely-built pyramid not far from Guatusco or Huatusco, is excellently worked and finished in a simple style. Still more curious is a small statue executed in lava, with a head-dress resembling those of Isis, the Sphinx, the capitals of the temple of Denderah, or at a later period those of Antinous. Even the position of the feet reminds us of the sphinx, and proves the absence of a knowledge of proportion.

In South America, in the regions of Lake Titicaca in Peru, lying at an elevation of 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, i.e. about four times as high as Snowdon, we have proofs of a very high civilisation. Artificially-constructed causeways lead over the surrounding marshes to the sacred town of Cuzco, the capital and central spot of the empire of the fabulous yet real Incas. Of those times we have a garden of the Incas, in the warmest and most sheltered part of the island, ‘with its baths, and its fountains still flowing with silvery sheen and murmur.’ Not far from Titicaca is the island of Coati, sacred to the moon. Here stood the famous palace of the Virgins of the Sun (reminding us of the Vestals instituted by one of the Roman rulers), flanked by two shrines dedicated to the sun and moon. These are the best-preserved specimens of American pre-historic architecture. Round Lake Umayo, on a peninsula, we find a remarkable group of ancient square burial towers, known as the Chulpas of Silustani.

Cuzco was the Rome of the south of the Western hemisphere. The town was traversed by four high-roads in the direction of the four points of the compass. It was divided into an upper (_Hanau_) and a lower (_Hurin_) town. Grouped around the central square in the form of an oval were twelve subdivisions (_Carrios_). Here stood the great palace, one mile in length and a quarter of a mile broad; the _Yachahuasi_ (_Huasi_, houses) dedicated to the instruction of the youth; the _Galpones_, edifices in which festivals were held; the convent of the Virgins of the Sun, the _Corichanca_ or Palace of Gold, and the temple dedicated to the sun, surrounded by chapels dedicated to the moon, the stars, and to thunder and lightning. Here also stood the eighth wonder of the world--the great fortress _Sacsahuaman_; the entrances with slanting jambs, and a large plinth, constructed like inverted stairs, sometimes in stone, sometimes in excellent stucco, either with or without ornament. The three lines of massive walls round the town, forming the defence, were constructed ‘en tenaille,’ the entering angles all being ninety degrees; the very best European fortifications, planned by Vauban or Moltke, could not surpass the terrace-like arrangement of these three lines of defence. The polygonal blocks, of which the walls are constructed, are of blue limestone, from eight to ten feet in length, half as much in width and depth, and weigh from fifteen to twenty tons each. The first wall has an average height of about twenty-five feet, the second eighteen feet, and the third fourteen feet. Total elevation of walls, fifty-seven feet.

However cursorily we have touched upon art as it developed in the Western hemisphere, the reader must be impressed by two facts. (1) That there are analogies between East and West which are too striking to be attributed to mere chance; and (2) that those who built the edifices of Uxmal, Palenque, Copan, Chichen, Itza, and Cuzco must have been far beyond a mere nomadic state. They had palaces, temples, and therefore a kind of social organisation and religion. Their religion must have been of a low and cruel character, judging from the representations of their divinities, and from their using detached limbs of the human body as arabesques; though we can trace in their calendar, as in their conceptions of the personified powers of nature, Eastern influences, connecting the pre-historic West with the historic East. Whilst the Eastern world used incense at its religious ceremonies, the West used tobacco smoke. In both hemispheres some mysterious power was attributed to animals. The helmets of all nations took their origin in this common belief. Eagles, vultures, wolves, tigers, lions, dragons and serpents are used to adorn the fighter or to charm his weapons. The custom of wearing masks and helmets or head-dresses of some terrifying form, exaggerating the size of the head, is of purely barbarous origin. In the remains of ancient Mexico, Peru, and the South Sea Islands we find a variety of carved masks; some resembling human faces, adorned with false hair, beards and eyebrows; others representing the heads of birds. They are generally painted, often ornamented with pieces of foliaceous mica to make them glitter, or with turquoises and other precious stones.

That the pre-historic man, whether of the East or the farthest West, had some sort of civilisation may be best studied in his keramic products. Earthenware vessels, pots, jugs, vases, urns, and amphoræ are as interesting to the art-historian as fossil plants and animals to the paleontologist, or the different strata of the earth’s crust to the geologist.

Pottery is one of the most reliable historical documents for fixing the degree of civilisation of a nation. Fossil pottery very much resembles antediluvian animals--it is without shape and form. Shells, leaves and fruits suggested it. By degrees gourds and eggs gave man better patterns. At a certain period it must have been the fashion in Egypt, Etruria, Greece, China, Mexico and Peru to use animal and human forms for vases, bottles, jugs and goblets, whilst horns, skulls and boots are found amongst Teutons and some savage tribes. The Teutons hoped to drink sweet honey out of the skulls of their slain enemies in Walhalla. We cannot wonder that so amiable a creed should have engendered quaint drinking vessels. We see in our own times plates and dishes adorned with frogs and lizards, which indisputably prove that there are pre-historic ‘survivals.’ From Kyprus we have, in the Imperial Cabinet of Antiquities at Vienna, an urn with a human face, which is very much like those found in Mexico, of which the South Kensington Museum and the Christy collection of the British Museum possess excellent specimens.

The wild and fantastic mode of ornamentation in the Western hemisphere, in pre-historic times, is entirely due to the aspect of nature. Man seems to have received patterns from India, Egypt and Greece, and worked them out by reflecting the impressions of an exuberant nature. Flowers, feathers, pearls, trinkets, hieroglyphs, animals, human bodies--all are mingled together in endless confusion. Here and there a symmetrical echo of times long by-gone can be traced. Though, however, the Western artists of pre-historic times sometimes attained symmetry, they continually sin against eurythmy. Of proportion and action they have no conception. They have a style, but a style of their own, devoid of all those requisites which elevate a product to artistic beauty.