Art and Man

Edwin Swift Balch is credited with opening the gates for the inclusion of ART, especially that from Africa, Australasia and American native races, in Ethnological and Anthropological studies, after the publication of his articles and books on comparative art. Till that time archaeologists, ethnologists and art critics fought shy of dealing with the primitive art. The word “art” appeared to have been a taboo in ethnological museums, just as works of the primitive arts were only sporadically admitted to art galleries. It is only after the publications of Balchs’ book Comparative Art that the yes and minds of art critics seemed to open, and “art” seemed to appear regularly in the lectures by ethnologists and archaeologists delivered in various institutions: which was an open recognition by ethnologists that art is an important part of ethnology. Art critics likewise slowly became aware that the arts of the races of America, of Australasia, and of Africa deserved recognition just as do the arts of Europe and of Asia. The aim of the author, in brief, has been, by the examination and comparison of as many art specimens from as many places as possible, to find out whether throughout the world art is one whole or whether there are several arts, to trace resemblances and differences between the arts of every nook and cranny of our little globe, and to formulate there from the most apparently accurate deductions about art and man. In certain respects therefore, this work is a study of the fine arts throughout the world for the sake of the fine arts themselves; and in certain other respects it is an attempt to trace the story of man as far as can be deduced from the fine arts.