THE ORIGINS OF ART

THE
ORIGINS OF ART

A PSYCHOLOGICAL & SOCIOLOGICAL
INQUIRY

BY

YRJÖ HIRN

LECTURER ON ÆSTHETIC AND MODERN LITERATURE AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF FINLAND, HELSINGFORS

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1900

All rights reserved

The aim and scope of this book is sufficiently indicatedby its title. I have endeavoured throughout to restrictmy attention to questions connected with the originsof art. Points of history and criticism have beentouched upon only in so far as they appeared tocontribute towards the elucidation of this purelypsychological and sociological problem. In order tosave space as well as to spare the reader’s attention, thedescriptive parts have been concentrated as much aspossible. As a rule, only one ethnological example,which has been selected as typical, is described in thetext, while the corroborating examples are representedby references in the footnotes. And even of thesereferences only such are adduced as have been consideredespecially significant. Only in one matterhave I aimed at completeness, viz. that of reference toauthors from whom I have borrowed facts or observations.And whenever in earlier literature I have foundtheories which have appeared similar to the viewsadvanced in this book, these similarities have beenpointed out in the footnotes.

[Pg vii]

There is one point, however, to which the reader’sattention should be called in this Preface. Whentreating of the art-impulse I have—especially in thetenth chapter—mentioned in the footnotes some modernwriters on æsthetic, who, although starting from differentassumptions, have arrived at a conception ofart which in many points may be compared to the oneadvanced in this book. This comparison, however, hasnot been carried out in the text. Considerations ofspace account for this omission; but it has a furtherground in the circumstances under which the presentwork has originated. A part of it, containing theexamination of feeling and its expression, and thechapter on “Animal Display,” was published in Swedishas early as 1896[1]—that is, before the above-mentionedauthors had made their theories known. This is notmentioned in order to raise any futile questions ofpriority, but only as a justification of the way in whichmy conclusions have been presented.

It has appeared to me that the continuity of theargument could not but have been broken if, insteadof proceeding from my original starting-point, I hadbased my conclusions upon a critical examination ofmodern æsthetic doctrines. And I trust that thedifferences between the thesis of this book and otheremotionalistic explanations will appear with sufficient...