Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind · Wilhelm Max Wundt
17. THE ART OF THE HEROIC AGE.
A survey of the various phases of human interest will show that they are all present from the very beginning in the mental organization of man. Moreover, they are throughout so interconnected that an advance in one field of interest will lead to progress in general. Nevertheless, we are unable to escape the further observation that, in the life of the individual, certain capacities develop earlier than others. Precisely the same is true of the life of humanity. The phenomena in which the character of ages and peoples receives its chief expression differ in each of the periods through which the development of mankind passes. The secondary phenomena, in each case, either occur only in their beginnings or, where we are dealing with later stages of culture, are being perfected along lines already established. In this relative sense, we may doubtless say of the three eras following that of primitive man, that totemism is the age of the _satisfaction of wants_, the heroic age, that of _art_, and the succeeding period of the development to humanity, that of _science_.
Of course, there were many art productions, some of them admirable, even in the totemic age--we need mention only the artistic cult dances, or the high perfection to which the semi-cultural peoples of the period attained in the decoration of the body and of weapons. It must be admitted also that the heroic age already laid imperishable foundations for science. Nevertheless, the main achievements of the totemic age relate exclusively to the satisfaction of the external needs of life. The modes of procuring and preparing food, and the forms of clothing, adornment, implements, and weapons--all originated in the totemic age, and, however great may have been the advances made by succeeding eras along these several lines, the beginnings had nevertheless been made. A manner of dress suitable to the climate had been developed. The preparation of food by means of fire, the manufacture of the fundamental and permanent implements and weapons--the hammer, the axe, the saw, the chisel, the knife--and, finally, the differentiation between weapons of close and of long range, had all been introduced. Moreover--and this is perhaps most significant of all--art itself was governed absolutely by the motive of satisfying needs.
Articles of adornment, tattooing, the dance, song, and music, were first of all means of magic, and as such they served the most urgent needs, such as man by himself was unable to satisfy. These needs were protection against sickness and success in the chase and in war. Only gradually, through a most remarkable heterogeny of ends, were many of these agencies of magic transformed into _pure means of adornment_. Such transformations, of course, occurred also in the heroic age. But by this time the necessities of life had in part changed and, of the new interests, those connected with cult and with political organization gained an increasing importance. Æsthetic value came to be more and more appreciated as an independent feature of objects. As a result, articles were produced of a nature such as to minister both to the needs of life and to æsthetic enjoyment. But, again, this occurs pre-eminently within the field of spiritual needs, particularly in connection with deity cult, on the one hand, and in the glorification of human heroes, on the other.
The construction of the temple, the plastic reproduction of the human form and its idealization into the divine image, and, finally, the forms of literature--the epic, the hymn, and the beginnings of the religious drama, with their accompanying music--all of these spring from the spiritual needs of this age, among which needs cult is the foremost. With these various activities, art begins an independent development, gaining a value of its own, and conquering fields that had previously been untouched by æsthetic influences. This conquest of new fields by the higher forms of art is indicative also of an increasing appreciation of the æsthetic, and, along with this, of a spiritualization of life as a whole, such as results, in a particular measure, from art, and only partly, and at a much later period, from science. The first subjects of this art are heroes and gods--that is, those figures which the imagination creates at the threshold of the heroic age, under the influence of the new conditions of life. Gradually art then concerns itself with the human personality and with the objects of man's environment.
In correspondence with a change which transpired in the totemic age, in which means of magic were transformed into articles of adornment, the objects of nature and culture are now more and more stripped of their mythological significance and elevated into pure objects of æsthetic appreciation. Thus, the heroic age includes the two most important epochs in the entire history of art. These are the origin of a true religious art, and the attainment of an æsthetic independence which allows art to extend its influence to all departments of human life. Religious art made its appearance with the beginning of the heroic age; æsthetic independence represents a later achievement. This explains why the totemic age seems to us a vanished world, no less with regard to its art than in other respects. It can arouse our æsthetic interest only if we attribute the final product of this period--namely, decoration freed from its original magical significance--to the motives that really underlie artistic activity. The art with which we are still familiar and whose motives we can all still appreciate, begins only with the heroic age. The tattooing of the man of nature and the amulet about his neck are to us adornments of low æsthetic value.
A Greek temple, however, may even to-day arouse the mood of worship, and the battles of the Homeric heroes and the tragedy of a Prometheus overtaken by the wrath of the gods may still impress us as real. However remote the age may be which these products of art represent, the general spirit which animated it has not vanished. The greatest turning-point in the spiritual history of man consists in the stupendous achievement which inaugurates the heroic age. I refer to the creation of the ideal man, the hero, and of the god in whom heroic characteristics are magnified into the superhuman and demoniacal. Here lies the beginning of a real history of art; everything earlier is prehistoric, however important it may be for a psychological understanding of art--an importance greater than is generally supposed, since it is only these earliest phenomena that can disclose the conditions underlying the first manifestations of the artistic imagination. Since we may assume that the facts of the history of art are generally familiar, it may here suffice to consider these originating factors and their relation to the general character of the heroic age.
The first and most striking characteristic of the new era is the development of _architecture_. This is a new art, not to be found in the preceding age, or at most only in very meagre beginnings. The gabled and the conical hut, as well as the tent and the wind-break from which they developed, are not artistic creations, but are products of the most urgent needs of life. The impulse to erect a building for any higher purpose than this, manifested itself first of all when, here and there, the need of the living was attributed also to the dead. For the shelter of the dead, soul and ancestor cults demanded the erection of more permanent structures. Hence there appeared the burial chamber, built of solid stone. Its walls, designed to afford protection from without, were likewise constructed of stone, and constantly became more massive. This stimulated a sense of the sublime and eternal, which reacted on the construction of the monuments and gave them a character far transcending the need that called them into being. The development of the gigantic Egyptian pyramids out of the simple walled tomb, the mastaba, tells us this significant story in pictures that impress the imagination more vividly than words.
But the cult of the dead, which this history records, was itself intimately connected with deity cult. The preservation of the mummy involved every possible protection of the corpse from the destructive agencies of time. This fact reveals a concern relating to incalculable ages, and thus gives evidence of an idea of a beyond into which the deceased is supposed to enter. Besides the house of the dead, therefore, there is the house belonging to the deity, and this is even more directly and universally characteristic of the age. This edifice, into which man may enter and come into the presence of the deity, stimulates the incomparably deeper impulse to build a structure worthy of the deity for whom it is erected. Thus, then, we have the _temple_, designed at the outset for the protection of the sacrificial altar, which had originally been erected in the open, upon consecrated ground. Since it is located at the seat of government, at the place where the citizens assemble for the conduct of political affairs and for purposes of trade, the temple is indicative also of the city and of the State. Secular interests likewise begin to assert themselves.
Hence there appears a second mark of the city, the _castle_, which is the seat of the ruler and of the governing power, and is generally also the final defence, when hostile attacks threaten the city and State. Closely connected with the castle, in all regions in which the ruler lays claim to being a terrestrial deity--as he did, for example, in the ancient realms of the Orient--is the _royal palace_. In harmony with the twofold position of the ruler, his dwelling is architecturally intermediate between the castle and the temple. Thus, it is the temple, the castle, and the palace, whose development not only awakens the æsthetic sense for architectural forms, but also gives impetus to the other arts, especially to sculpture and to ornamentation. The latter had previously found material for its expression in the utensils of daily use. Enriched through its connection with architectural forms, it now recurs to the miniature work of utensils and implements, where it more and more serves a purely æsthetic need. Of the works of architecture belonging to the early part of this period, it is the temple which proves the greatest æsthetic stimulus. This is due not only to its more exalted purpose, but also to the impetus derived from the fact of the multiplicity of gods.
The castle represents the unity of the State. Hence the State contains but one such structure, erected, whenever possible, upon a hill overlooking the city. The temple, from early times on, is the exclusive possession of a single deity. The idea of harbouring several deities in a single structure could arise only later, as a result of special cult conditions and of the increasing size of the sacred edifices. Even then, however, the need for unity in the cult generally caused each temple to be dedicated to a specific deity, the chief god of the temple. Hand in hand with this went a striving for richness and diversity in architecture. The temple, therefore, expresses in a pre-eminent degree not only the character of the religious cult, but also the mental individuality of the people to whom the gods and their cult owe their origin.
Closely connected with temple construction is _sculpture_, for, in it, the importance which the human personality receives in this age finds its most direct expression. Sculpture, moreover, clearly exhibits the gradual advance from the generic to the individual, from a value originally placed on man as such to absorption in the particular characteristics of the individual. The early, 'generic' figure is generally a representation of the divine personality who has inspired the artist to create an image for the sacred shrine. Art does not aim at the outset to copy man himself; it transfers his characteristics to the deity, and only thus, and after laborious efforts, does it attain its mastery over the human form. True, the gods are conceived as human from the very beginning. So long, however, as the sacrificial stone and the altar stand in the open field, this humanization leads but to inartistic images, similar to fetishes. While these images indicate the presence of the gods at the sacred places, they are not intended as likenesses of the deities themselves. In their external appearance, therefore, the fetishes of early deity cult still impress one as survivals of the totemic age, even though the gods are no longer represented after the fashion of demons, namely, as subhuman, possessing animal or grotesque human forms.
The conditions obtaining in life generally were repeated in the realm of art. For the transference of purely human characteristics to the image took place in the case of the hero--or, what amounts to the same thing in the great Oriental civilizations of antiquity, in that of the ruler--earlier than in the case of the deity. The ruler is glorified by means of drawings which represent processions of the hunt and of war, and which are executed on the walls of his palaces. Similarly, the religious impulse expresses itself in the erection of an anthropomorphic image of the deity. This image is placed either in the temple, which is regarded as the dwelling-place of the deity, or in some commanding part of the city which reverences the god as its protector. Here, however, we come upon a noteworthy proof of the fusion of the hero with the demon as described above. From Babylonian and Egyptian monuments we learn that the ruler and his retinue were already represented in human form at a period when deity cult still retained hybrid forms of men and animals, sometimes of the nature of animal demons with human faces, or again as human figures with animal heads.
Thus, art strikingly confirms the view that the gods arose from a fusion of the hero personality with the demon. When these external characteristics, due to the past history of gods and their connection with demon beliefs, came to be superseded, the divine image at first reproduced only the typical features of man. In addition to overtowering size, external marks, such as dress, weapons, and sacred animals, were the only evidences of deity. The first step in the transition from the generic figure to the gradual individualization of personality occurs in connection with the facial expression. It is surprising to note the uniformity with which, in all the civilizations of the Old World, the images of the gods, as well as those of the heroes and rulers, acquire an expression of kindliness and gentleness. This trait, however, is again of a generic nature. The stiff, expressionless form has indeed disappeared, but the expression that supervenes is uniform. Though we have referred to this transition as universal, this is true at most as regards the fact that, on the one hand, the expression of complete indifference gives way to one manifesting emotion, and that, on the other, this emotion, though pronounced, again exhibits uniformity.
In the quality of this feeling, differences in the character of peoples may come to light, just as they do in myth and religion, with which sculpture in its first stages is closely connected. In the two great cultural regions of the New World, Mexico and Peru, there is a similar transition. The cults of these peoples, however, emphasize the fear-inspiring character of the gods. Hence, in their art, the terrifying grimace of the earliest divine images becomes moderated into an expression of gloomy, melancholy seriousness--a change such as the art of the Old World approximates only in occasional productions that fall rather within the province of the demoniacal, such as the image of the Egyptian sphinx or the gorgon's head of the Greeks. Thus, the transition from features that are entirely expressionless to such as are generic, and then to those that characterize the individual personality, occurs in connection with a change in the quality of the emotions. To illustrate the relative uniformity of this development we might likewise refer to the early Renaissance. Here again it was necessary to seek a path to the concrete wealth of personality that had been lost. Art reached this goal by way of the pathetic expression of humble submission.
As soon as plastic art departs from the typical form, we find not only that a change occurs in the expressions of the face, but also that the entire body becomes more lifelike. Along with this, the themes of plastic art pass from the gods, rulers, and heroes to the lower levels of everyday life. Even here art at first continues to be fascinated by the great and conspicuous, though it later gains more and more interest in the _significant_. This striving for reality in its wealth of individual phenomena is characteristic not only of sculpture, however, but also of painting. Disregarding the bodily form in favour of the portrait, painting first acquires new means of characterization in colour and shading; then, passing from man to his natural environment, it wins from nature the secrets of perspective, and thus gains a far greater mastery over the depths of space than was possible to sculpture. _Landscape painting_, moreover, unlocks for art that rich world of emotions and moods which man may create from the impressions of nature, and which attain to purity of expression in proportion as man himself disappears from the artistic reproduction of his environment.
Thus, the final product of pictorial art, together with such paintings as those of still life and the interior, all of which are psychologically related inasmuch as they express moods, represent the most subjective stage of art, for they dispense with the subject himself whose emotions they portray. All the more, therefore, are these emotions read into nature, whose processes and activities now constitute the content of personal experience. Once it attains to this development, however, landscape art is already far beyond the borders of the heroic age. Indeed, the Renaissance itself advanced no farther than to the threshold of this most subjective form of pictorial art. This art represents the hero--however broad a conception of him we may form--as in all respects a human individual. Thus, art again returns to the being whose ideal enhancement originally gave rise to the hero.
The changes which the forms of æsthetic expression undergo within the field of formative art, are paralleled, on the whole, by those of the _musical_ arts. By this term, as above remarked, we wish to designate all those arts which depend from the outset upon the _external_ factors of tone and rhythm ultimately employed most freely in music (cf. p. 262). In the preceding age, only _one_ of these arts, the _dance_, really reached any considerable development. Of the two elements of the musical arts, rhythm was as yet predominant. The dance received but little melodic support from the voice; noise instruments had the ascendancy over musical instruments. The further development of these arts leads to continued progress, particularly with respect to the melodic forms of expression. These begin with the language of speech, and gradually pass on to the pure clang formations produced solely by manufactured instruments. Corresponding with this external change is an inner change of motives, influenced, of course, by the varying materials which enter into the creations of the musical arts. From the very beginning, the character of this material is involved in constant change, as is also language, which is the basis of all these arts, and whose rhythmical-melodic forms cannot be arrested at any moment of its living development. The attempt to render permanent some of the movements of this flowing process, by means of literary records or definite symbols, is but an inadequate substitute for the enduring power with which the mute creations of sculpture and of architecture withstand the destructive influences of time. Just because of this plasticity of their working material, however, the musical arts are enabled all the more faithfully to portray the thoughts and feelings that move the artist and his age. Particularly where these thoughts and feelings are directly reproduced in language, the work, even though coming down from a long-departed past, has an incomparably greater power to transport us to its world than is ever possible to plastic art. How much more vividly do we not experience the life of the Homeric heroes while reading the Iliad than when viewing the Mycenian art of that period!
Of all the products of the verbal arts, it is the epic that most faithfully mirrors the character of the heroic age as a whole. The human hero here stands in the forefront of action. His battles and fortunes and a laudatory description of his qualities constitute the main themes of the poem. In the background, appears the world of gods. It receives no attention apart from its relation to the action. The gods, it is true, take a hand in the destinies of the heroes--they quarrel about them, or, when the need is greatest, descend to the earth and, though unrecognized, assist them in battles. As for the rest, however, their life lies outside the sphere of the epic narrative; it appears to be an even and undisturbed course of existence into which change enters only in so far as there is a participation in the affairs of the terrestrial world. Such is the epic at the zenith of its development and as it receives expression in the Homeric poems.
Though such poetry be traced back to its beginnings, the gods will not be found to play any greater rôle, as we should be led to expect were the theory of many mythologists true that the hero saga developed out of the deity saga and, correspondingly, the heroic epic out of the deity epic. In confirmation of our assertion, we might point to the Russian and Servian romances, and also to the songs of the Kara-Kirghiz and to the Finnish Kalewala, though the Kalewala has not come down to us in quite its original form. The Norse Edda, which has been at the basis of certain misconceptions regarding this question, should not here be drawn into consideration, though, were it examined, it would substantiate, if anything, the opposite of what is supposed. It dates from a later period, which no longer believed, as we may assume that the Homeric rhapsodists did, in the gods and heroes of which it sang. The Norse skalds dealt, in their songs, with a departed world, whose memory they endeavoured to renew; they drew their material from märchen-myths and from folk-sagas. If, now, we turn to that poetry of the Slavic and Turkish tribes which is really preparatory to epic poetry, we find certain radical differences.
Here also, of course, there are imaginary beings who either take a hand in the battles and destinies of the heroes or, through the magic over which the human hero as yet still frequently disposes, come to identify themselves with heroes. These beings, however, are not gods, but demons. They possess no personal traits whatsoever. Such traits are lacking also to the hero in proportion as he makes use of magical powers rather than of an enhanced measure of human ability. Thus, it is the _world of demons_, not that of gods, which forms the background of the early epic. As regards the hero himself, it is apparent from his characteristics that he is on the border-line between the hero of märchen and the epic hero. This development of the epic again mirrors the development of the hero saga described above. But, since epic poetry gives permanence to the unstable characters of the folk-saga, and thus, in turn, reacts upon the saga itself, its development is all the more capable of presenting a clear picture of that fusion of demon with human hero which gave rise to the god. It is by virtue of his human characteristics that the hero of the early epic is distinguished from the demons whose world as yet always forms his scene of action.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.