A much more threatening element is that easily perceived interest on man's part in the new toys provided him by a bounti ful science. The publics of all countries are becoming so inter ested in the moving pictures that there is little time to spare for looking at paintings. Similarly, the radio, the automobile and a thousand other inventions bid for man's amusement and time, and compete with all artists. How long it will take the world to adjust itself to this melting down of various characteristics, and to the building up of wider and more profound characteristics; how long it will take artists to adjust themselves to the new competitive demands and learn to make use of the inventions of science rather than combat them or have them make use of art, is a question that cannot yet be answered, but it is certain that until these two obstacles are overcome there can never be great art such as there has been in the past.
Thus we must get out of the habit of thinking that the last art is the best art. There is more loss than gain to be seen when the earlier arts such as those of Egypt or China or Greece are weighed in the scale against the modern, in spite of (or perhaps because of) all the new means available to artists of to-day which these earlier civilizations did not know.
The following articles deal with the various periods of art : ART ; ARCHAEOLOGY; Stone age : Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neo lithic; Bronze Age; Iron Age; HALLSTATT ; EGYPT: Art and Archaeology; Architecture; INDIAN AND SINHALESE ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY ; BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA; PHOENICIA; ETRUS CANS ; CARTHAGE ; WESTERN ASIATIC ARCHITECTURE ; PERSIA: Archaeology; PERSIAN ART, PAINTING AND CALLIGRAPHY ; PAR THIA ; PUEBLO ; GREEK ART ; ROMAN ART ; BYZANTINE ART; CHINESE ARCHITECTURE ; CHINESE PAINTING; CHINESE SCULP TURE ; JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE; JAPANESE PAINTING AND PRINTS ; JAPANESE SCULPTURE; ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS ; ROMANESQUE ART; GOTHIC ART; RENAISSANCE ART; BAROQUE; LOUIS STYLES ; Rococo; MODERN ART ; MODERN ARCHITECTURE.
Thanks must be given for their kind assistance in providing the facts upon which the charts in this article have been constructed to Professor Alfred W. Tozzer, Dr. Herbert J. Spinden, Dr. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Alan R. Priest.
Bibliographies on the various periods will be found at the end of the above-mentioned articles. (W. E. Cx.)