An expression of the pritnitive artistic im which has a greater social significance than ornament, is to he seen in the dance, which Was more truly a matter of :esthetics than it is in civilized communities. The essential element in it was energetic and rhythmie movement. It was either simply gyinnastie, giving free play to muscular activities, or mimetic, reproducing the actions of beasts and birds and portraying the emotions of love and war. The paintings, drawings, and carvings of primitive tribes fur nish a less important means of They are represented by the rock pictures of the Australians, the bone carvings of the Eskimos, and the drawings of the Bushmen. They are remarkable for their eareful and faithful repre sentations of natural objeets—largely animals— with which the artist was familiar. Their ex cellence is to he attributed to the careful ob servation and the manual dexterity which dis tinguishes the hunter from the agriculturist. Even the drama and the art of poetry are repre sented among primitive peoples. A limited num ber of poems have been collected which are real expressions of emotion and which attempt met rical form. Love and nature are seldom em ployed as themes. The poet sings, by preference, of himself. But the form, rather than the mat ter, seems to be the essential [esthetic element; since the wools are. in many instances, replaced by meaningless syllables. while the rhythmical nawement of the verse has been carefully pre served and retains its original emotive value. The drama grew' naturally out of the dance and song. Pantomimic dramas came very early. They have been found among the Australians, the Eskimos, and the Tierra del Fuegians. With the drama comes the song, which is likewise re lated very intimately to the donee. It has even been said of some primitive peoples that they never dance without song and never sing ex cept in the dance. Thus we see that music, too,
has a prominent place in their lives. It is with out doubt true that the voice was the first musical instrument, and that the cadences of emotional utterance, the sounds of nature, and the construction of crude musical instruments— the drum, the llute, and the trumpet—all con (limed to the development of music. Primitive music is characterized by melody in which the rhythmic element (made precise by the dance) is far ill advance of the harmonic element. The intervals are fewer in minilwr than with us and not so defined, while polyphony is prac tically unknown. See Music.
Consult: Grosse, The Bcginninys of .1 et I New York, 1897) ; Tylor, Anthropology 'New York, 18891; Hint, The Origins of Art (London, 1900).
ART, ScnooLs or. See DESIGN, ScnooLs OF.
ARTA, ;feta (the ancient A niloweia ). An episcopal city of Upper Epirus (Map: C 21, situated ten miles from the northern coast of the gulf to which it gives its name, and 39 miles south of Janina. It stands on the left bank of the river Arta, the ancient Arachthus, whence the modern name, which was first used in the Thirteenth Century. It has a con siderable trade in wine, agricultural prod ucts, tobacco, oranges; and manufactures, chiefly of cloths and leather. The ancient Ambracia (Ambrakia) was settled by the Corinthians about B.C. 640, and later became an independent republic. It was the capital of Epirus under Pyrrhus; its decline was begun by its seizure in B.C. 139 by the Romans, and its importance was utterly destroyed when Nicopolis set tled, B.C. 31. The city received a new lease of life under the Byzantine emperors. and in the Thirteenth Century was the capital of the Des pot Epirus. After various changes of rulers. Arta became in 1449 a Turkish possession, and remained such. It was ceded to Greece as a result of the Treaty of Berlin in 187S. Popula tion, in 1896, 7582.