Connecticut western news., 1891-04-22
PROGRESS IN ART.
Tho Evolution of the Artistic Sense in the
 Race-Religion's Part.

Tho Evolution of the Artistic sense In the
 RAco-Religion's Part.
 The history of the development of the artistic sense in the race is quite aa surprising as that of the evolution of any other faculty or power, or of any great movement that may have had centuries for it's elimination. The student of art, commencing with prim- tive forms as discovered in the re- mains of Oriental cities, and passing through the cultured period of Greece to the dominancy of medieval inn agery and on to the present time, will be struck with the advantages of each succeeding period, and the complete triumph of taste in our latest civilixa- tons. -...
 Primitive art in Egypt, Assyria and Phenicia, with it's grotesque images and incongruous ideas of beauty, served to excite the fears of the people, developing all the superstition of which they were capable, and thus be. came the source, not of moral educa, ton but of degradation and oppression of the intellectual life. s} tHt
 Religion was not the mother of su- perstitious art, for the latter really preceded the former, and became the mother of the superstitious symbols of ,eligion. In this way the asthetical principle, untrained and without sub- 1ective strength, ran to objective forms that discredited it, and really perverted the religious principle itself.
 With the development of a refined aesthetics among the Greeks religion had another chance of expressing it. self, but while primitive art tinctured religion with superstition, Grecian art corrupted it, and in time extinguished its open manifestation. AS neither the one nor the other in any way as sisted in the purifcation of religion or she assertion of its teachings, Christi anity finally appropriated it, and has both borrowed from it its entertaining power and conferred upon it its ap. proval and benediction. ;"
 At the present time art stands alone; it is not the handmaid of religion, nor is it related to religion any more than it is to civilization. In this isolated condition it may be better viewed and estimated than when vitally related to a particular religion or particular form of civilization. It is now in bon dage to nothing, but is seeking chan mel of it's own, form and an expres. sion that must distinguish it from all associated developments of the art life in man. Free from the direction of religion it is not particularly directing or aiding religion, but is developing itself in spontaneous forms according to its constitutional vigor, and with reference to no ends but art itself, ex- cept the great end of all conserving forces-the education of the race.
 Art is not for religion, but for itself, and to be judged by what it is in it. self, unrelated to other things. Thus its perfection, or imperfection, will be determined, not by its relation to re- ligion, but by it's own potencies and the ends it serves in human society. It has oatgrown primitinm, cultured organism and Roman Catholic indi- vidualism; and, being free. like con- merce, philosophy and social statis. tics, it should powerfully aid the race in culture, refinement and progression. Methodist Review.