The origin of art

The book of German ethnographer and art critic Ernst Gross (1862-1927) proposed to the reader is devoted to the issue of art. The author examines in detail the various aspects of the artistic life of primitive peoples: sculpture and painting, music, dance, poetry, ornamentation and decoration of his own body with ancient people. He concludes that the forms of primitive art are subject to the same laws that control the highest creations of art, and also finds out that artistic activity at the lower steps of culture exists in the same forms as at higher steps (only architecture is the exception , the development of which, according to the author, was hindered by the nomadic life of hunting tribes) The main difference between primitive art and a civilized Gross sees in the fact that most of the artistic works of primitive peoples does not arise of purely aesthetic aspirations, but most often serves any practical goal, the satisfaction of the aesthetic needs in art reaches only at higher steps civilizations.
The book is recommended for historians, ethnologists, art historians, culturalists, psychologists and sociologists, as well as everyone who is interested in the origin of contemporary art