In regard to the materials employed by the Chinese artist, we
find that he excels in casting of metals, and that no stone is so hard
as to deter him by technical difficulties from employing it. He
carves in wood and ivory, he chisels the marble, he cuts the gem, he
moulds the clay, he makes the best pottery. W ood-cutting and lithography
were indigenous in China, long before Europe knew them.
We may say without exaggeration, that all the materials, and the
most important of the workmanship of the West, are known among
the Yellow-raee; and that in skill and industry the son of the Celestial
empire surpasses the Japetide. But how to deal artistically with
a material, how to combine it with, and make it subservient to
the idea of the work of art, this remained an unsolved problem to
the Chinaman. Seduced by his mechanical skill, he seeks the
highest aim of art in overcoming practical difficulties: accordingly,
Fig. 97. Fig. 98.
C h in e s e c am eo , (PuUzky Coll.). Ch in e s e G od.
he delights in treating his material in the most unsuitable way —
transforming ivory into lace; or sculpturing, from hard stone, figures
covered with a net of unbroken meshes. He startles the mind by
the patience with which he makes artistical puzzles,, instead of exciting
the imagination by the composition, and creating delight
through the purity and beauty of forms.
The preceding two heads give an idea of the type of the Yellow-
face and its art. Big. 97 is the smiling portrait of a high functionary,
from a cameo in my collection. Eig. 98, the head of the frowning
God of the Polar star, comes from a statuette in the British Museum.
Both of them are intensely characteristic specimens of an art never
influenced by foreign agencies; and scarcely showing any affinity
with the sculptures, either of our classical western, or of the conterminous
Hindoo civilization.
E. P.
CHAPTER I I I .
THE CRANIAL CHARACTERISTICS OE THE RACES OP MEN.
BY J . A IT K E N MEIOS , M.D,
EJBRABIAN OP TIIE ACADEMY OP NATURAL SCIENCES OP PHILADELPHIA, PELLOW OP THE OOLLEQE OP PHYSICIANS, ETC.
M e s s e s . N o t t a n d G l id d o n :
My D e a e S i e s . —In answer to your very polite request of June 14th, that I should
furnish you with a brief statement of the progress and present condition of Human
Granioscopy, and the intimate and important relations which it hears to the great problems
of Ethnology, I send you the accompanying sketch, which you must receive cum grano
salis, inasmuch as it has been drawn up during the hot and oppressive nights of midsummer,
and amidst the exacting .interruptions necessarily attendant upon the practice
of my profession.
Having, as you are aware, devoted some portion of my leisure time, during the summer
of 1855, to arranging and classifying the magnificent collection of the late Dr. Morton,
preparatory to issuing a.fourth edition of the Catalogue (the MS. of which was presented
to the Academy of Natural Sciences in December last), I have thought proper to embody
in this sketch some noti'cè of the additions and changés which this Collection has undergone
since the demise of its illustrious founder. In attempting to set forth, in a general
way, the cranial characters which differentiate the Races of Men, I have indicated the
true value, not only of the Collection itself, 'but of the labors of Dr. M. also. For by
determining those constant differences which constitute typical forms of crania, we establish
the fundamental, anatomical facts or principles upon which a true classification of the
human family must be erected.
In the treatment of my subject, you will observe that I have confined myself chiefly to a
simple statement of facts, carefully and designedly abstaining from the expression of any
opinion upon the prematurely, and perhaps, in the present state of our knowledge, unwisely
mooted questions of the origin and primitive affiliations of man. Not a little study and
reflection incline me to the belief that long years of severe and earnest research are yet
neoessary hefore we oan pronounce authoritatively upon these ultimate and perplexing
problems of Ethnology.
Very truly yours, &e.,
P h il Ad ., D e c em b e b ., 1856. J. AITKEN MEIGS.
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