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Show LXX BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY \ FINE ARTS The fifth group of activital pleasures is that of the fine arts. We have already seen that there is a group arising from a cognition of the pleasures which are derived from metabolism; a second group, called the arts of decoration, which arise from the cognition of the pleasures of form; a third group, called the athletic arts or the arts of sport, which arise from the cognition of the pleasures of force; a fourth group, called the arts of amusement or games, which arise from the cognition of the pleasures of causation. Here we have a fifth group, which we call psychic arts or the fine arts, and which arise from the cognition of the pleasures of mind expressed in fine- art works. . In order that we may adequately set forth the nature of the fine arts, it becomes necessary to make a fundamental classification of them. In a former work I set forth the vicari6us nature of the senses c> f muscular effort- hearing and vision. These are the senses to which appeal is made. These arts have played an important role in the evolution of mankind as demotic bodies, and hence they require more elaborate treatment. When we desire to classify the fine arts, we find well demarcated groups from the standpoint of the properties of matter in the order in which these properties logically appear, from the simple to the most complex. We have, first, music; second, graphic art; third, drama; fourth, romance; fifth, poetry. That this is the logical order will appear when the subject is more thoroughly presented. MUSIC Music is the most fundamental of the fine arts in that it more fully expresses the emotions than any of the others, while it is but a feeble method of expressing the intellections. This characteristic is well known-, and music has been called the art of expressing the emotions. It further appears that few persons ever learn to read the intellectual character of music when it is made by others or even when it is made by themselves. I do not mean that they fail to read the staff in which music is written, but I do mean that they fail to read the argument |